by Ed Gorman
Comedians use the term flop sweat for when they bomb with an audience. I get something similar when my clients have to go on stage for a big event. And mine usually starts about half an hour before that insidious little red light appears on the camera.
I’d been in situations like this where one group taunted the other group across the aisle. Tonight there was a begrudging civility. Down front people from the opposing parties were even making a show of shaking hands. Best behavior for the TV audience. The stations were grabbing shots even before the debate began. The dust-up outside had already given them the moment of confrontation their news managers would demand. Politics had more and more begun to resemble professional wrestling encouraged by the TV people. Who wanted to watch anything as boring as a serious story where there was no battle or strife?
Lucy and Kathy talked quietly while I opened my laptop and checked up on our other campaigns. One of our two oppo guys had turned up a twenty-year-old DUI arrest on our opponent. Our guy wanted to know if he should try and get in touch with the arresting officer in case our opponent had given him any kind of trouble. Worth looking into but a twenty-year-old arrest could cut both ways. I could see our opponent ’fessing up on the tube with his family and the required number of American flags behind him as he said, ‘And that was when I learned my lesson about drinking and driving. Something I’ve told my two teenage daughters over and over. Drinking and driving — there’s no excuse for it. And I haven’t done it once since that night twenty years ago.’ We would have just handed him a good-guy moment and managed to look a little sleazy in the process. We might use it anyway but it wasn’t really strong unless he’d decked the arresting officer. Or at least tried to.
At a quarter before the hour the moderator, a former Chicago anchorman who now fronted infomercials, appeared on stage. He had to ask three times for the audience’s attention. Infomercials do not inspire respect. When they finally started listening he ran down all the rules for the evening. The big two were Don’t Applaud and Don’t Make Any Derogatory Noises when you disagree with something a candidate says. Then he did a mini-testimonial dinner speech about the billionaire funding tonight’s debate, which I would have liked much better if he hadn’t twice said, ‘And even if he agrees with one candidate more than the other — he thinks it’s time for a new start in government — he wants both sides to get an equally fair hearing.’ Gosh, I wonder which candidate he favors?
Then he got into the subject of asking questions. That segment would run half an hour, the debate itself fifty minutes, with five minutes each for closing arguments. He said that if any question sounded inappropriate the microphone would be killed instantly, and that the questioner would be escorted from the building. He sounded adamant about this and I believed him.
The cameras picked up the moderator who had now moved to center stage to shake the hand of each reporter who walked to the desk. Two men, two women. Two from Chicago, one from a suburb, and one from a farm town.
The tension and the thrill of the moment was on most faces as I looked around the rows behind me and across from me. Many of the conversations died; eyes were on the stage now.
‘This is an honor for me,’ said the moderator, who had walked from the front of the desk to the center of the stage. ‘I spent twenty-three years covering Illinois politics in cities and towns of all sizes. I even managed to survive in Chicago for nine years without being shot or put in jail.’
Not a bad line; got a good laugh.
‘Tonight we have as our guests two men who represent very different views of our federal government. Since we get most of our information from sound bites, I’m hoping that tonight our panel and the candidates themselves can talk about their beliefs in more detail. As many of you probably know, after the candidates give their five-minute opening remarks, some of you will get to ask them questions directly. We can’t accommodate all of you but we will get as many of you to the microphones as we can.
‘Right now I’d like to thank Mr Richard Anderson for making this possible tonight. I want to thank all of you in the auditorium and all of you tuning in at home. This is the kind of event that helps keep our democracy strong. And now without further ado-’
Burkhart came from the right, Ward from the left. Both men got standing ovations from their supporters. And there weren’t even any applause signs to generate the enthusiasm. For once Burkhart wore a suit, banker’s blue with a somber blue necktie. He appeared no less fierce. Ward, by contrast, could have stepped out of an adventure novel involving a fortune in diamonds and nookie. His smile redeemed him. It was just boyish enough to make you forget that he was probably the kind of guy who wouldn’t lend you a hand after he’d accidentally run over you.
Finally the moderator had to step forward again and raise his arms for silence. Three times, he said, ‘The clock is running, folks. We’ve got to move things along.’
Burkhart gave the first opening statement. There was nothing new in it — he basically wanted to privatize everything up to and including police forces (today’s police forces had nasty unions) — but whoever was writing for him had cut way back on the invective. He still sounded crazy to me but he was crazy uncle crazy, not psycho crazy. He even managed to work in a joke about a bureaucrat. His side threatened to give him another standing O.
When it was Ward’s turn I thought of all the videos of his previous speeches I’d skimmed through. He didn’t need any help from me. He was a natural performer with good instincts. No cornball, no preaching. A clean, incisive style coupled with the good looks and a light sense of humor. One thing I’d noticed in going through the speeches was that they’d gotten a lot better lately. And tonight’s opening remarks were the best of all. He talked about our grandfathers and their sacrifice in the big war. And how our grandfathers had gone through college on the GI Bill. And how many good things had come from the government funding so many programs to help get America going again after that tragic war. I imagined even some of Burkhart’s supporters agreed with Ward’s words.
I leaned over to Kathy and whispered, ‘Jim Waters outdid himself with this one. He wrote a hell of a speech.’
Before she could respond the moderator said, ‘All right. We’re going to start the questions now. Remember, while we expect them to be pointed we also expect them to be civil. If our director feels that any of them are offensive to the audience here in the auditorium or at home, he’ll cut the microphone. Let’s begin with a question from the challenger’s side. Step up, please.’
The people had been chosen, the questions written for them. First up was a young man in a Marine uniform. Sylvia was doing her job. Next up would likely be an ageing nun. With a limp.
‘This is a question for Congressman Ward. Congressman, you say you support our fighting men and women involved in the war but you constantly talk about how the war is a waste of blood and money. Since you’ve never been in the military yourself, aren’t you undermining all of us who fight over there?’
Loaded question, fair question. But Ward was prepared. He’d been called a ‘traitor’ by most of the neocons many times so he knew how to handle this one. He noted that most of the neocons who wanted endless war had never served in the military either. ‘Which is worse? Me asking for the lives of our children not to be wasted? Or for the neocons constantly trying to put our children in harm’s way? It’s rarely their children of course. They prefer sending other people’s children.’
A small ripple of applause played across our side. But the moderator was quick and stern. ‘No applause, please.’
First up for us was a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. The microphone had to be adjusted for him. I’d asked Kathy for a man with an especially sad case for our lead. She’d found him.
‘Mr Burkhart, you’ve said that one of the first things you’ll get rid of when you go to Washington is all the “feel good” programs. You want to privatize Social Security “sometime in the future”, to quote you, and you want to have savings programs inst
ead of Medicare. I’m a thirty-nine-year-old former biology teacher and football coach. Two years ago I was hit with cerebral palsy. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the “feel good” program that has helped me and my family just get by. Would you cut off people like me?’
Burkhart handled this better than I would have predicted. ‘There would be a fund of a billion dollars for special cases. And the fund would be constantly kept at that level. There would be help for those who really needed it but we’d get away from big government giveaways and red tape.’
Spoken with measured and friendly tone; a seemingly reasonable man with a sensible approach. Here and at home his supporters would be nodding their heads. We knew our man would show this pretty-boy lefty hack how the government should be run.
Presumably, someone in the press would, tonight or tomorrow, point out how laughably insignificant a billion dollars was when you were trying to bring help and justice to the medical problems of a nation of three hundred million strong.
Burkhart’s next questioner didn’t need to wear a hard hat for us to know he was a hard hat. The one problem I had — and I hoped others had — was that he pushed the stereotype too hard. ‘When me ’n’ the boys at the construction company talk about all the filth that’s bein’ taught in our schools, we wonder where it’s goin’ to end. You’re for sex education startin’ in high school. And that means all this gay stuff. One of the boys said that should be for the parents to tell the kids, not the teachers. What about dat?’
Dat? Really? I knew a good number of construction workers from working with different unions over the years. I had never met any who said ‘dat’ for ‘that.’ In fact, I had never met any who sounded like Rocky Balboa here. I was surprised he wasn’t scratching (or scratchin’) his balls and pickin’ his nose by now. This guy had to be a local actor of some kind; real local. And a plant.
Our second questioner was a prim, pretty middle-aged woman in a blue skirt and a modest white blouse. She had the kind of earnest bright sweetness that made right-wing talking heads chortle and point fingers. Some dumb middle-class white broad who didn’t know shit about keeping America safe.
To Mr Burkhart, she said, ‘I’m a librarian and I have to say I find your idea of privatizing libraries deeply offensive, Mr Burkhart. Libraries hold a very special place in our country’s history. There’s probably not a man or woman in this auditorium tonight who hasn’t spent many, many hours in their local libraries. And your idea of hiring people who’ve never been trained as librarians just to save money — I’m not worried about my job. I’ll get by no matter what happens. But I’m worried about all the fine librarians I’ve met who’ll be put out of their jobs — and all the communities that will suffer because of your idea. Would you please speak to that? Thank you.’
I was certain that Sylvia had a list of crazy ideas he’d have to defend. His supporters wanted blood and thunder and she had likely schooled him on wrapping everything in big government wasted spending. But when he started responding to the librarian his voice was softer than usual and he spent a full minute backtracking on his pledge to privatize libraries. ‘I always used that as an example. I didn’t ever actually say that I was thinking of privatizing libraries per se, only that I’m pretty sure some of these librarians who’ve been there a long time are probably kind of coasting and not earning their money.’
Burkhart had just stepped into three inches of horse shit. While his supporters heard their man get harsh the way a real man gets, there would be a minimum of ten newspaper columnists and numerous TV editorialists who would nail his ass for attacking librarians. He seemed to understand this. He looked unhappy when our next questioner stepped up to the mike.
The man’s slightly stooped back and long, mussed gray hair suggested he was at least in his sixties. Kathy’s whisper to Lucy was loud enough that I could hear it. ‘I don’t remember him from the rehearsal.’
‘Neither do I.’
The man was tentative. He might have been afraid of the microphone because he kept his head angled away from it when he spoke. He cleared his throat before speaking. His words cracked when he spoke. ‘This is a question for both of you gentlemen.’ He doddered when he walked; he doddered when he spoke. There was something wrong here. Somehow the voice was practiced, not real. I stared more carefully at the man. The dark overcoat was so big for him it was cape-like. The hair was, I realized, a wig. Who the hell was he?
‘Proceed, sir. We don’t want to run out of time for questions.’ The moderator allowed himself a hint of irritation. I wondered if he’d also concluded that this guy was a ringer of some kind.
After two more clearings of throat and one more dramatic leaning away from microphone, the would-be old man said, ‘There was a case in New York not long ago where a famous politician was forced to resign because he was found to be a regular visitor to a house of prostitution. If both of you were found to be guilty of the same crime, would you resign?’
I lifted up at least two inches in my seat. My impulse was to race over to him and see who the hell he really was. He spoke in a code that both candidates and I understood. Maybe two or three others in the building knew what he hinted at as well. Then the name came to me and a millisecond later, as Kathy clutched my arm, his identity was confirmed. ‘It’s David; David Nolan.’
This time I did leave my seat. People on both sides gawked at me. Leaving a political debate for any reason was apparently as unthinkable as leaving a Mass the Pope was saying.
The two security men in their blue uniforms leaned against the front doors. One of them worked a BlackBerry; the other stopped scratching his balls when I came through the interior door.
‘Help you with something?’ the ball-scratcher said when it was obvious I wasn’t going to the john or walking out through the front door.
‘I’m just waiting for somebody.’
He shrugged.
Burkhart was responding to Nolan’s question. ‘This is exactly the kind of behavior I’m going to change when I get to Washington. This country was founded on the principle of family comes first. The Founding Fathers were examples of how we were supposed to live our lives. Look at Washington and cutting down that cherry tree.’
I wondered if he’d ever been abducted by aliens. Or maybe Santa Claus. Could he possibly believe that hokey false tale about Washington and chopping down that tree?
Ward was much better. ‘I don’t want to comment on anybody else’s morality — we’ve got too many so-called “moralists” judging people today — but I do think that as a matter of professional ethics, it’s dangerous for a politician to put himself in a position where somebody can take advantage of him. I’ve spent my two terms in Washington working for the greater good — for the decent men and women who are suffering today because of the excesses of the super-rich and their foot soldiers — and that’s a full-time job, believe me.’
God alone knew what any of that bullshit meant but it sure sounded good. Burkhart’s face was squinched in displeasure. He knew a good pitcher had just thrown some of his best stuff of the night. But both men probably needed an EKG. They knew that somebody was on to them. If Kathy and likely Lucy had recognized Nolan, Ward probably had, too.
A questioner from Burkhart’s side had now positioned herself in front of the microphone. My assumption was that Nolan would leave the auditorium after he’d shaken up the two candidates. I watched him leave the microphone but instead of coming up the aisle he turned to a curtained area on the wall and disappeared inside.
‘Is there an exit on the right side down by the stage?’ I asked the BlackBerry man.
‘Yeah. And we’ve got a man posted outside there.’
By the time I reached the front doors I was running. Cold air, smells of exhaust fumes, nearby burning leaves, soggy earth from recent rain.
The stretch between the front of the building and the side door was a lot longer than it appeared. Or at least it seemed to be as I ran it. A portly blue-uniformed man stood
there watching me come closer, closer. He went for his walkie-talkie.
When I reached him he took two giant steps backward. I’d always wanted to be a pariah.
‘Did an old man just come through that door?’
‘What’s it to ya if he did?’
‘He’s my father. He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. He wanders off sometimes. He just got up and left the auditorium before I could stop him. This could be really serious.’
‘That stuff’s bad. I’m sorry.’
‘Did he come through here?’
‘Yeah. I think he was headed toward that parking lot over there.’
‘Thanks.’ I started running again. The lot he’d mentioned was across the street. Most people attending the debate parked here. In the pale purple glow of the security lights the flanks of cars formed an impenetrable barrier. No sign of Nolan. Maybe he’d already left the area. Maybe he’d never entered the parking lot. Maybe he’d seen me talking to the security man and was crouched between two cars, watching me.
I had to enter the lot. Nowhere else to look now. As I crossed the street I saw the headlights of a van come alive with alien starkness. Easy to imagine Nolan behind the wheel. Backing out.
The van was five rows deep and on the edge of a lane. I stumbled and slammed into the side of a new Buick trying to get to it. I shouted at it. I heard the whine of the reverse just as I reached the fourth lane. He completed his backing and pointed the green van in the direction of the closest exit. I didn’t have any choice. I ran for the lane he was in and just as he started pulling away I reached his vehicle and pounded on his window. Or rather, her window. A very comely blonde in an IHOP uniform. She gave me the finger and then sped away.
Have you seen this man? I’d be the police sketch of the day tomorrow. I hoped they’d be kind enough to make me look both handsome and erudite.