Meanwhile, we were matching Mitt Romney's sizable treasure chest with resources of our own, eventually spending upwards of $10 million. I mortgaged my house as part of the effort so I could spend more time campaigning and less time fund-raising in those important last weeks. That meant we would have an aggressive fund-raising schedule to retire debt after the election, but that was fine with me. It was money well and wisely spent: much of it supported the political TV spots created by Bob Shrum and his team.
Bob's and Vicki's intuition about probing Romney's corporate behavior proved brilliantly on target. It led to the most effective "negative" ad that we ran. The ad went directly to Romney's claim that he had created ten thousand jobs. From there, it went to the single word, "Ampad," which came to define his true record as a businessman.
Our campaign had received a call from a union representative, telling us about the takeover of an Indiana company by Ampad, Romney's Bain Capital subsidiary, and Ampad's subsequent firing or slashing of salary and benefits of most of the workers. Shrum's partner Tad Devine went out to Indiana to film the workers, and he threw away the script and just let them tell their stories. My dad always said that there's no substitute for sincerity, and these people, working people who were losing their health insurance and their jobs, spoke from the heart. One especially effective ad ended with a middle-aged female worker looking directly into the camera, saying, "I'd like to say to the people of Massachusetts, if you think it can't happen to you, think again, because we thought it couldn't happen here either."
Our first televised debate at Faneuil Hall was in the final week of October. With Romney's poll lead decreasing and the truth of his job creation record in deep question, Mitt had realigned himself a little. He'd moved away from his "businessman" strategy and begun to campaign almost as a liberal reformer. I had begun to joke at rallies that I had heard of flip and I had heard of flop. But with Mitt, it was flip-flop-flip. He'd changed positions so often that if we gave him a little more time he'd be voting for me on election day. Yes, I was having fun.
Still, I knew that a lot was riding on the outcome of the debate in Faneuil Hall. Romney was slipping, but things remained close. I was taking nothing for granted. This was a change year. People all over the country were itching for change, and Massachusetts was no exception. Term limits were in vogue. Mitt had talked about thanking me for my service and sending me home to Cape Cod to retire. He was young and slender and I was not. Would his message resonate in a face-to-face meeting? We were about to find out.
When the day arrived, Vicki and I went to the Kennedy Library and sat outside in the back. We ate sandwiches, and I pored over my briefing materials. We went back to our apartment, and I took a nap so I'd be at peak energy for the intensity of the give-and-take. By evening I was prepared, but nervous.
During the drive to Faneuil Hall, Dave Burke perceived that I was a little tense, and did his best to lighten me up. Dave is great--a superb mind, a loyal aide and friend over the decades, and a fellow who knows the value of laughter. From the time we got in the car, Dave and Vicki made fast patter to keep the mood light. Dave grilled us about the most important thing we had learned in the campaign, then provided the answer himself: that the Roy Rogers on the Mass Pike didn't serve fried chicken until 11 a.m. We laughed so much at that one, as it conjured up memories of long days crisscrossing the state and craving that chicken before the appointed hour. As we neared the hall, Dave tapped me on the shoulder: "I just want to know why Steve Breyer is sitting on the Supreme Court," he asked in mock seriousness, "and I'm sitting in this damn car with you."
I laughed and relaxed even more. But then I looked out of the window, and any remaining nervousness vanished. I saw a huge swell of people stretching for blocks. They carried Kennedy signs and chanted, "Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!" It was like the old torchlight parades that Grampa used to tell me about, and that he loved so much. I rolled down the car window, leaned out, raised my arm, and pumped my fist. My adrenaline was flowing. These were my people. They were working people. They were the people I had been representing for thirty-two years, and we still had work to do.
As I stepped out of the car, onto the cobblestone street and into Faneuil Hall, I couldn't help but think of the history of the place: from meetings to plan the Revolutionary War to my brother Jack's last campaign speech in 1960 to more modern gatherings. This building, the Cradle of Liberty, was at the center of it all.
As Mitt and I took the stage, I noticed two exceptionally large podiums. For some reason, unlike every other election, I had been unable to lose weight this time, and I was at an all-time high. As I found out later, my dear friend Eddy Martin got into the hall and swapped the smaller podiums for two larger ones, masking my size and totally dwarfing poor Mitt. Eddy never told me what he did, and it was only years later, at the time of his death, that I learned the true story.
I remember the first question I was asked in the debate: "Why is this race even close?" My first thought was, Good question. I'm wondering the same thing! My next thought was, I'd better start talking and hope I think of something pretty soon. So I started talking and was relieved when my time was up.
Both Mitt and I were prepared. Both of us kept our composure, and both of us remained hyper-alert for an opening, any opening. I saw one when Mitt gave a long-winded, nuanced answer about supposedly being pro-choice (unlike his professed anti-choice stance as a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2008). I paused for a beat and said, "I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice." The crowd laughed.
No one laughed, however, least of all me, when I was asked about how I coped with my personal failings. There it was. The unspoken was spoken. My personal life was on the table. And unlike other questions and answers that I had reviewed with my advisers during debate prep, this was an area that we did not cover. This one was all mine. I had thought about it, to be sure. I knew what I felt inside. But to have to say it in public was my challenge.
I decided to place my trust in the simple, unadorned truth. I paused a moment, and then began: "Every day of my life I try to be a better human being, a better father, a better son, a better husband. And since my life has changed with Vicki, I believe the people of this state understand that the kind of purpose and direction and new affection and confidence on personal matters has been enormously reinvigorating. And hopefully I am a better senator."
And then they asked Mitt Romney, and his unfortunate tone-deafness became evident to everyone. After making an ineffective attempt at humor--"I assume you mean my weakness"--he started to talk about how much he loved to volunteer and how his life had been about being able to give service to others. He went on in that way for so long that the moderator felt compelled to remind him that he was asked about his greatest weakness.
By the end of the evening, after I tried to pin Romney down on the specific costs of his health care proposals; after he became exasperated with me for asking for specifics and I shot back, "That's what you have to do as a legislator, Mr. Romney"; after he complained about my ads and I told him that we could discuss that after the debate because people were hurting and they wanted to hear about issues that affected their lives, I started to feel that things were going okay for me. And you could feel in the room that the crowd was feeling that way too.
My nephew Congressman Joe Kennedy told me that the next day people were crossing the street to shake his hand, congratulating him on the great debate. But, he said, he really knew we'd done well when they put their arm around his shoulders and whispered in his ear, "I've been with your uncle the whole time."
On election day, I won by a margin of 58 percent to Romney's 41 percent.
The next morning, Vicki and I woke up early to meet commuters coming in to Park Street Station in Boston. We just wanted to say thank you. The results around the country had not been so positive. Close friends and colleagues of mine had lost their seats in a Republican tsunami. But thanks to the people of Massachusetts, I was going back to Washi
ngton.
A lot of people have asked me since then whether the Romney race was my most difficult. It wasn't. It was competitive, clearly the most competitive since Eddie McCormack. But it wasn't difficult because I knew where I stood. I knew what I believed. I knew what I needed to do. And I was determined to do what I needed to do in terms of the hard campaigning, but not to trim down my positions and beliefs, even if they seemed out of favor that year. At the end of the day, I was running to do something I cared about that would make a difference in people's lives, not just to hold an office. And I was sharing the campaign with Vicki, the love of my life and my soul mate.
I also felt that I benefited from the good memories that many people in the state, particularly in Boston, still had of Grampa Fitzgerald and my mother. Both Grampa and my mother loved the personal side of politics, and their connections to the people ran deep. In 1994, my 104-year-old mother was still a presence, if not in the public square anymore, certainly in the public's heart. At the same time, the people of my state revered the memory of President Kennedy, their native son, and they remembered Bobby. I recognized that I stood on the shoulders of all of them, and that I had benefited from the goodwill that they enjoyed.
We had a joyful Thanksgiving celebration that year. As always, we gathered at our home in Hyannis Port. We had two wonderful new additions at the Thanksgiving table that year: Kiley Elizabeth Kennedy, the three-month-old daughter of my son Teddy and his wife, Kiki; and Grace Kennedy Allen, the two-month-old daughter of my daughter Kara and her husband, Michael. Joined by my mother, we were four generations of Kennedys gathered around the dinner table in the home that has always been such a refuge for me. I was a very happy man.
The next evening, the celebration continued, and in addition to our children, we were joined for dinner by Vicki's parents, Paul and Gail Kirk, and Eddy and Marge Martin. Vicki had prepared her usual post-Thanksgiving fare--turkey gumbo, in honor of her Louisiana roots, and turkey tetrazzini, which was a favorite of Michael Allen's--and wine was flowing as everyone was toasting me and congratulating me on the win. I don't like attention directed to me in that way, as loving as it was, so I stood up and began, "Well, this victory really isn't about me. It's about my family, and it's about the people of Massachusetts and their residual goodwill that goes all the way back to Grampa's day--"
Suddenly, Vicki was on her feet, cutting me off. "Please excuse my language, but BULLSHIT! "
That got everyone's attention. She went on, "This is just ridiculous!" She paused to let that sink in, and I stared back at her. Then she said, "You know, Teddy, if you had lost, it would've been you that lost. It wouldn't have been your family that lost. You would've lost.
"You won. You won! Not your family. You."
She sat down again.
Her outburst lingered in the air. It has lingered in my mind ever since. I'm grateful to her for it. Her message to me was one I needed to hear--perhaps one I'd yearned to hear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Clinton Years
1992-2000
Prior to his election to the presidency in 1992, I didn't really know Bill Clinton. I had met him briefly at the midterm convention in Memphis in 1978, and years later at the funeral of a mutual friend. He had that southern gift of storytelling that kept everyone around him engaged. He didn't forget a name. He loved people. He was a natural politician. After his victory, we established a warm personal relationship. I had longed for a return to a progressive national agenda and was thrilled to see a Democrat back in the White House.
A month after his victory, Vicki and I were invited to a dinner in honor of the Clintons at the home of Katharine Graham. It was a hopeful time and there was much talk of the new agenda. President-elect Clinton said that if he didn't get national health insurance through Congress, he should not be president. Hillary invoked the possibility of tax deductions for educational training programs. Senator Sam Nunn suggested we try a pilot program on national service.
Shortly before his inauguration, the president-elect endeared himself to my extended family when he asked us to accompany him to Arlington Cemetery to visit my brothers' gravesites. About a year later, President Clinton joined us at the rededication of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. I had heard and relished the story he often told of having been inspired to enter politics after meeting Jack at the White House in 1963, as a Boys Nation "senator." As we walked through the library together, he was fascinated and wanted to take his time on the tour. He seemed most moved by the Cuban Missile Crisis film, where he sat next to Jackie and asked questions about Jack's mood during that period. He was particularly interested in the civil rights exhibit, referring to the historic integration of Little Rock, Arkansas. We agreed about how slow progress had been, and how quickly both younger and older generations seemed to have forgotten the struggle that took place.
When we reached the exhibit on the Nixon-Kennedy debate, I asked him how he had felt during his first debate with President George H. W. Bush. Nervous at the start, he said, but then it was like an out-of-body experience: you had to respond to the question and answer it, but you also had to be thinking how it would stack up in terms of the total TV performance. He said he was sure President Kennedy had felt that way too.
I'll never forget one of my first meetings with Clinton at the White House. He had walked into a firestorm over the question of whether gays should be allowed to serve in the military. (I always thought that if he had laid the groundwork in the right way, he could have changed the policy with the support of the military, and all of the brouhaha would have died down. After all, no less a conservative icon than the retired senator Barry Goldwater fully supported the repeal of the ban on gays in the military at this juncture.) He'd invited all the Democratic members of the Armed Services Committee to this gathering. He went around the room, asking everyone's opinion about gays in the military. Some senators gave long answers. Some were terse. Some were flowery and revealing, and others held their cards close to their vest. It added up to a very lengthy meeting.
I remember it well partly because Vicki and I had tickets to the ballet that night. Baryshnikov was dancing at the Warner Theatre. I'd told Vicki to go ahead and that I'd meet her there when I could. But the meeting went on and on and on, for more than two hours--extraordinary by White House standards. Finally, my turn to speak came. I made a brief comment in support of allowing gays in the military, in which I mentioned that all the arguments against such a policy had already been made--in opposition to blacks, and then to women, serving in an integrated military.
Well, I was wrong about that. Almost all the arguments had been used before. The last senator to speak was Robert Byrd, and he came up with a new one on all of us. Senator Byrd stood up and declared to the president in emotional tones that except for his relationship with his wife, his most sacred possession and thought in this world was his grandson. And that he would never, never, never, ever, ever let his grandson go off to the military if we were going to have gays there. And then the senator went off into a long story about Tiberius.
He informed us, with many ornate flourishes, that there had been a terrible problem in ancient Rome with young military boys being turned into sex slaves. I don't remember the exact details, but I think the story involved Tiberius Julius Caesar being captured and abused and used as a sex slave. He escaped and then years later he sought vengeance and killed his captors. Anyway, it was something like that.
The room fell silent. The senator continued. (By this time, Baryshnikov was leaping and a lot of the Democratic senators were stealing glances at their wristwatches.) Then President Clinton stood up.
His response was short and sweet. "Well," he said, "Moses went up to the mountain, and he came back with the tablets and there were ten commandments on those tablets. I've read those commandments. I know what they say, just like I know you do. And nowhere in those ten commandments will you find anything about homosexuality. Thank y'all for coming." He ended the meeting and walk
ed out of the room.
Vicki's foot was tapping when I finally rushed into our box and took my seat next to her at the ballet. "Tiberius. Tiberius. Tiberius," I whispered into her ear. "Write it down. I'll tell you more at intermission, but just remember Tiberius."
That incident was probably the beginning of Bill Clinton's education on Robert Byrd. He was the president of the United States, though he'd only been president less than a month, and here he was being lectured to like a student. But that was not what mattered to him. Clinton was watching us, and he could see that none of us was interrupting the senator, and no one was leaving. Everybody was sitting there, paying deference to Byrd.
That said something to Clinton. He realized then that Byrd had power. He was learning a lesson about how the Senate works. I think Clinton never forgot it, because when the most devastating crisis of his presidency erupted a few years later, Robert Byrd was among those whom Clinton thought of first.
The most important single promise that Bill Clinton brought with him to the White House, from my perspective at least, was that his administration would, once and for all, reform American health care. Clinton had campaigned on the critical need for national health insurance legislation, and Americans seemed to agree. Two-thirds of them supported the idea of major reforms in health care.
I looked forward to working with him, not only in solving the insurance imbalance, but in fundamentally overhauling the entire costly, inefficient, and unfair system: the massive amalgam of doctors, hospitals, drug companies, insurers, health maintenance organizations, and governmental agencies.
I'd remained active in as many health care initiatives as possible in the years leading up to Clinton's election, enjoying some successes and the usual run of disappointments. Getting the Americans with Disabilities Act pushed through under George H. W. Bush was an accomplishment to savor. Yet other good ideas remained non-starters after months of partisan infighting and exhaustive committee work. I was dismayed by the lack of support accorded the eminently simple and reasonable "play or pay" concept that came out of the Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care. Under it, companies would have been required either to provide affordable health insurance to their workers or else pay into a federal fund for the uninsured. The Gulf War of 1990 siphoned off the attention being paid to that idea, and it failed to receive legislative action.
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