The Senator and the Priest

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “You’re a sacrificial victim. Do you think you have a chance against Senator Crispjin! He’s a big man in Washington! And a good man too! He stands four-square against abortion!”

  “We think we can beat him.”

  “Who’s this ‘we?’ You and your wife and kids? Isn’t it enough that you humiliate them by forcing them to sing in bad Spanish on television?”

  “It’s good Spanish …”

  I wanted to fight then and there. But for once in my life I kept my big Irish mouth shut.

  “Did you get the Cardinal’s permission to run?”

  “No …”

  “He will have to deny you the sacraments!”

  “He doesn’t do that to people.”

  “All the other Illinois bishops will!”

  He was pacing up and down, his eyes wild, his face flushed—more like a Pentecostal preacher than a member of a religious order which emphasizes the intellectual life.

  “We hear they won’t, maybe only one of them.”

  “Your problem, Tommy, is that you’ve never accepted your place in life. You’ve always wanted to play with the big guys. You should go back to defending dope peddlers. That’s where you really belong.”

  “I’m testing my article in the Atlantic Monthly, can someone run a credible campaign without using attack ads …”

  “Atlantic Monthly! Who reads that! … Where are you getting the money?”

  He turned and pointed at my poor battered husband like he was a prosecuting attorney.

  “Money is coming in … We put a second mortgage on the house. My publisher increased the advance on my book which is coming out in the spring …”

  “BOOK! You never told me you were writing a book! How much money did they give you for it?”

  “Sixty thousand advance …”

  “Do you realize how many children that kind of money would feed in Africa!”

  “It’s about the history of attack ads …”

  “I don’t care what it’s about! You have no qualifications to write a book! … Maybe you should write about the humiliation of being a housewife while your wife supported the family …”

  I wanted to break his neck, but I was still containing my temper.

  “Maybe I could.”

  Finally he sagged in the couch, a man exhausted after a hard day’s work.

  “Do you have any idea what this does to my reputation? Do you know what priests are saying to me? My little brother trying to beat a veteran and distinguished United States Senator? I’ve given up trying to defend you!”

  Tommy was silent.

  “Please tell me that you will change your mind and renounce this folly.”

  “No.”

  Tony buried his head in his hands.

  “Is there nothing I can do to persuade you that this is a great sin of pride, Satan’s sin? You will lose. You will destroy your reputation. Your family life will collapse. You will have nothing left. In the name of God I beg you to give it up!”

  “No.”

  “Then God have mercy on you … I will pray to our parents in heaven that you will change your mind.”

  A worn and defeated man, his roman collar detached from his shirt, his long blond hair in disarray, he rose from the couch and staggered out of the room and up the narrow stairs to our first floor.

  “Don’t expect me to support you!” he shouted at us.

  Tommy and I sat silently at our big worktable, arrayed with our tentative schedule for January. Tommy’s head was still bowed, his shoulders still slumped. I went to the cabinet, removed the bottle of Bushmill’s Green and poured us both a drink.

  “Early Christmas drink,” I said as I handed the bigger one to him.

  “’Tis yourself that has the heavy hand, woman,” he said ruefully. “Thanks for being quiet.”

  “I don’t quite understand …”

  “Oh, I do,” he sighed as he sipped the whiskey very carefully.

  “Tell me about it, Tommy.”

  “I was the tagalong little brother. My mother ordered Tony to take care of me when we went out to play. I was an embarrassment to him when I pestered him to let me play with his friends. They made fun of him, called him a nursemaid. Remember I was five years younger and short for my age.”

  “And, as I remember, even in first grade, with a dangerously clever tongue.”

  He grinned at me over the Waterford tumbler, my sweet, funny lover coming back to me.

  “So he had to protect me from the kids who tried to beat me up, egged on by girls like you …”

  “Tommy, I never …”

  “And, of course, I adored him. My big brother. He knew everything about school and about sports and about how to act. I tried to model myself after him … You should be more like Tony my mother used to say … And I wanted to be like him.”

  “What happened?”

  “I never got over my hero worship, Mary Margaret. Even today, when I know that everything he says is bullshit … All right, not in this house … but that’s the only appropriate word … I still want his approval. I know I’ll never get it, but, God help me, I’d like to have it.”

  “But you stopped following him around?”

  “When he went to high school. I realized that I could have a lot more fun when he was not around. I was funny, class clown, and also very smart. So the same little girls who thought I was a creep now thought I was cute. The boys thought I was funny. I had it made.”

  I took his hand and led him over to the couch. I put my arm around him.

  “He was at Loras when I started at Fenwick, so I couldn’t get in his way and he couldn’t get in mine. Mom would complain to him every vacation about the fast company I was keeping …”

  “Our crowd!”

  He laughed.

  “I thought it was pretty funny too. Mary Margaret O’Malley, the Censor Morum, ‘fast.’ However, I kept getting excellent grades, so that was proof that I was taking proper advantage of my opportunities. And all I wanted to do was to stare at the afore mentioned matriarch and picture her with her clothes off …”

  “You did not,” I giggled.

  “We didn’t like the O’Malleys very much. Your grandmother, after all, was from the South Side and that was bad enough. They had fun and that was even worse—dissolute, noisemaking, heavy-drinking bunch, not at all respectable like we were. On the other hand, they were above us and we shouldn’t push ourselves into their world—which of course I wanted to do so I could push the wondrous Margaret Mary into bed with me.”

  “You did not,” I giggled again and kissed him.

  “I don’t blame my parents. They were good people. They never had a chance. Respectability was so important to them …”

  “And respectable we were not.”

  “Heavens, no! … As you remember, when Tony found out we were ‘keeping company’—mom’s very words—he was furious. Ever since then you’ve been the scarlet woman who has ruined my life.”

  “Fair enough description!” I kissed him again, a lingering one this time.

  “So we just have to live with him. He hasn’t changed my mind since he tried to break us up … It still hurts that he doesn’t understand me or support me.”

  “How can he get along with the other priests in his order?”

  “From what I hear, he tones down his manic side with them and is sensitive and collegial, even if he gets uptight occasionally. I guess I’m the weak link in his personality.”

  I didn’t say that there was something deeply sick about his brother. He knew that without my telling him.

  Suddenly the cavalry thundered down the steps. Our eighth grader, Mary Rose, home from buying presents for us at Alioto’s over on Chicago Avenue. We had put some distance between ourselves before she had reached the bottom of the staircase.

  “Father Uncle wasn’t very happy, was he?”

  Ah, she had not just returned.

  “You should not eavesdrop, young woman!” I warned her.


  “Mo-THER! He was shouting so loud that I couldn’t help hearing him! He doesn’t think we’ll win the election, does he? Well, he’s wrong!”

  Every time I see her, arms folded, determined face, flashing eyes, I think I’m looking into a mirror twenty years ago.

  “He doesn’t think we ought to run,” her father said lightly.

  “What’s his problem anyway?” she demanded.

  “His problem, hon, is that your father is his little brother and he sees him catching up and passing him.”

  Tommy didn’t disagree.

  “WELL, if that little brat Marytre ever passes me up, I’ll just take credit for her!”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “He doesn’t like you very much, does he, Mom? Why not?”

  A fast, hardball pitch, for which I was not prepared.

  “I mean, that’s the best thing you ever did, Dad, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s what your mom tells me every day.”

  “WELL, she’s right! … I just got the most bitchin’ presents for both of you. You won’t believe it!”

  And off she went, ready to take on the world.

  I tolerate that word in the house because it is merely a teenage adjective.

  “She answered the question for you,” I pointed out to my husband.

  “I assume that the whiskey is a prelude for something …”

  “Not now with Ms. Big Ears around.”

  “Later.”

  We hugged each other, a pledge and a promise.

  CHAPTER 10

  CHRISTMAS AT the O’Malley’s with singing and dancing and arguing and cameras snapping all the time was its usual madcap experience. I could imagine why Tommy’s respectable parents thought we were awful. But as Chucky always said, “There is a time for rejoicing and a time for not rejoicing and this is a time for rejoicing.”

  Everyone called my Tommy “Senator.”

  “Crispjin,” Rosie said to me, “has taken a little too much for granted. People are tired of his Dutch solemnity and self-satisfaction. They’re ready for a mischievous Mick.”

  What if we really do win, I asked myself. Then what do we do for an encore?

  I was still upset by Tony’s assault on Tommy, though not enough to ruin the Christmas fun. He was a problem that would always be with us, win or lose. The fights would continue. At some point I might have to tell him that he should stay away from my house and my kids.

  The day after Christmas we sat down with Joe and Ric and Tina and Dolly to lay out our plans for the campaign up to the primary. Chucky was there of course, preternaturally quiet.

  “Our goal is to win more votes against token opposition than Senator Crispjin gets against token opposition. That way we have some credibility.”

  “And Bobby Bill will crank out money for the attack ads,” Joe said.

  “If we get them really worried they may overplay their hand. Anyway we’ll pick up the usual Chicago votes but we can’t take them for granted. Dolly, we should be in at least one Black church every Sunday. Better more than one.”

  “You bet.”

  Dolly was a lawyer like the rest of us, but she had chosen to become a very high-priced public relations consultant. Slender with a head that was almost shaved, she was the most radical of us and a few years older. She had grown up in a housing project and had worked with grim determination to achieve success in her studies and to pass the bar exam. She had carefully crushed all traces of African-American dialect from her speech, but quit the practice of law after less than a year. She had married a very successful African-American banker and found that she hated law. Too dull, she asserted, while PR was always exciting. She took a leave from her own firm to work for us. Dolly had strong dislikes and strong loyalties.

  “We will concentrate our efforts here and in the collar counties, with a couple runs down state,” Tommy said, “just so they’ll see our faces on TV. The Illinois Federation of Labor is meeting in Carbondale. I should be there and in some Black churches in East St. Louis. Ambassador, we will need a plane for that trip and maybe once more. Small one, just me and Joe.”

  Chicago pols divide the region into the city, the “county towns” (suburban Cook County) and the “collar counties”—Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage, and Kendall.

  “And a couple of security people.”

  “Not so fast, white man,” I said.

  “And my wife,” Tommy added.

  “The money is coming in nicely,” Chucky said. “I’ll get a good plane and a good aircrew and put them on retainer. I have a friend who owes me a favor.”

  “Aircrew?” Tommy frowned.

  “Captain and first officer, one of them a woman,” I ordered.

  That was that.

  “Ric, we play our Latino card early, do we not?”

  “The HDO won’t be happy with us, but I can lean on them to turn out crowds in the city. I figure we establish that base early and then tend it carefully till November. We’ll have no trouble using parish halls and the local community centers. Bring the mariachi group of course.”

  Idiot that he is, Chucky went through the motions of strumming a guitar.

  “Kids only on weekends,” Tina insisted.

  “And Friday nights if they have their homework done first.”

  “There are tens of thousands of Mexican Americans in the suburbs and the collar counties,” Tommy said, “especially out in DuPage and down in Joliet. How do we get them? They don’t seem very well organized.”

  “There are parishes that have a Mass on Sunday,” I said, “maybe some of them will let us use their parish halls. We can pass out leaflets before and after the Mass.”

  “Till the pastor chases us off parish property!” Dolly said with a laugh.

  “And,” I said, “a lot of Latino college kids have called to volunteer. We can send them out to wherever we find concentrations to ask them to come and listen. They can be part of a precinct organization later.”

  “Many of them in the suburbs are not legals but they may come anyhow. It will stir up interest.”

  “We can’t afford empty houses,” Ric said. “Which can happen if there’s a snow storm.”

  “That’s your job, Ric. No Hispanic empty houses.”

  “I hear you, Tommy. I’ll get you on the Spanish-language stations too. They’ll be dying to have you. Also in East St. Louis when we’re downstate. And the Spanish radio stations too. Rodge Crispjin won’t know what hit him.”

  Tommy nodded.

  “What about polls?” Joe asked.

  “We don’t do them,” Tommy said firmly. “We make it clear that we are not running a campaign based on polls. On the other hand we read very carefully every poll we can get our hands on.”

  “I got some friends who run focus groups,” Chucky said. “They owe me some favors. Maybe they can do a couple pro bono.”

  “Your father has lots of friends,” my good husband observed.

  “He should have. He has worked all his life collecting. Now is a good time to … what’s the phrase, Chucky?”

  “Call in my markers. But I don’t ask for any campaign contributions unless someone offers to make one. I know the rules.”

  Laughter all around the room.

  “What about the media, Dolly?”

  “We all watch Chicago TV news. We know whom to trust and whom not to. Since this is a new kind of campaign we will emphasize our total transparency.”

  “What does that mean, Doll?” I wondered.

  “It means we tell the truth, a whole lot of truth, more truth than anyone expects us to tell—not necessarily the whole truth!”

  We all laughed.

  “Besides,” Dolly continued, “your husband is the slickest pol I’ve ever seen. He’ll tie the media in knots and laugh them off and he’d route Crispjin in a debate.”

  “There won’t be any debates,” Tommy dismissed the possibility. “Why should he give me more attention?”

  “If you start to catch up, he
might have to,” Dolly said.

  “He’ll just pour more money into attack ads, most of which we will ignore.”

  “If you say so, Boss man …” Dolly said, rolling her deep brown eyes, “and when we make mistakes, when we stumble, when no one shows up, we admit that we’re novices, just learning. And, oh yes, we ignore the Chicago Daily Examiner and Leander Schlenk. If he comes to a news conference, we answer his questions politely, no wise-guy stuff. But we do not answer anything he says in the paper. In some cases I’ll issue a clarification. We don’t want that crook unnerving us.”

  “We are polite to everyone,” Tommy insisted, “even the most pushy media intern. Or ordinary folk who ask obnoxious questions. It will be Joe’s job or his muscle’s to keep us moving when we have to move. No temper tantrums from anyone.”

  “Why is everyone looking at me?” I asked.

  It was great fun. The fun wouldn’t last. We would grow weary and discouraged and angry. We were up against big odds. It just wasn’t fair.

  I was wrong that day. The primary campaign continued to be fun. So did the summer and fall campaign. It stopped being fun only when it began to look like we had a good chance of winning.

  I took a leave from the firm to help “manage” my husband’s campaign. I would come back for one major case in April on which I had worked and my partners said they absolutely needed me. It would also provide us with a little more cash for day to day living.

  Tommy hammered out his campaign speeches and responses to questions during our winter season.

  The first one was his standard populist speech. It played well with union people and Blacks. The latter seemed to identify with Tommy like he was one of them, perhaps because of his smile and his laughter. He enjoyed the cries of approval from the congregations and responded in kind.

  “Be careful, Tommy,” Dolly advised him tongue in cheek. “You won’t never be one of us, but you might have a hard time being white.”

  Average family income, taking inflation into account, increased in the United States in the thirty years after the end of World War II. It kept pace with the yearly increase in the nation’s productivity. That meant that ordinary folk were sharing in the nation’s growth. However, after 1975 family income froze despite the increase in productivity. That meant that the rich were creaming off all the increases in the economy and leaving the rest of the people behind. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class was locked in place.