We both giggled like newlyweds, though quietly so as not to offend the Reliable driving our armored van.
The air was more caustic than electric at the station. Our crowd was there in the control room—Joe, Ric, Dolly and their respective spouses. No one there representing the invisible candidate, though the producer had left an empty podium for him. Thirty or forty people in the audience, mostly young people.
SCHLENK (a lean and hungry man without any hair on his head): Well, Tommy, it looks like you’re going to lose. The polls show you slipping, don’t they?
CANDIDATE: Mr. Schlenk, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that we will win by somewhere between five and fifteen percentage points.
SCHLENK: I’m not a betting man, Tommy … The churches have turned against you, haven’t they? What right do you have to win? You lack maturity, experience, and even common sense. You’re not half the man Senator Crispjin is. You can’t even tell me one good reason why people should vote for you instead of him.
CANDIDATE: I doubt that the belated involvement of some clergy will have any effect on Tuesday. I have consistently refused to compare myself with the incumbent because I have eschewed personalities in this contest. The one good reason to vote for me is that I’m a Democrat and it’s time for a change in Washington. The ordinary middle class and working people of Illinois need someone in D.C. who will defend their pensions from greedy corporations, their property from greedy local officials, their health from greedy insurance companies, and their future from the rich and super rich who have cut them out of the American dream.
(Applause from the crowd)
Ms. GONZALEZ (a petite, very sexy woman, with burning eyes. She speaks in Spanish): You now do not have your wife here to help you with your poor Spanish. Why do you patronize the Latino people? Why do you exploit them to win their votes? Why do you produce fake photographs which show Our Lady of Guadalupe at the door of your house? Why do you speak our language in a Sonoran dialect which is insulting? Why do you ignore all other Mexican music besides mariachi which is for peasants? Why should any self-respecting Latino vote for you?
CANDIDATE: (in Spanish in the first sentence) That is a litany of hostile questions, Senora, all of which are based on false assumptions (turn to English). Ms. Gonzalez attacks me for exploiting the Latino voters. Whether I have or not is for them to decide on election day. Let me answer only one of her questions which illustrates the tone of all the others. In the background as we come out of our house, the TV cameras have recorded a life-sized statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. My daughters fell in love with her on our first trip to Hermosillo and we brought her home with us. They made the sign of the cross and touched her every day when they went off to school. They don’t anymore because she was blown to pieces by the explosion in front of her house—which demonstrated how deadly attack politics can be. I presume that those Latinos who vote for me on Tuesday will do so because they know that I’m on their side.
(More applause and now cheers. We owned the audience, but young people don’t go out and vote.)
GRAYSON (a large handsome Black man, not quite as big as the Shaq): A lot of people in the African-American community resent the fact that you have neglected them in your enthusiasm for the Latinos. What would you say to them?
CANDIDATE: I would say that a competent United States Senator must respect and devote this attention to both Latinos and Blacks. He should say both … and instead of either … or. We were very careful to make the same number of appearances in both groups and to address ourselves to the concerns of both. If some African-Americans feel neglected, I am sorry but I think the record shows that we were evenhanded in our appearances. We were at Operation PUSH so often that they had good reason to be bored with us.
GRAYSON: You don’t sing African-American spirituals.
CANDIDATE: I’m afraid that you weren’t around for our appearances at Black churches. My music-mad family sang spirituals with enthusiasm and verve. I think the kids will be offended at the suggestion they did not.
GRAYSON (big grin): I been there, Senator, I heard them.
Ms. QUINN: (a handsome woman in a stylish blue dress) “Are you really broke, Tom?”
CANDIDATE (laughs): Where did you hear that, Mary Alice? But the answer I’m afraid is that we are. There’s enough money in the campaign fund to pay for the victory celebration on election night, but not much else. Our personal coffers are presently bare. We took out a second mortgage on the house, turned in all the accounts for our kids’ college educations, sold all our insurance policies, used most of the advance from my book. We haven’t been able to pay for the reconstruction of our house yet.
Ms. QUINN: Wasn’t it insured?
CANDIDATE: The insurance company denies liability. That’s what they do. They’ll pay eventually, but they’ll try to cheat us. We’ll survive. My wife will go back to the practice of law when we move to Washington. The publisher wants to negotiate a contract for three books. Don’t plan, Mary Alice, a tag day for us just yet.
HAROLD HONEYWELL (a quiet, tweedy man, with sandy hair and the haggard look of someone who has had to meet too many deadlines): Tommy, this has been a pretty vicious campaign, has it not? I’m wondering if the nastiness has had any effect on your wife and family?
CANDIDATE: Are you suggesting, Mr. Honeywell, that I have contributed to the viciousness?
HONEYWELL: Not all. All you did was to run on a platform which rejected negative campaigns.
CANDIDATE: As to my wife and family, how could they not be affected by the corrosive atmosphere of hate which has invaded American politics? They’re tough and resilient folks. They respond by offering to fight anyone who attacks their husband and father. However, they were almost blown up by a bomb in our battered old Chevy van and saw a rifle bullet fell Johnny Dale in a shot intended for me. If I may refer to my book, I accuse the media of fomenting some of this malignity. Hate, attack, scandal is what the media offer instead of conversation about political issues. Consider the five questions that you have asked me—am I the man that my opponent is? Why do I exploit Hispanic voters? Why did I neglect Black voters? Why don’t I have any money? How do my wife and family react to the viciousness? That’s attack journalism, not responsible political discourse. Not a single question about the issues in the election. The media are trapped in the miasma of hate which they have helped to create.
(Standing ovation from the crowd)
SCHLENK: You still don’t get it, do you Tommy? I can’t believe that you’re so naive. The voters don’t care about issues. They want red meat. They want to see politicians cut to pieces and their blood spilling on the streets. They know that pols are liars and crooks and they delight in their downfall. If you’re broke they think you deserve to be broke because you’re a naïve fool. The media and the attack ads give them just what they want. It’s all about entertainment, not about issues. What would we fill up space with if we didn’t have elections all the time? You’re not winning any votes this evening. You’re just providing alternative entertainment to Law and Order.
(Boos from the crowd)
CANDIDATE: Mr. Schlenk, that’s a very wicked statement. If it is true, our Republic is in deep trouble. I am prepared to admit that there is a great deal of truth in your cynicism. But it is not the whole truth. Americans do care about political issues. They care about their pensions and their homes and their insurance policies and their medical bills. Cynicism like yours is all too typical of your profession, but it’s pernicious and evil and untrue.
(Long standing ovation from the audience)
The “debate” continues. There are no issue questions. Candidate sneaks some issue responses into his answers.
The moderator permits three questions from the audience.
FIRST QUESTION (young woman in jeans and Loyola sweatshirt): Do you think when you go to Washington you will be able to change American politics?
CANDIDATE: I like your word “when!” I won’t be able to make much difference b
y myself, though winning the election will show that one does not need a lot of money or negative advertising to win an election. For twenty years now American life has been dominated by greed and arrogance in reaction to the social concerns of earlier decades. I think the cycle is about to change. I hope to be part of that change. I hope the Democratic party appeals once again to the working and middle class American families and not just the East Coast Liberals. So change is in the making but it will take a while.
SECOND QUESTION (Young man in a business suit): Isn’t your emphasis on poor versus rich a return to Marxist class conflict politics?
CANDIDATE: Marx did not invent every poverty or greed. Opposition to the power of the very rich and the super rich is part of the American populist political tradition. I didn’t make up the statistics about the increase in concentration of wealth in this country. Finally in a democratic society you create change at the ballot box, not in the streets.
THIRD QUESTION (young woman in jeans and University of Illinois sweatshirt): What is your opinion of the current immigration reform legislation in Congress?
CANDIDATE: It’s not a perfect reform by any means. In the anti-immigrant feeling of the country today it’s probably the best we can get. I’ll fight for amendments that better protect the rights of immigrant workers. I don’t know whether we can push such amendments through Congress.
QUESTIONER: Thank you, Senator. I hope you continue your excellent Web page. It was a great response to all those negative ads.
CANDIDATE: Thank you, ma’am. My good wife and my eldest daughter are responsible for the Web page.
(Cheers)
Afterwards the crowd swarms up to shake his hand. Some request autographs. He urges them all to vote on Tuesday. His wife hugs him. His staff surround him. Quinn kisses him, Honeywell and Grayson shake his hand, the other two panelists drift away.
CHAPTER 16
OUR LOVE-MAKING was gentle and affectionate when we returned to the apartment. I established that two sessions of such a day was well within my capability. Afterwards, my wife’s head on my chest, we relaxed and reveled in a few moments of serenity.
“I’m not sure how I ever found a wife like you,” I said.
“I found you, Tommy Moran.”
“You’re astonishing.”
“You mean I’m not so bad in bed?”
“That too. But I mean your faith and your loyalty and your courage. Not once through this terrible year, did you complain. It was my crazy idea, but you made it your crazy idea too. I never could have done it myself.”
“We haven’t quite done it yet.”
“We will. Ric tells me that we will carry DuPage. He says that even the Republican leadership out there says we will.”
“Then that’s the ball game … Like I said, you were great this afternoon.”
I was silent for a few moments.
“You know, I think Schlenk was right, not completely but mostly.”
“Cynicism, Tommy love, is a luxury that a democratic society cannot afford.”
The next day all of us were out and running with the crack of dawn. Except you couldn’t tell it was dawn because it rained intermittently all day—rallies in Black neighborhoods in Chicago, malls in the suburbs and the collar counties, elevated and train stops at the evening rush hour, TV pleas for people to vote. Ric’s predictions about DuPage seemed reasonable enough. There were a lot of Latino women at the malls and a lot of soccer moms too.
On election day, we went to the early Mass at St. Luke’s, the Monsignor blessed us, and gave the kids permission to miss school the next day, “but only if we win.” We didn’t tell him that we had already asked the principal.
Our next stop was at the polling place, just down the street from the parish. There was a huge crowd there already—turnout in our neighborhood was always way over 90 percent, sometimes, as Ambassador O’Malley often joked, over 100 percent. They cheered enthusiastically for us, shook hands, congratulated us, praised our stamina.
“And this,” I said to my wife, “is in our own country and among our own people. It doesn’t seem right.”
“River Forest will be solidly Democratic today,” a neighbor said. “That doesn’t happen too often.”
The cameras were there to catch us. It was a warm sunny day, weather which was supposed to be Democratic weather. My wife wore a beige autumn suit with an orange and black scarf and a jeweled pin which said simply “Tommy.” She was more radiant than ever, completely confident that we would win. I wavered during the night long count. She never did. Next we appeared on some TV spots at the Lake Street L and the Burlington commuter line, begging people to vote. The spots would appear on the noon news.
Then we went over to our campaign headquarters, still suffering from the aftereffects of the bomb. The Ambassador and his wife were waiting for us.
“Too bad that Schlenk guy wouldn’t bet you,” he said. “You would have won.”
“What an evil man!” his wife exclaimed.
Only Dolly and Joe were around from the staff. They were on the phone every second, collecting reports from our new and not always efficient precinct organization. They both seemed worried.
All we could do was sit and wait, listen to the news on the radio, and follow the voting reports from around the city and the state. The word was that there was a surprisingly large turnout in the Chicago suburbs. The noon news said that would be an advantage to Senator Crispjin who lived in suburban Sycamore, where he had made a lot of money in dubious land development, a subject from which we stayed away, though the Daily News had devoted some attention to it. Not enough as far as Ric and Joe were concerned. We didn’t expect to do much in that county anyway.
The quiet supporters for him and his wife when they voted was in sharp contrast to the disorderly behavior at our River Forest polling place.
Ric and Tina, exhausted but jubilant arrived about twelve-thirty.
“I absolutely guarantee that we will carry DuPage,” he insisted. “No doubt about it. That’s a revolution in Illinois politics.”
“How much?”
“Rodge will do well downstate. Those Christians will throw a lot of votes his way. But we Catholics will turn it around.”
“Listen to him,” Tina chuckled. “When this all started, he was an agnostic.”
“Si, but an agnostic Catholic!”
“Now he wants to order a Guadalupe statue just like the one you’ve ordered.”
“Patroness of all the poor peons,” he insisted. “And we’re only a generation away from being poor peons … I hope you’re feeling confident, gringo, we’ve won it for you.”
“My head is confident. I’m not sure about my stomach.”
My wife who had slipped out for an expedition returned with a tray of malts and sundaes.
“Lent starts Thursday morning,” she informed us.
I drank two of them, proud that I had put on no weight during the campaign. I hadn’t eaten much during the last six months.
Ric and Tina joined the others on the phones. All news was positive.
“What if we win, Tommy? What will we do?”
“I was thinking the same thing myself.”
When deep down in the sub-basements of your soul, you know that you can’t possibly win, you don’t pay much attention to that question. At two o’clock we and the Suarezes picked up our kids at school.
“Who’s winning?” they demanded. “Who’s winning?”
“Too early to say,” I said.
“Uncle Ric says we’re ahead,” my wife said cautiously.
“Gringos are doubters.”
We all laughed.
We then drove downtown to the Hotel Allegro, once a luxurious German-American place called the Bismarck, and now the least expensive spot for a victory party. It had been refurbished, but much of the old, if somewhat tattered, baroque German patina survived.
Mike Casey, tall, slender, white haired, and elegant, was waiting for us in the ballroom.
“Thank God, it ends here in Chicago,” he said. “You’ll be surrounded by Chicago cops, both on duty and off duty.”
“No assassins lurking in the kitchen?” Ambassador O’Malley, who had been in Los Angeles when a nutcase had gunned down Bob Kennedy, asked.
Mike Casey glanced at him with a wry grin.
“This is not Los Angeles.”
We went up to our suite, three rooms for eating, drinking, entertaining the important people. The suite was not exactly run-down, but it lacked the elegance of the Hilton or the Four Seasons.
“The food will be great,” the Ambassador assured us. “I owe that to the memory of Marymarg’s grandparents, as will the drinks. We save money on the hotel.”
“Anything left in the fund?” I asked dubiously.
“Some,” he grinned at me. “Enough for an emergency … Incidentally, the good Rosemarie says I should tell you that I own a townhouse in Georgetown, right down the street from the university. I bought it during the Lyndon Johnson mess, because I knew, short of nuclear war, property values there would keep going up. I’ve been renting it ever since. Nice income. The family that lived in it, grain lobbyist, is going back to Omaha. So I’m offering it to you guys for a hundred dollars a month. Don’t even think of arguing.”
Applause from everyone in the room.
“Done,” Mary Margaret beat me to the punch.
We had never discussed where we would live in Washington, much less if the family would relocate. I felt queasy. This couldn’t be happening, could it?
The game wasn’t over quite yet
The polls closed at seven. The first tallies showed senator Crispjin jumping into a fifteen-thousand vote lead. Silence fell on the room.
The Senator and the Priest Page 13