I note in passing that the lawyers, security guards and public relations personnel around Ms. Crawford in front of the district courthouse are all, in one way or another, associated with the so-called Oklahoma oil tycoon Bobby Bill Roads who has opposed me on various occasions. Here in “Exhibit D” are their names.
Fourthly, it would have been physically, indeed metaphysically impossible for me to have carnal relations with anyone in Washington at the time alleged. Ms. Quinn, where was I in August five years ago, do you remember?
QUINN: You were in Spain, Senator, all month. I saw you speak to the Cortes and meet the king and queen.
MORAN: And you so reported on your station?
QUINN (SADLY): Yes Senator.
MORAN: And you played clips from Spanish television of our peregrinations through Spain?
QUINN: Yes, Senator.
MORAN: Indeed. It would have been impossible for Chicagoans who paid attention to the media to miss the fact that I was in Spain. Did not even the wondrous Leander Schlenk complain that I was violating protocol by speaking to the Cortes? QUINN (SOFTLY): Yes, Senator.
MORAN: To prove that I could not have jumped on a plane, flown to Washington for some quick illicit sex and then flown back, we have here on the table Exhibit E, a photocopy of my official passport which shows one entry and one exit from Spain and one re-entry to the United States and a record of hotel charges throughout Spain during our month of travel.
I repeat, Mary Alice, that allegations made on your station last night were demonstrable lies and indeed made with reckless disregard for the truth. Moreover, they have done grave harm to my reputation and that of my family. I hope everyone will offer quick apologies and retractions.
Are there any questions?
REPORTER: Senator, how do we know that you are really type O?
MORAN: I thought someone would ask that, Mr. Hollander. Nurse …
(Moran takes off his jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeve. Nurse draws blood from his arm into a vial and corks the vial. Moran rolls down his shirt sleeve and puts his jacket back on)
MORAN: Here you are, Henry. Do your own test of my blood. Incidentally, your paper will look pretty dumb tomorrow morning when it withdraws its endorsement and denounces me and then has to backtrack on Monday.
REPORTER: Are you alleging, Senator, that there has been a plot against you?
MORAN (SHRUGS HIS SHOULDERS): There is the evidence. What do you think?
REPORTER: Are you serious about suing the media?
MORAN: I certainly am. My lawyers on Monday morning will go into the Cook County Court and file a slander charge against Ms. Crawford and her unnamed associates. We will be asking relief in the amount of a hundred million dollars. The Chicago media will be next unless retractions and apologies are immediately forthcoming.
REPORTER: Don’t you feel any obligation to Ms. Crawford?
MORAN: I feel that she has already been amply rewarded for her efforts. I don’t believe in paying blackmail.
REPORTER: Do you think this is a plot to defeat you in the election?
MORAN: What other motive would there be for monstrous and false allegations so close to the election that there is really no way to effectively refute them? I add that the plotters effectively seduced the media to rush to judgment without a careful investigation of the facts.
REPORTER: Do you believe that Senator Crispjin was involved in the plot?
MORAN: I have no knowledge that he was.
REPORTER: You suggested that Bobby Bill Roads was involved with the plot and we know that he is close to the Senator.
MORAN: I pointed out that the people around Ms. Crawford frequently worked for him. I didn’t say he was involved in the plot. Moreover, as I said, I have no knowledge of Senator Crispjin’s involvement. I don’t believe in guilt by association.
REPORTER: Do you think this scandal will defeat you in the election?
MORAN: It certainly won’t help.
REPORTER: Do you regret your decision to seek reelection, Senator?
MORAN (SHRUGS AGAIN): What man in his right mind would allow his family to be put through the horror of the last twenty-four hours?
CHAPTER 36
JIM RUSSELL PROGRAM
(Russell is in Washington in his usual studio. Senator is in Chicago with skyline background)
RUSSELL: You certainly have been the victim of a very crude plot, Senator.
MORAN: Crude, Jim, but very effective politically. One can’t imagine a better way to steal an election than a media scandal over the final weekend of a campaign.
RUSSELL: Both a senatorial and a presidential election …
MORAN: Precisely.
RUSSELL: Did you see something like this coming?
MORAN: I knew they would try something at the last minute. I wasn’t smart enough to suspect what it would be.
RUSSELL: Who are they, Senator?
MORAN: I don’t know Jim, not for sure and I’m not going to make any accusations.
RUSSELL (SMILES): Sticking to your principles?
MORAN: Trying to.
RUSSELL: They are the people who blew up your car and your campaign headquarters, fired rifle shots at you, and organized the riot in South Chicago?
MORAN: There seems to be a pattern … The politics of a banana republic, appealing from the ballot to the bullet—or a poison dart.
RUSSELL: Do you see a banana-republic trend emerging in American politics?
MORAN: Do you remember when a group of Republican thugs intervened in the vote-counting in Dade County, Jim? Yes I think there is such a trend.
RUSSELL: Do you think that your chances will improve because Ms. Crawford has admitted she was paid ten thousand dollars to lie about you?
MORAN: Cheapskates! … I think it’s too late, Jim, to make any difference. The Daily News in Chicago endorsed me on Friday and revoked its endorsement this morning. I’m told they will apologize tomorrow morning. That may well be too late. The New York Times spread the story on its front page yesterday, didn’t report my press conference today. What will they do tomorrow?
RUSSELL: Can they deliver many votes in Chicago?
MORAN (GRINS FOR THE FIRST TIME): Probably not, but they have contributed to the atmosphere of scandal. One of their people called me yesterday to ask me about the obligation I felt to Ms. Crawford. I tried to persuade her that the charges were lies. She didn’t want to listen. No one from the Times came to my press conference.
RUSSELL: Do you think you will lose on Tuesday?
MORAN: I wouldn’t bet against such an outcome. Before this phony scandal, we were probably way ahead. I don’t know and I don’t think anyone else does how the people of Illinois will react.
RUSSELL: Will you be sad if you lose?
MORAN: If it were my fault, if I had blown it, if I let people down, yes I’d be sad. But I don’t think it will be my fault.
DEBATE ON CHICAGO PUBLIC TELEVISION
Similar cast of characters, Senora Gonzalez is absent as is Leander Schlenk. They have been replaced by a reporter (woman) for a national news magazine named Lorene Philippi.
MODERATOR: Well, Senator, it looks like you’ve been cleared. Ms. Mandy Crawford admits that she lied on Friday.
SENATOR: Yeah? Who gives me my reputation back? Mandy Crawford was a victim too. So, I suppose, were the media who were suckered in by the taste of blood.
HONEYWELL: You sound bitter, Senator.
SENATOR: Speaking of blood, Harold, did my blood type turn out to be O as I claimed yesterday?
HONEYWELL (EMBARRASSED): I thought we had to be sure.
SENATOR: You’re sure now?
HONEYWELL: We will apologize tomorrow morning and restore our endorsement.
SENATOR: How much good will that do?
HONEYWELL: Frankly, I don’t know.
QUINN: Do you have any thoughts, Senator, on how this could have been avoided?
SENATOR: Not running in the first place.
PHILIPPI
: Have you heard Senator Crispjin’s comment on the so called scandal?
SENATOR (BRIGHTENS): No, what did Mr. Crispjin have to say?
PHILIPPI: He said that he did not believe you had answered all the unanswered questions.
SENATOR: Did he say what were the unanswered questions I didn’t answer?
PHILIPPI: No.
SENATOR: Well I guess I can’t answer them can I?
GRAHAM: There is a lot of anger in your heart, isn’t there, Tommy?
SENATOR: You got it, Grayson. I’m angry at the conspirators but also at the media who gobbled down the bait the conspirators provided. Anger in the present circumstances is justified and even virtuous.
HONEYWELL: It is your opinion that in matters like this the media should not rush to judgment?
MORAN: It is also my opinion that Lake Michigan shouldn’t turn cold in the winter.
QUINN: You are hinting that once the media have a possible sensation, they don’t pause to see if there’s any truth in it?
MORAN: I’m not hinting at it, Mary Alice. I’m asserting it bluntly. Surely somewhere in the feeding chain of the networks there ought to have been someone that asked whether this might be a last-minute election dirty trick.
QUINN: I wasn’t working that day. As soon as I heard the five o’clock news, I called our news director. I tried to tell him you were in Spain at that time. He didn’t have time to talk to me. We’re going to apologize tonight.
MORAN: I hope they don’t fire you, Mary Alice.
QUINN: I don’t think they will, no way.
MORAN: My lawyers, and there are many on the O’Malley side, will be listening very carefully. They may still demand payment. But I’m glad you will still be around.
HONEYWELL: There just wasn’t enough time.
SENATOR: So you rushed to judgment. You did not exercise due diligence. I’m not sure that excuse will satisfy my lawyers. Moreover your comment is an admission of moral bankruptcy.
PHILIPPI: My magazine wants to put your picture on its cover next week.
MORAN: Nothing is more successful than martyrdom.
PHILIPPI: Win or lose? Will you accept?
MORAN: Talk to my media director, Dolly McCormick.
PHILIPPI: I would like to hear what your wife and daughters have to say, if you give them permission.
MORAN: They don’t need my permission. If this goes down, you’ll find them prepared to talk all day and into the night.
GRAHAM: I went to a couple of churches out on the South Side this morning. African-American people won’t forget their friends.
MORAN: That’s very good news.
HONEYWELL: You’re denouncing the media because we didn’t check facts.
MORAN: I think the courts might decide that fact checking on a charge like the one you made was a failure of due diligence and hence actionable. At Ms. Quinn’s channel, they didn’t want facts, they wanted to feed on raw meat … Now, we have had two rounds of questions about the Crawford Scandal. Could we now have just a little time for issue questions. Senator Crispjin and I differ on most of the issues which face the country. Isn’t anyone interested?
QUINN: What was your most important achievement during your term?
SENATOR: Immigration reform and that was, oddly enough, an administration bill. Second one has to be pension reform. Third is vouchers for poor kids.
QUINN: Those are pretty good achievements for a first term. And you’re slated to be Deputy Majority Leader when you go back.
MORAN: If.
HONEYWELL: Are you ready to forgive those who organized the scandal?
MORAN: Forgiveness is at the core of my religious faith, Harold. But I want to be able to cut the cards in the future.
PHILIPPI: One more family question?
MORAN (A TOUCH OF A SMILE, FOR THE FIRST TIME): Sure.
PHILIPPI: How did your wife and children react?
MORAN: Fury.
PHILIPPI: At you?
MORAN: At the conspirators and at poor little Mandy.
PHILIPPI: They didn’t believe the possibility that you might have strayed from the path of virtue?
MORAN: My daughters were very angry at the claim the poor little toddler’s hair was the same as their red hair. My wife tells me that I am a one-woman man, which I guess is the truth.
MODERATOR: One more question, Graham?
GRAHAM: In your heart, Senator, don’t you believe that you’ll win?
MORAN: I’ll have to examine my heart later, Graham. In my gut, where the politics emotions rise up, I think that it could go either way.
“No questions about issues,” my wife and my daughters hugged me when I left the sudio.
“You totally gotta win, Daddy,” Maryro informed me. “I have a lotta big bets with Georgetown dweebs.”
We drove up to a rally in an affluent neighborhood where the parish precinct had voted Democratic for the last four presidential elections. We sang the Mexican and Irish songs, promised the beginning of a new era. Our next stop was in Lake County, and after that out in DuPage, both for Mexican-Americans. Everywhere there were cheers. A lot of people were pleased with us. When we returned, Chucky and Rosemarie were waiting for us, as were a number of the family lawyers.
“We’re getting apologies, guys,” Chucky chortled. “We’re getting offers for settlement from the media, not generous enough. So we’re playing hard guys. Oh yes, Tommy, Mandy called.”
“Poor thing was sobbing,” Rosemarie said, a touch of sympathy in her voice. “She claimed that she didn’t have a hundred million dollars. We reassured her by saying that since she has apologized we have forgiven her.”
“Nothing from the Senator?” I asked.
“Not word, Tommy,” Chuck chortled. “He must have realized that it didn’t work.
“We go after Bobby Bill,” I said, “because he has to be stopped. We don’t sue the former Senator, however. By now he knows that no matter who wins, he loses.”
The next morning with daughters and the Sanchez kids in tow, we hit three more malls, a very useful place to meet former Democrats who were in the process of returning and were bringing me books to sign.
I was exhausted and collapsed into bed.
“Day after tomorrow,” I said, “and it’s all over.”
“And we turn to our usual lifestyle,” she said as we hugged each other.
CHAPTER 37
THOUSANDS OF people waited for us at the polling place. Mary Rose and Mary Ann were voting for the first time. “Good deal that I can vote for my dad.”
Many of the people were not our neighbors. They had come because they liked Tommy and wanted us to know that they were loyal. Immediately I decided that we would win. Most people would see through Bobby Bill’s trick. It had been close for a while but Tommy’s tough talk won us a lot of votes we might not have had and even, I think, some Republicans. Then we went to five crucial L train stops and asked people to vote. We also passed out “Holy Cards” with a picture of the family on the cards.
Chucky’s photo of course.
Voters knew the L stations we would visit. So we were mobbed by people wanting us to autograph the picture cards.
Tommy seemed his usual cheery ebullient self, confident of victory. I could tell, however, that the confidence was an act. He was still recuperating from the campaign traumas—Gately Park and the Friday afternoon massacre. If we lost, as he thought he would and I vigorously denied, he’d go through an interlude of near-depression.
“So,” I had told the Lord, “he’s gotta win.”
We shared wonderful love during our afternoon nap. Then we picked up the kids at Rosie’s house and rode down to the Allegro for our second victory as Chuck had assured both of us. The rain poured down and lightning crackled against the skyscrapers as we rode down on the Congress Expressway. Just like six years ago.
The night started out badly.
The polls closed at seven. By seven-fifteen, Crispjin’s spokesperson was on the air claiming victo
ry.
“We have sophisticated scientific surveys which enable us to predict the outcome of the election very early in the evening. We now believe that Senator Rodgers Crispjin will carry Illinois by fifty-three percent of the votes. As soon as Tommy Moran concedes, Senator Crispjin will address his followers here at the Fairmont hotel.”
“How can they know so early?” Mary Rose demanded.
“They can’t have data this soon,” Joe McDermott said. “It’s another one of their frauds.”
“Is there any sign around the states that exit polling was going on?” I asked Joe.
“None that we have heard about.”
“They’re faking things,” Tommy murmured. “They figure that it will be a close race and they can more credibly claim fraud when they’ve been ahead all night. We’re going to win!”
Then Leander Schlenk appeared on the monitor.
“Mr. Schlenk, you are a veteran observer of American elections. Are you surprised that Senator Crispjin is winning so easily?”
“Not at all. I’ve taken for granted that people would grow tired of Little Tommy and his noisy family. The people of Illinois should be grateful that this is the last roundup for the drugstore cowboy senator.”
One of the national networks reported that the Illinois Senate race had added one seat to the Republican contingent in the Senate. A check appeared after Crispjin’s name, even though he was trailing in the returns by five thousand votes.
“Asshole,” Maran muttered.
I did not find it in my heart to reprove her for the language which seemed just then to be appropriate.
Then Father Tony appeared on the tube.
“How do you feel about Senator Crispjin’s victory, Reverend Moran?”
“I feel a great relief. My little brother is a clever little fellow, but I have been telling him all along that he shouldn’t try to play with the big boys. I hope and pray that God will turn him away from empty celebrity and he will return to being the good Catholic he used to be. Then, I hope he will concentrate on saving his immortal soul.”
The Senator and the Priest Page 30