One Car Caravan - On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In

by Walter Shapiro

  "Enough for tonight. John Kerry. President John Kerry, signing off."

  ******

  REMARKS BY PRESIDENT AT PRESS AVAILABILITY

  Winter White House

  Burlington, Vermont

  March 5, 2005

  THE PRESIDENT: As thrilled as I am to be president, I have to tell you that it's great to be back in Vermont. The fresh air, the beauty, the snow. It's just not the same in Washington. Later today, Judy and I intend to do a little cross-country skiing. I bet­ter apologize in advance for any inconvenience this might cause my neighbors. Now I'll be happy to take your questions.

  Q: Mr. President, North Korean radio today called your recent comments warning of aggressive action against their nuclear weapons program a "missile-rattling that could lead to war." Do you rule out using military force against North Korea?

  THE PRESIDENT: No, I do not. I am not a pacifist, as some foolishly suggested during the recent campaign. I am deeply con­cerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and have always said that I would move forcefully to prevent it. My stan­dard has always been: Is there an imminent threat to the United States? I fear that the conduct of North Korea is fast approaching that threshold.

  Q: Mr. President, I don't know if you've yet seen the full-page advertisement in today's New York Times protesting your policies toward North Korea. It's signed by more than six hundred of your early supporters and it says, and I quote, "President Dean promised to uphold 'the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.' Instead, he is upholding the Bush-Cheney wing." Any comment?

  THE PRESIDENT: As a doctor, I must say that they're a little quick to accuse me of malpractice. In all seriousness, I am sure I'll take positions as president that will disappoint some of my supporters. But I'm not a rubber stamp, I'm the president. Per­haps if they had listened a little more closely to what I said in the campaign, they wouldn't be so surprised now.

  Q: Sir, Senator Kerry said in a Senate speech yesterday...

  THE PRESIDENT: Next question.

  ******

  3-12-05

  Bob Graham

  The White House

  6:30—Awoke. Light rap on door from steward. Miss alarm clock.

  6:45—Shower, shave, dress. Finished Colgate. Gray suit.

  7:00—Breakfast at desk. Toast, Florida OJ, coffee.

  7:15—Read overnight CIA material. Syria? Hezbollah again!

  7:30—CIA-FBI terrorism briefing. Same old. Counted "Mr. President's." 47! 4 in one sentence.

  8:00—COS [Chief of staff]. Work day—oil rig? SS [Secret Ser­vice] objects. Fear: small plane/bomb. Miss Senate.

  8:48—Gwen [daughter] calls. Kids: flu. Repeats Leno mono­logue. Not funny!!

  9:00—OMB director. Deficit up: $97 b. Delay Medicare plan??? What to cut?

  9:30—Interior Secy. Everglades. Progress!

  10:00—President of Chile. Talks much, says little. More coffee.

  10:30—Girl Scouts. East Room. Need better talking points.

  11:07—Dollar plunging. Phone George Soros. Deficit!

  11:30—Press secretary, before his briefing. Next work day: no comment. Dollar: no comment. Medicare plan: no comment. Don't envy his job.

  11:57—Adele stops by. Dinner: Suzanne [daughter]? Yes!

  12:00—Daschle calls. GOP filibuster. Don't miss Senate.

  12:15—Lunch at desk. Turkey/white toast/mayo. (Don't tell car­diologist re: mayo.) Wonder: what's Bush doing. Does he miss it?

  ******

  From Friday the President Stayed Home: The White House Jour­nals of President Joseph I. Lieberman:

  ...It is interesting what causes controversy for a president. During the transition period before the inauguration, I will admit that I worried that my decision to include three Republicans in the cabinet might cause difficulties for my party. But I believed then, as I do now, that it was important to send a strong signal that the days of poisonous partisan­ship in Washington were over. Speaking frankly, some mem­bers of my staff and some senior Democrats in the Congress expressed their concerns to me in advance. But I had what I called "the perfect squelch" when I asked each of them, "Can you name an American more qualified to serve as sec­retary of defense than John McCain?" Gratifying my hopes rather than feeding my fears, both the press and the public reacted well to what I called "a government of inclusion."

  But what I never imagined were the difficulties that could be caused by my need for a second set of White House china. My branch of the Jewish faith requires sepa­rate sets of dishes so that you never violate the biblical injunction not to mix meat and milk. For a nation that has been so understanding of my obligation to respect the Sab­bath and the other aspects of my religion, the extra table­ware seemed a minor and easily surmountable problem. If I had it to do over again, Hadassah and I would have paid for the second set of dishes out of our personal bank accounts. But I had received an opinion from the White House coun­sel's office that it was permissible to solicit private dona­tions to fulfill what I called our "two-china policy." Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have taken more care to scrutinize the backgrounds of the donors.

  The press flap that some were to call "Plate-gate" erupted suddenly when...

  ******

  The Family-Friendly White House

  Time magazine

  March 22, 2005

  Not since the early 1960s, when a young tyke named John-John hid under his father's desk in the Oval Office, have the excited shrieks of small children filled the most exalted workspace in the nation. But in the little more than two months that the Edwards family has been in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, presi­dential visitors have grown accustomed to dodging racing tricy­cles and discovering half-eaten cookies buried in the White House furniture. The cookie culprit is generally four-year-old Jack, while his six-year-old sister, Emma Claire, is reputed to be hell on three wheels.

  "When President Edwards promised an 'open administration,' even I didn't expect that it would be this open," confessed White House press secretary Jennifer Palmieri, who has learned the hard way the damage that stray Legos can do to pantyhose. Not all of President Edwards' staffers have adjusted as well to the child-centered White House. "It's hard to have a serious policy discussion with the president when Jack keeps wandering in with his juice bottle," grumped one aide whose attitudes toward children were seemingly influenced by the films of W. C. Fields. "Sometimes it's hard to remember that it's the White House and not a play school."

  First Lady Elizabeth Edwards, in an exclusive interview with Time, explained, "John and I decided that we would do our best to replicate in the White House the way we lived as a family when he was in the Senate. And that means that we will not wall our children off from the rest of our lives." During the campaign, the family's two young children provided frequent distractions during strategy sessions at Chez Edwards. On one occasion, Jack scrambled off unnoticed with the only copy of pollster Harrison Hickman's latest survey and the slick-fingered lad was later dis­covered happily coloring over the numbers.

  Jack and Emma Claire are, in a sense, the First Family's sec­ond family. Both were brought into the world as a testament of faith after the Edwards's' oldest child, Wade, perished in a car crash in 1996. Asked about the role that Wade's memory plays in the family's permissive approach to child rearing, the First Lady said bluntly, "That's something I'd prefer not to discuss." The Edwards' elder daughter, Cate, 21, is a senior at Princeton, who quietly slips into the White House on weekends...

  ******

  Having traveled so many miles with so many Democratic hope­fuls, it is strange to finish this report so far from the end of the journey. Well, almost finished. Every reporter who has ever ven­tured north of Manhattan or west of the Beltway in campaign sea­son returns home to be confronted with the inevitable dinner party query: "What did you really think?"

  That insistent question triggers one of those awkward social moments that are difficult to finesse. There is always the danger of
lapsing into the blowhard bromides of TV talk shows: "The challenge for Kucinich is whether he can move to the center...Sharpton must win New Hampshire...Moseley Braun faces a daunting map after Iowa..." But the alternative seems either fatuous certainty or facile calumny. No one at a dinner party, after downing three glasses of chardonnay, wants to hear a judicious answer that begins, "To be honest, they're all good men with their own strengths and weaknesses."

  So what do I think? Really?

  Howard Dean is simultaneously beguiling and exasperating. Just as I was taken with a maverick named John McCain in 2000, I was impressed by Dean's self-confident disdain for the tremu­lous trimmers in Washington. But the intemperate style that has carried Dean so far, so fast is a double-edged sword: Too often he prefers to slice rather than splice, and every unneeded slash invites a backlash. If Dean were in the White House, Hallmark would probably rush out a new line of presidential apology notes.

  John Kerry is the candidate with whom I would most enjoy going out for a beer. But then I have a weakness for cerebral guys who talk in complex sentences, get caught up in the nuances of policy, remember Vietnam and seem just depressed enough to be interesting.

  Joe Lieberman, despite his Rumsfeld-Lite foreign-policy views, has the balanced temperament befitting a man who wants to be entrusted with the codes for nuclear weapons. He would be a good companion in a comedy club, though I would feel embar­rassed for him if the performers were working blue.

  Bob Graham leaves me perplexed. What is puzzling is the emotional mismatch between his graciously formal senatorial style and the righteous rage about the terrorist threat that fuels his campaign. It's hard to picture Paul Revere with silver hair, a Florida-motif tie and a color-coded pocket notebook.

  Dick Gephardt reminds me about what I always liked about the never flashy Midwest. He may lack bandwidth, but his stout­hearted solidity, his good spirits and his loyalty to longtime advisers are all Old Economy virtues.

  John Edwards is the presidential contender who is far more compelling in person than he is in theory. From afar, it is easy to dismiss his short resume, his impetuous ambition and his overdependence on trial lawyers for funding. But watching him in public settings or talking with him privately serves as a reminder that some politicians are simply blessed with The Gift. Edwards, the ultimate cockeyed optimist, never needs to buy a Hallmark card—he is a Hallmark card.

  ******

  The coda to this chronicle is not designed to drape any of the 2004 Democrats in the mantle of greatness or to issue dire warn­ings about the deficiencies of a particular presidential contender. For I take seriously the hallowed journalistic dictum: No cheer­ing in the press box. But my year-long odyssey along the back roads of Iowa and New Hampshire was never about just the 2004 Democrats and their campaigns. It was also about myself in mid-life and my gnawing unease with the sound-bite superficiality of most political reporting. At this early date, there is no way of knowing whether I caught an early-bird glimpse of the man who will be taking the oath of office in January 2005. (And I was damned if I was going to visit the sun-parched soil of Crawford, Texas, to cover my bets.) But regardless of the outcome of the 2004 campaign, I have already found the object of my personal quest. Once again, I have come alive to the wonder of presiden­tial politics and see the glory of my chosen calling. Once again, I understand what propelled me down this career path so many years ago when I first picked up my parents' Book-of-the-Month Club edition of The Making of the President 1960.

  In a word, it's idealism—the belief that no matter how repeti­tive the rituals and Byzantine the process, there is an inherent majesty to bearing witness to a free people selecting its leader. Shared idealism is also, in a way, the true bond linking reporters with the candidates they cover. Every one of the Democrats I have followed, despite human flaws and foibles, sincerely believes that he can successfully lead this nation through the remainder of this arduous and anguish-filled decade. If there is a charlatan or a chiseler among them, then he has certainly evaded my reportorial wiles. Far more likely, they are all good men seek­ing an unforgiving office in difficult times. Yes, some halos will be dented and some images soiled along the way, for presidential politics is not for the fainthearted. But these questers, these seek­ers, these dreamers, with whom I have shared the romance of the road, have won my admiration for daring to follow their ambi­tions as far and as high as fate will carry them.

  Now let's lean back and enjoy the rest of the show.

  Acknowledgments

  For the casual reader, this section is of primarily voyeuristic interest, the addendum from which you learn that Paris Hilton did the fact checking and Kim Jong Il provided the original inspi­ration for the book during a boozy lunch in Pyongyang. For the writer—especially one not used to brandishing statuettes over his head and shouting, "I'm King of the World"—this is a tricky moment, not from lack of gratitude but because our culture tends to ridicule those who breathlessly burble thanks to their nutri­tionist, their feng-shui consultant and their favorite barista at Starbucks.

  Still, having had more than my share of failed book projects over the past two decades, I come to this moment brimming with appreciation and keenly aware of my indebtedness to enough people to fill the Des Moines phone book. In my effort to achieve some sense of brevity and to gracefully leave the stage before my microphone is cut off, I apologize in advance for the inadvertent omissions in the list that follows. And, of course, despite the assistance that I have received from so many, errors in the text are solely my own responsibility.

  My publisher, Peter Osnos, deserves garlands for the trust that he has displayed over nearly twenty years—in a modern-day tri­umph of hope over experience, clinging to the belief that some­how, someday I would produce a book for him. Now that we have finally reached that moment, I am humbled by his persist­ent faith. Lisa Kaufman, who took over editing the manuscript at the midway point, has been a writer's dream with her insight, her graceful appreciation of language and structure and her enthusi­asm for the project. Paul Golob, now the editorial director at Times Books, had the genius to envision the contours of this book during a lunch in early July 2002 and the patience to guide a fledgling author through the thicket of his first chapter outline. Everyone else at PublicAffairs has more than earned my unflag­ging gratitude. I would also like to raise a toast to my agent, Flip Brophy, who was there whenever I needed her.

  As a writer with a demanding day job as columnist for USA Today, I want to thank my colleagues for the understanding and support that they gave me during this year-long project. In partic­ular, I want to express my indebtedness to Karen Jurgensen, the editor of the paper, Hal Ritter, the managing editor for news, and Bill Sternberg, who is my editor on the "Hype & Glory" column. I also benefited, as always, from the assistance of my USA Today compatriots on the campaign trail, especially Jill Lawrence and Susan Page.

  No list is more encyclopedic than the roster of campaign staffers and political insiders who have enthusiastically given me their time, their insights and their assistance with this project. One of the joys of covering presidential campaigns is the com­panionship of these practitioners of the political trade. Obviously not all of them will thrill to every paragraph and interpretation in this book, which is why I have decided not to include the lengthy roll call of my interview subjects. But there is a special category of staffers who made this book possible—the first person associ­ated with every major candidate who grasped what I was trying to accomplish with this chronicle of the Invisible Primary. So a grateful tip of the hat to Kate O'Connor (Howard Dean), Mike Briggs (John Edwards), Erik Smith (Dick Gephardt), Buddy Menn (Bob Graham), David Wade (John Kerry) and Sherry Brown (Joe Lieberman).

  If authors could award oak-leaf clusters, there is a small group of people whose exploits beyond the call of duty merit medals. Dotty Lynch, the political editor of CBS News, was the first out­side reader of this manuscript and offered invaluable corrections and suggestions. Alan and Sus
an Patricof graciously provided me with the opportunity to watch the candidates make their appeals to would-be fund-raisers in a setting normally off-limits to reporters. Yael Kohen's ability and enthusiasm as a research assistant was matched by her ability to find time for these labors away from her real job as a reporter with the New York Sun. Jere Coutere provided me with the best possible legal advice (good news) at the beginning of this project. And former Bill Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman deserves recognition as the first person to suggest to me that I should write an early book about the 2004 Democratic race.

  During this journalistic ordeal, I have been blessed by the steadfast support of friends who combined encouraging words with an understanding of my uncharacteristic need to abandon the social ramble for long days at the computer. In so many ways, large and small, I am grateful to Jenny Allen, Ann Banks, Bruce Buschel, Victoria Clark, Matt Cooper, Dennis Cowley, Tom Curley, Christine Doudna, Anita Dunn, Alan Ehrenhalt, Tricia Enright, Jules Feiffer, Howard Fineman, Julie Glass, Rick Grand-Jean, Mandy Grunwald, Jane Hartley, Rita Jacobs, Elaine Kamarck, Victoria Kaunitz, Joe Klein, Orin Kramer, Swoosie Kurtz, Alicia Lehner, Urban Lehner, Nancy Leonard, Karen McCarthy, Jayna Maleri, Judy Miller, Peter Petre, Jonathan Prince, Steve Rattner, Betsey and Stone Roberts, Christine and Jeff Rosen, Ralph Schlosstein, Mark Starr, Michelle and Steve Stoneburn, Michael Walsh, David Weisbrod, Jim Wetzler, Lucy White and Maureen White.

  Neither a book dedication nor an acknowledgments page offers me a large enough canvas to express how much I owe to my wife, Meryl Gordon. Beyond her constant encouragement, beyond her shrewd editing, beyond her laughter at my jokes, she is also the ideal reader whom I had in mind as I typed every word. It is faint praise to say that this book only exists because of Meryl. For, in truth, my entire life exists because of Meryl.