by Joe Klein
Rosen was the political writer at Manhattan magazine. He was a friendly--and an important--one. If he liked you, and wrote it, it meant New York money . . . usually. But not this year. He liked the governor, and had written it. But the New York money had stayed in New York pockets, because of Ozio. The Wall Street Dems weren't going anywhere until Double 0 made his move.
"I may have a message in the stack," I said.
"You might want to return that call," Stanton said. Rosen was known to be close to Ozio. "Don't tell him Jimmy's down here, but see what he knows."
I made the dinner arrangements with Jimmy, then called Jerry Rosen.
Jerry said he didn't know shit. But he was wrong. "Basic rule with Double 0: All rumors are false," he said. "There is no inside information. Even Jimmy doesn't know what his old man's up to. I talked to Orlando the other day--"
"And?"
"He was off the wall about Stanton. He said, What's he done? That state's last in everything. I said, He knows education. Orlando goes berserk: 'He doesn't know shit about education and he's trying to race-bait on welfare.' "
"He said this on the record?"
"Who ever knows with him? He's on, he's off, he's on and off three times in the same thought," Jerry said. "I'm gonna use it. He'll probably call and scream and call me a superficial fuck, but he'll be happy I used it."
"Why?"
"Keeps him in the game."
"So he's running?"
"Who knows? You figure that he can't go on like this, dicking around--he makes a fool of himself, lives up to his worst stereotype, Oscillating Ozio. But he just can't help himself. His fantasy is a race where he doesn't run and nobody else wins. For what it's worth, I think he's kind of edging toward doing it this time."
"Why?" I asked. "Anything solid?"
Rosen snorted. "Just a feeling. Pride. He's a proud guy. It would be so embarrassing for him to take another run up to it and then back away--start all those Mafia rumors again, give the late-night guys a year's worth of gags. He doesn't like being laughed at . . . which is why he always chickens out in the end. But this time, he's flicked either way: They laugh at him if he backs down. And if he rum--well, he's got to study up on things like what's a 4-H Club and how does it relate to the Future Farmers of America. Because if he gets it wrong, he wants to shoot himself. He drives himself nuts, explodes, takes it out on the press. Anyway, you think Stanton would want to respond to what Ozio said about him, the stuff I'm gonna quote? That's what I was calling you about." "I'll see," I said. Right. In a million years, he wants to get into a pissing match with Orlando Ozio.
"Look, even if Orlando's in, I think you beat him," Jerry said, and actually sounded like he meant it. "I was up with Stanton in Derry last week, a high school--awesome."
"You ever see Orlando do a high school?" I asked.
"Oh sure, he's terrific. But that's not his problem," Rosen said. "We are. He can scream at me. I'm from Brooklyn. I know from screaming. Wait till Orlando has to deal with Americans-of-the-press. Wait till the guy from the Concord Monitor gets his first six A. M. screaming phone call, 'You're an assassin, a flicking assassin!' I would say he blows his stack in the first seventy-two hours. His polls peak the first day of the campaign. He begins to slide. He can't handle adversity. It could be very ugly"
"We'll see," I said.
"Or we won't see."
I was at the Mansion about ten minutes early, just in case the governor needed anything. Susan called down from the top of the stairs: "Henry? You're going to want to see the Human Torch. He's in the study" Richard Jemmons was curled up on the couch, hands pressed between his legs, as if they'd been sucked into his thighs, watching The Honeymooners on the big screen. I clicked it off and said, "To the moon, Alice."
"On."
"No."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck me? You stupid redneck sonofabitch. What goes on in that fucked-up head of yours? You never heard of Anita Hill? Man, you are so lucky she's cool."
"I wouldna done it if she wasn't cool," he sneered.
"Richard, you will not do that again." It was Susan, in the doorway. "You will not even wink at a muffin. You will not call any person who works for us Winona, even if her name is Winona. If you do, the best you can hope for is that we'll can your butt. A more likely scenario is that I'll conic after your scrawny little ding-a-ling with a pair of garden shears."
The governor came in. He didn't say anything; he just let Susan handle it. He was wearing a short-sleeved knit shirt--colors of the nineties, purple and teal--jeans and cowboy boots. Both Stantons, in fact, were wearing jeans. The effect was not overwhelming, in either case. In fact, their studied informality seemed particularly lame when Jimmy Ozio came in--still in his black suit, white shirt, gray tie. "Hey," Jack Stanton said. It was Southern for hi, but with some yelp mixed in, I thought, as Ozio crunched his hand. A campaigning pol's hands are, inevitably, pretty tender from overwork. Jimmy nodded around, once again casing the joint. He saw Richard on the couch. "You're Dick Jemmons?" He said.
"Richard," Richard said, pulling a hand out from between his legs, but still stuck in fetal on the couch. "Yeah."
"Nice work in Jersey last year," Jimmy said. "Orlando thinks you're almost as smart as he is."
Very nice: a light touch, making fun of the old man. Jimmy was a pro. This wasn't going to be easy.
"So, you like barbecue?" the governor asked.
"Hamburgers and hot dogs?" Jimmy's game was elegant: You play Southern, I'll play Northern. We'll see who cuts the shit first. "We're gonna have to take you out to a real, old-fashioned Southern pit barbecue," the governor said. "What you say, Richard? Wet or dry?"
"The boy takes off that tie, we can take him to Fat Willie's," Richard said. "Ozio, you ever eat pig with your hands?"
"Raw or cooked?"
it magnificent. He and Susan had Jimmy in the Bronco; I trailed with Richard in my old Honda. "So y'all livin' down here?" he asked. I wasn't living much of anywhere. I'd spent the first few months with the governor, often just the two of us, traveling the country. It was an apprenticeship. I learned how he worked, and thought. We had entered the race officially in September, but it didn't change the routine much. We did the money thing, mostly--but he didn't get all googly around rich people, the way most pols do; nor did he carp about them behind their backs. Money had no magic for him; the folks did. He was lovely with the people, dispensing his meaningful handshakes, listening to their stories; he had a knack--no, it was more than a knack; it was something deeper, more profound and respectful--for making it clear that he had listened to them and understood, and cared. He never left a room--it was small rooms, mostly, those first few months--without knowing everyone's name, and he would remember them. Even in New Hampshire, a state that seemed to have a magnetic attraction for chilly, pale, pinched skeptics. Not his crowd, you'd figure. But we moved from living room to living room, coffee to coffee. The governor tilled and mulched slowly, carefully, lovingly; he allowed them their skepticism, encouraged it, joked about it: "I don't want y'all to make up your minds too soon, now," he'd say. "Take a look at the field, think about it. You still have a hundred and twenty-three days"--or whatever it was (he always knew)--"before you determine the fate of the republic."
He enjoyed this, and them. And more: He loved what it was about. He loved governance--especially executive governance. (Legislators were a different, somewhat less interesting species.) In two months I'd learned more from him about the public sector--the people's business--than I had in five years with Larkin. We always hit the statehouse, wherever we went--and he never had to ask for directions. He always knew where the governor's office was--sometimes other officials as well. He was ecumenical. He liked them all. It didn't matter if they were Democrats or Republicans. He could tell you what every last governor had done, what their strengths and weaknesses were. The amount of information was staggering--but even more impressive was the energy, and interest, he put into it. A bureaucrat somewhere--in L
ansing, in Austin--might tell him a new way to work
Clean Air money, and he'd put the big ears on, and he'd stay and stay, we'd fall hours behind, it didn't matter. He wouldn't leave there until he'd drained the guy.
It would pay off, too. He was a human clearinghouse; he cross-pollinated. One time we were in Montgomery, wandering through the state capitol--a building that had deep, fearful resonances for me, the cradle of the Confederacy, George Wallace's joint--and he said, "Henry, you're freaked, I can feel it. I'm gonna make you feel all shiny and good."
He dragged me down a hallway, to the attorney general's office. "Now, Jim Bob Simmons, he's the boss here--and not a bad fella," he explained, "but I'm gonna show you the real brains of the operation. Hey, Betty," he said to the receptionist, a drab white woman with great butterfly eyeglasses, for whom the blush of youth had faded much too soon. "Your momma back on her feet again?"
"You bet, Governor," she said, matter-of-fact, as if governors were always stopping by to ask about her mother. "But the chemotherapy was a bitch."
Stanton stopped, squatted down next to the woman, took her hand. "But she's clear now?"
"So they say."
"Ain't that the truth," he said, snagging a couple of Fig Newtons from her half-opened top drawer. "You never know. She a churchgoin' woman?"
"Every Sunday."
"You go with her?"
Betty hesitated. Stanton took her hand. "Look, honey, you might think about that--goin' with her. Specially now You can ask your husband to take the kids-- Ray, right?"
She nodded, and now began to tear up. "He's got so much, Governor--long-haulin'. He comes in Saturday night, he's just dead." "Yeah, I guess," Stanton said, pulling her closer and giving a gentle peck on the side of her forehead. "But you think about it. Mean a lot to your momma. Maybe you take the kids, put them in Sunday school, or with a friend, or somethin'. . . . So where's my man? He's gotta be here, right? He ain't off dove-huntin' or anything?"
"I just buzzed him," Betty said, and a tall, thin black man came through the door. Stanton stood up, brightened, and threw his arms around him.
"You coulda called," the black man said.
"Coulda, shoulda, woulda--just passin' through, Billy," he said. "This is Henry Burton, my new drone. Henry, this is William J. Johnson, deputy attorney general of the state of Alabama, a great American but a semiretard when it came to Torts."
"Pleased to meet you," Johnson said, his enormous hand swallowing mine. "What the governor neglected to tell you was that my notes got him through Contracts the year he decided to manage a hippie runnin' for Senate down here, 'stead of hangin' out and being a student like a normal person."
"He wasn't a hippie," Stanton said. "Just antiwar."
"Last I heard, Jack, he was livin' on a farm in northern California, makin' goddamn furniture."
"You seen the stuff?" Stanton said. "It is awesome great. We're sleepin' under his headboard, at the Mansion."
"C'mon back, you fool," Johnson said, throwing an arm over Stan-ton's shoulder.
It was a small office, piled with reports and lawbooks, diplomas on the wall, pictures of Bill Johnson elegant in midair, driving the lane against Michigan in the NCAAs--and another picture ofJohnson, in an enormous Afro, with Jack Stanton, his face camouflaged by what appeared to be a costume mustache, sitting side by side on a couch, deep in what seemed a very serious conversation. It was a surprisingly intimate photograph for a politician's wall--usually, you don't want to risk much beyond your children's orthodontia and handshakes with people more famous than you--and it moved me. "Law school," Johnson explained, noticing my interest. "What were we arguing aboutjack? Sending the North Vietnamese guns or bandages?" "Naww, you were pined off at me for asking your sister out," Stanton said.
"Susan was pined off at you 'bout that," Johnson replied. "I thought Cyrilla'd teach you some manners, 'specially 'bout not eating off other folks' plates. You remember what we really were talking about?"
Stanton nodded. "What we always talked about: white folks. Dr. King had just died--"
"No, it was months later--it was Bobby," Johnson said. "We were in finals. You were about to go off to work for him. Remember, you were trying to get Professor Screechy--whatsisname . . ." "Markowitz."
"Yeah, Markowitz--to reschedule torts, or let you take it long-distance, so you could be out there on primary night?"
"Yeah, I remember," Stanton said softly.
"You figured you would've spotted Sirhan."
"And you were ready to pick up a gun, or somethin'."
"Right," Johnson said, turning to me. "This asshole talked me out of it. I was ready to walk out of law school. I mean, what was law? Who gave a shit about law with all our guys gettin' capped? But he said we had to stick with it, stick with the program. I had to think about my responsibility to the kids, the message I'd be sending if I walked. 'A lot of people would like to believe a black ballplayer can't make it through Harvard Law,' he said. 'You're givin' them aid and comfort if you don't.' Right, Jack? And look where it got me," he said, spreading his arms and nearly touching the two side walls, "--the lap of luxury, right?"
"You wouldn't trade it for a white-shoe partnership if your life depended on it," Stanton said.
"If my wife depended on it?" Johnson laughed. "Lucky she don't depend on my measly bucks--she's makin' a fortune"--he glanced over at me--"teaching elementary school." He reached into a small refrigerator and tossed the governor a Diet Dr Pepper. He nodded toward me, I gave him the high sign and he tossed me one. They talked wives. They talked shop.
"You gonna go for it, now Jim Bob's lookin' to move up?" Stanton asked.
"Can't--it's still Alabama," Johnson said. "Might ifJim Bob or the governor endorsed me. But they're too cute for that. Why risk a single, skinny-assed redneck vote?"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh," Stanton nodded, then got serious. "Now listen, Billy. I know you got a family to support, can't do it now--but I want you to think about coming on with me y'hear? I need you, man. I make it, you can start house-shopping in Arlington, okay?"
"Vice president's staff don't pay too good, I hear," Johnson said. "0 ye of little faith," Stanton said. "You didn't think I could pass Contracts either."
"Not without going to class."
"But I did, I seem to recall," Stanton said. "Now look, tell me 'bout my favorite program. If I'm gonna try it, you'd better have made it happen." He turned to me: "Dr. Johnson over here has been lifting driver licenses off of kids who are truant in three counties for the past year."
"Attendance up twenty percent," Johnson said. "Dropout rate down ten percent."
Stanton whistled. "Now aren't you glad I talked you out of pickin' up the gun?"
The point is: a week later we were up in New Hampshire, talking to a small group of state legislators in some bare, pathetic law office conference room in Concord--a woman from North Conway brings up youth problems, the French Canadian kids dropping out of high school--and Stanton says, "Look, you gotta call William Johnson, friend of mine, deputy attorney general down in Alabama. He's got this program." Afterward, Delia Schubert, a rep from the Seacoast--middle-aged, standard-issue enviro type comes up, aflutter and says, "I've met your boss twice and both times he taught me something. Is he always like that?"
Yes he was, and she was on board. We were picking up a sprinkling of locals like that, very retail. Stanton was gaining strength, on the merits, from people who knew better, who knew their best shot was to hang out, stay uncommitted, wait for Ozio--they could always come over to us if Orlando passed on the race or stumbled. But they just couldn't help themselves. He was so good they just couldn't wait. I was very proud to be working for him.
So we did the country. He never talked all that much about the ultimate prize--it was almost, at times, as if we were running for governor of America--largely because the big show hadn't really begun yet. Stanton figured (correctly, as it turned out) the campaign wouldn't begin until Ozio made up his mind or the New Year, which
ever came first. There was no way of knowing what it would be like, the shape and intensity of the thing, or what would matter. He understood that. He'd watch the opponents, and potential opponents, very carefully. He wasn't impressed. Three senators--two active, one former--had announced at that point. The most plausible of them was Charlie Martin, a Vietnam war hero and another boomer. Stanton liked him but didn't take him very seriously: Charlie had just decided, spur of the moment, to run. He hadn't thought it through. "He's a resume searchin' for a reason," Stanton said. A couple of weeks after he declared, Martin called the governor and said, "Hey, Jack, man, is this a trip? Can you believe we're really doing it?" Stanton had said something expected, like Yeah, it's wild, running for president of the United States, but he was disdainful when he hung up. "A war hero and he doesn't have the discipline to do this thing straight on," he said. "No footprints, Henry. None of these boys are leaving any footprints."
Nor did he, in his way. He taught me everything, told me nothing. Gradually, I came to see how he devoured every aspect of public life--nuances, and hints of nuance, that only he knew existed. It was, I imagine, something like the way a hawk sees the ground--every insect, every blade of grass is distinct, yet kept in perspective. I came to know how he'd react to any new situation; I learned to read his moods, when to talk and when not. I became inured to personal details, his chronic heartburn, his allergies. I became his Maalox bearer. I saw him angry, and thrilled, and frustrated, and depressed. I learned what sort of information he needed immediately--we had little cards I'd put in front of him--and which I could hold back until we had a break. There was intense familiarity, but no intimacy. He never talked about anything personal, about Susan, about their son, Jackie, about his Bronco wanderings, about his childhood--never really talked about them, beyond the public storehouse of stories told and reported. He was incredibly undisciplined about time, and making decisions, and figuring out who should do what on staff, but there was a strict precision about self-revelation. He was always in control. Lately, as we began to build a staff, he'd been leaving me back at headquarters more often. The training was over. He trusted me now to see things the way he would, to get things ready for the show. I understood the motivation but still suffered staffer pangs: Where he was was where it was. I wanted to be there.