by Joe Klein
"No kiddin'." Stanton wasn't buying. He was eyeing the door, beginning to move.
Geraldo moved with him. "Look, you need to get your side of the story out. I can help you. We can do it any way you want, you set the ground rules."
Stanton stopped, stared at him: "Okay. Here are the ground rules: I'm the host and I pick the audience. How 'bout that?"
"Well," Geraldo said. "What about me?"
"Take the day off." Stanton laughed. "Go skiing. Look, I'm sorry. We've got a very tight schedule, and a very tough race." And we pushed on past him, toward the doors.
Jerry Rosen was moving out the door just as we were, although I didn't recognize him at first, all bundled up with a knit cap pulled down over his eyebrows. He looked ridiculous, as if his mother had just dressed him for school. "Hey, Jer, you look like Nanook of the North," the governor said.
"Cold out there, Governor," he said. "How you doin'?" "Pluggin' away. You comin' to Portsmouth with us?" "Naww--goin' down to Boston to see Ozio." He seemed almost apologetic. "Gotta stick with the local story." He shrugged.
Stanton put a conciliatory arm over his shoulders. "That's okay, Jerry. You gotta do what you gotta do. So, what'ya think?"
"Not good," he said. "I hear the Globe tracking has you down to the high teens. They say Martin's beginning to hot up."
It was old news--but interesting. We'd known the bottom had fallen out since Sunday; the scorps were just beginning to catch on. Rosen figured we were dead. You could see it in his body language, you could hear it in his voice.
"Jerry," Stanton said, fixing him with the old, entirely compelling Stanton intensity. "Listen to me. This is not over yet. It's not--" and he began to cough. We moved toward the van. Stanton ducked in, then looked back toward Rosen and smiled. "I'm gonna surprise you, Jerry."
"I hope so, Governor," Rosen said, opening up a little--then shutting down again abruptly, looking quickly around to see if any of his colleagues had caught his moment of weakness.
"Asshole," Stanton said, as we rolled off. "I'm last week and he's lookin' for next week. If he thinks next week is gonna be Ozio, he's nuts. But it's interesting, none of them think next week is going to be Harris. That fucker is going to win this thing, and everyone's already discounting it. They are looking for another storyline. If we're close, if we do better than expected, we're their story."
"You think so?" I asked.
"Who knows?" he said. "Danny, where are those fritters?"
"Here, G-governor," Danny offered them up front. "Y-y'know, y-you're gettin' too f-fat to be a corpse."
"Fatten' me up for the kill," Stanton said. "Least I won't die hungry."
The funeral would be well attended. The crowd in Portsmouth that night was astonishing. They were jammed into a small, bare, cinder-block union hall-it was an obscure local of a dying craft, a nineteenth-century vestige: the steamfitters, pipe welders or iron benders-something like that: a fraternal organization for people left behind, shipyard folks. They were sallow, defiantly overweight, both men and women wearing union or tavern windbreakers, sock hats, the men with facial hair, some of the women in curlers and smoking long cigarettes. There was a table in the back with coffee, cookies, tuna sandwiches on small, soft dinner rolls; another table with Stanton literature, which seemed as stale and discolored as the tuna. We were reaching the end of this thing.
We came in through the rear, through a rush of noise-Terry O'Leary, an ancient, gray man dressed entirely in polyester (burgundy jacket, yellowish shirt, stained striped gray tie, gray slacks) was playing jigs on the accordion, smiling wide through scattered teeth. He stopped when the governor came-played the first, famous bars of "Hail to the Chief," which would have seemed a cheesy sort of mockery if the old man hadn't assembled himself upright, in some distant shadow of martial dignity, chin tilted up, shoulders square. The music silenced the hall. Jerry Delmonico, the local president-an aging Elvis, his pompadour gone gray and thinning in the back-welcomed the governor, and said, "Now, Terry, howsabout let's play the national anthem." Which Terry did, and they all sang along, and then recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I could see jack Stanton was moved: this was the other end of the earth from the crowd in Los Angeles. It seemed, I thought, as if they hadn't been following the news the past few weeks, as if they had suddenly materialized from some pre-tabloid, pre-skeptical past-but that was wishful thinking on my part. Mickey Flanagan, the young-but ancient in the Boston way-advance guy who'd worked this stop, found me off to the side of the hall, grimaced and shrugged. " 'Smatter?" I asked. "This is good. You did great." "I did nothin'," Mickey said. "He's a celebrity now. He's in the Flash and he's real-it makes all the other things in the Flash seem real too. Space aliens. Miracle diets. He's given credibility to all the world's garbage. He's a touchstone of the tabloid faith. You can light candles to him."
I wondered if Stanton had picked that up. But of course he had, and it didn't matter. He would use whatever tools available. He was locked in now.
"I want to thank you for coming out tonight," the governor began. "I know you work hard, and don't have much time to relax." "Some of us have more'n we'd like," a younger, angry sort interrupted.
"Right, right. I understand that. In fact, let me see a show of hands, if you don't mind. How many of you have work now?" About half raised their hands. "How many of you are looking for work?" About a third. "Those of you who are working-let me ask you a question. As you look around the room at your brothers and neighbors and cousins who aren't as lucky as you-what do you see? Y'see people who wouldn't work if we gave 'ens a chance? Y'see people who'd rather stay home and watch the soaps?"
"I'd rather stay home and watch the soaps," a big, blowsy woman in curlers said, and they all laughed. "I'd rather do anything than punch in at Rizzuto's Dry Clean-"
"I'll bet," Stanton said, laughing along with them. He was with them all the way now. "My momma worked jobs like that when I was comin' up. And you know what? Before I was born, my mania was a sales clerk at Harry Truman's haberdashery in Kansas City-that's how Democrat we Stantons are."
There was a pleasant buzz, an intimacy in the room. (1 had never heard the Truman line before.) The governor was reaching out for them. "But after my daddy died and I was born, I remember seeing Momma come home from work, just bone-weary-y'know what I mean?" Heads were nodding. "I know she wanted to talk to me, and play with me, and ask me what I learned in school that day-but sometimes, you know how it is, you're just too tired to do anything
but pop a dinner in the microwave-though we didn't have microwaves back then, of course-and blob out in front of the tube." "You've got that one right," the blowsy woman said.
"So I know it isn't easy for the folks who do have work, either. The moms who have to work and have to worry 'bout what their kids are out doin' after school. And I'll bet there are more than a few dads who lost these shipyard jobs and have had to catch on doin' .. . whatever."
"Doing shit," someone shouted.
"Hey, you know what?" Jack Stanton said abruptly. "I am going to do something really outrageous here. Hell, everybody thinks I've bought the farm in this race anyway, so I got nothin' to lose. I'm going to do something really outrageous: I'm gonna tell you the truth." Cheers and laughter. "Yeah, I know what you're thinking: He must really be desperate to wanta do that." More laughter. "But okay. You've had to swallow enough sh- ah, garbage."
"You can say 'shit,' Governor," said the blowsy woman. "We're X-rated."
"Me too, if you believe what you read in the paper," he said, and the place exploded. "Now look, now look. Let me get serious a little. Let me tell you something. Truth Number One. There are two kinds of politicians in this world. Those who tell you what you want to hear-and those who never come around." There were cheers and laughter. "The second kind, the ones who don't come 'round here, they're the ones who tell the uptown folks what they want to hear. Those boys don't deliver much either."
"'Ceps at tax time," the blowsy woman said.
"
Fair enough. They do deliver then. But what's anyone done for you lately? Right?" Applause. They were curious now They wanted to know what was coming. (So did 1.) "Well, I'm here now, and I'm lookin' at you, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you what you wanted to hear in any case, right?" Nods and applause. "So let me tell you this: No politician can bring these shipyard jobs back. Or make your union strong again. No politician can make it be the way it used to be. Because we're living in a new world now, a world without borders-economically, that is. Guy can push a button in New York and move a billion dollars to Tokyo before you blink an eye. We've got a world market now. And that's good for some. In the end, you've gotta believe it's good for America. We come from everywhere in the world, so we're gonna have a leg up selling to everywhere in the world. Makes sense, right? But muscle jobs are gonna go where muscle labor is cheap--and that's not here. So if you all want to compete and do better, you're gonna have to exercise a different set of muscles, the ones between your ears."
"Uh-oh," said the woman.
And Stanton did something really dangerous then: he didn't indulge her humor. "Uh-oh is right," he said. "And anyone who gets up here and says he can do it for you isn't leveling with you. So I'm not gonna insult you by doing that. I'm going to tell you this: This whole country is gonna have to go back to school. We're gonna have to get smarter, learn new skills. And I will work overtime figuring out ways to help you get the skills you need. I'll make you this deal: I will work for you. I'll wake up every morning thinking about you. I'll fight and worry and sweat and bleed to get the money to make education a lifetime thing in this country, to give you the support you need to move on up. But you've got to do the heavy lifting your own selves. I can't do it for you, and I know it's not gonna be easy." He stopped, paused. There were no smartass remarks now.
"Y'know, I've taken some hits in this campaign. It hasn't been easy for me, or my family. It hasn't been fair, but it hasn't been anything compared to the hits a lot of you take every day. Takes a lot more courage to keep your family together, to keep on moving through a tough time, where you don't know what's comin' next, whether the paycheck's gonna be there next week, who's gonna pay the doctor bill, the mortgage--all the worries you have.
"So I've taken a few shots, but I can live with it. I'll get by. Hell, I'm lucky--I got my picture on the cover of a national newspaper. Maybe not the one I would've planned on. . ." There was some laughter, but this had become as intensely serious as I'd ever seen a political gathering. "And you know what? My picture there means that someone--maybe some group of people--thinks I'm worth taking a shot at. And you've got to ask yourselves: Why? Why is Jack Stanton worth the ton of garbage they're dumpin' on his head? It may be because that's the way things are in this country now-if the garbage is there, or can be made to seem like it's there, you dump it.
"Or it may be that there are two kinds of politicians-the ones who tell you what you want to hear and the ones who don't bother tellin' you anything at all. And maybe some folks aren't very interested in there being a third kind. You should think about that when you cast that vote next Tuesday."
And silence. As if they were thinking too hard to applaud.
"Henry?" Daisy said. "Why do I always come to your mom?" "It's neater?"
"No, seriously."
"Seriously? Hey, it's three in the morning."
"No, turn over," she said. "Look at me."
I looked at her. Her hair was tousled, and over her eyes; the tortoiseshell barrettes she used to pin it back were on the night table. She was cute. She was not beautiful. She was, more to the point, right there-in my face. The allure of Daisy was also the difficulty: she caught everything. She let nothing pass. "I know you care," she said. What to say.
"Henry"
I brushed her hair back with my hand; I did it twice.
"What I mean is, I would like to experience you in a noncampaign environment," she said.
"You may get that chance soon enough," I said.
"What I mean is . . . is exactly that. Next week. If we're in a non-campaign environment next week, I would like to experience you in that. Okay? Henry?" She looked at me. She went on. "I've got lots of miles. Miles and miles of miles. We could go to the Caribbean. I've got to many miles on American, we could take the space shuttle. We could lay on a beach. We could lay on a bed. We could really get laid-it'd be lahk pahradahse, we could have a wet bar in our room, room service, y'knowhattamean?" she said. "We could lick our wounds. We could lick each other. We could drink rum drinks-ylnow with little turquoise parachutes."
"Parasols."
"So you're on?" She giggled. "Gotcha. Nailed ya."
I pulled her close, kissed her hair. "What if we're not in a noncampaign environment?" I said. "What if we're still alive?"
"Well," she said. "For us to actually be alive-I mean, alive alive, not just Jack and Susan being stubborn and ridiculous. For us to actually be alive would take a run-and probably a Harris fuckup-that would be so spectacular, such a rush, that it would probably be even better than noncampaign sex with you. So that would be okay too."
"How do you know how noncampaign sex with use would be?" "Extrapolation. But, Henry, surely you-rational, sensible, dark-hearted you-surely you don't think we'll be alive a week from now. I know it was a hundred years ago-yesterday-but remember Newsweek?"
Newsweek had buried us with a derisive piece called "The Anatomy of a Flameout." Someone inside-Sporken was my guess-had given some classic distressed-mood-of-the-staff quotes. We were assumed toast. It was time for the consultants to start peeling off, cutting their losses, feeding the scorps obituary matter in order to fertilize the soil for their next campaigns. I was waiting, and dreading, the first sign that Richard had folded his hand. And here was Daisy, trying to act the classic professional, trying to distance herself, getting ready to go. "You see Nyhan in the Globe today," she went on:" 'A synthetic candidate meets his polyester epiphany?' Jeez."
"The Boston scorps all love Charlie Martin," I said. "He's hip. He's funny. He's almost Irish. Only trouble is, actual human-being folks don't get his act. They don't think running for president is performance art." I went up on one elbow. "Daisy, you should have seen Jack tonight-with the shipyard folks. Totally focused, disciplined, daring, just a great fucking candidate. He absolutely locked in. He bull's-eyed." "It's garbage time-no one's playing defense," she said. "When you ain't got nothin' there ain't nothin' to lose."
"I don't know," I said. "A week is a long time."
"Not when you're dead." She sighed.
"Daisy, do me a favor," I said softer, but harder. "Don't do the hardened professional number, okay? Don't play hired gun. I still care about them-lack and Susan. And I think you do too."
"Not as much as . . . you do," she said. "And: Shit-not as much as I do about you. Look. Henry. Okay. I'll admit it: I'm freaked. I'm pretty sure I fucked up my situation with Arlen these past couple of weeks. He seems cool enough, but he probably thinks-on some level-that I angled my way into the Stantons' hearts. No white boy from Mississippi, even a progressive one, likes to be upstaged by his junior partner. So I don't know what kind of future I have there. I also don't know what's going on with you." She didn't give me a chance to say anything-since she knew, perfectly well, that nothing I could say would meet her expectations. But she wanted the expectations out on the table, figuring that I was a decent enough guy not to slam-dunk her gratuitously, and so she hurried on. "I do suspect I got a commitment from you on the parasol drinks. I believe I tricked you into a quasi-commitment by forcing you, Mr. Pluperfection, to correct me when I said parachute instead of parasol. I believe that if I'm clever enough to do that, I deserve a whirl."
"Daise," I said, feeling-1 don't know. Feeling something. "You deserve more than a whirl. But you gotta believe we may not need to count frequent-flier miles for a couple more weeks. If for no other reason than to humor me."
"Okay, I believe. Sort of "
An interesting thing happened the next d
ay. People began to show up. Patsy McKinney, the blowsy wiseacre from the Portsmouth shipyard meeting was waiting for us in the lobby of the Hampton Inn at 6:00 A. M. "So where do I sign up-where you want me to work?" she asked. We sent her over to Brad Lieberman. By midday, three busloads had arrived after a long two-day trip, from Grace Junction-elementary school classmates of the governor's, the high school principal, half the faculty-and Beauregard Bryant Hastings, the Stanton family doctor, a fabulous-looking fellow, thin almost to the point of consumption, and tilted somehow, sort of like the Tower of Pisa, wearing a cape and a hat and small round glasses, like James Joyce, but with a long, wild mane of white hair: "Johnny," he said to the governor (it sounded like "Jattdmeh," as if a cotton boll had lodged in his throat, or perhaps it was just that his vocal chords had been sanded down by a lifetime of bourbon). "We ahre gon' to educate these Yawhnkehs 'bout the intrahcahcehs of inspahred governahnce, y'heah?"
College classmates drifted in; Susan's law students from the state university, and people we'd met and connected with along the way: Ms. Baum, the lady who ran the library literacy program in Harlem; Russ Delson, the state treasurer of Tennessee; Minnie Houston, a community activist from Cleveland--dozens like that, ready to do anything, lick envelopes, go door to door. The Hampton Inn was full, as was every room in Manchester, so Lieberman bought out whole motels in cities and towns around the state and dispatched groups to Nashua, Portsmouth, Lebanon, Keene. He did this so smoothly it was almost as if he had anticipated the throng. Our whole operation, so totally dispirited just days before, was running effortlessly, in high gear. On Thursday, Bill Johnson, the deputy attorney general of Alabama, was in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, waiting for us as we came in from a lunchtime swing. "Billy, what on earth? You up here for a ski vacation? President's Day weekend or somethin'?" Stanton asked. "I figured you needed another black face up here to sell these skinflint Yankees."
"Billy--"
"Shut up, Jack," Johnson said, hugging him. "Just put me to work." "Billy--I'm probably gonna get my ass kicked."