Primary Colors

by Joe Klein

  "So, Richard, you're him-what do you do?" Susan asked.

  "Play regional. He's probably got Maine this weekend. Win Massachusetts, try and establish myself out west-Colorado may not be a bad state for him. Hope to survive Super Tuesday by pulling a Dukakis-picking off enough in south Florida to seem plausible, then pray for a split in Illinois and Michigan. And nail us in the big states back east-New York and Pennsylvania."

  "He's not gonna play in Illinois or Michigan," Brad Lieberman said. "You imagine him sellin' auto workers on a gas tax? You think he's ever met a black person?"

  "We've got to stop him before that, down here," Richard said. "It's not a question of stopping him," the governor said. "It's a question of starting us. I mean, if this is a fair fight, a normal campaign, we can take him out easy. Arlen and Daisy probably got the silver bullet in the can already-am I right?" Arlen nodded, started to speak, but Stanton put up a hand. "But that's not our problem. Our problem is, the American people think I'm an airhead. Now, Arlen, you tell me how we correct that in thirty seconds?"

  "Issues spots?"

  "Spots are spots," the governor said. "They're like this shitty cardboard popcorn. They don't fill you up. We need to figure out some more basic way to connect."

  "You could try some speeches," said Ken Spiegelman, his first foray on our turf "You could give a series of speeches, real thoughtful speeches, lay out the differences with Harris on taxes, foreign policy . ."

  "No one would cover them," I said, maybe a little too abruptly. "Actually, it'd be worse than that. The scorps would ignore the substance and use the fact of the speeches against us, as a failed ploy, part of the horse race-Stanton trying to compete with the intellectual Professor Harris."

  "Anyway, you're not gonna win that cohort, the MacNeil-Lehrer tribe," Leon said, so matter-of-factly that it almost seemed cruel. jack and Susan glanced at each other quickly, then both, simultaneously, stared down at their hands. "You've got some promising grazing land farther down the ed and income scales-and those folks aren't going to respond to elegant policy formulations."

  "So tell me," the governor asked. "How do we move this thing from retail to wholesale? How do we do the stuff we did in the malls and the union halls the last few weeks, how do we do that if we're hopping from tarmac to tarmac in a big plane, shut off from the folks by Secret Service? Except, of course, for the folks we touch up at fund-raisers? How do we reach the folks 'down the ed and income scales,' half of whom think I'm just that bozo in the National Flash? . . . How do you do politics in a country that hates politicians? How do we show 'em who I really am?"

  No one had a clue.

  "So, am I a pumpkin?" Daisy asked. It was one in the morning. I was asleep. "Are you asleep?"

  "Unh."

  "Sorry."

  " 'Sokay . . ."

  "I can't believe you're back down there-and I'm up here," she said. "It's like what happened to Lloyd Bridges when he surfaced too fast on Sea Hunt. My stomach hurts, like someone's wringing it out. My arms and legs hurt-and you're asleep, and pissed at me now, because, I mean, after all: don't you have a right to get some sleep?"

  "Don't worry about it. How're you? What's new?"

  "You tell me. Am I a pumpkin?"

  "Huh?"

  "Well, they have the first big post--New Hampshire meeting down at the Mansion. Half the known world is there. Arlen is there. Lucille is there. I'm not invited. What gives, Henry?"

  "Nothing. It probably doesn't mean anything." But I had wondered about that. "Everyone's still a little foggy. Nothing happened at the meeting, except Howard's campaign manager now--"

  "Howard the Furtive Cipher? That should straighten things right out. What else happened?"

  "Richard said Harris's probably gonna hire David Adler."

  "That's old news--Hotline this morning. I heard it was gonna be Paul Shaplen."

  "Who?"

  "Old labor guy--used to work for the Mine Workers, ran a couple of the reform campaigns. I think maybe the one where the guy got killed. Works out of Louisville. Guess Harris figured this guy could help with two colors--blue-collars and rednecks. Not a bad move, if he's any good. But this isn't an easy game."

  "Tell me about it," I yawned.

  "I'm sorry, Henry," she said. "For waking you, and for being paranoid after hours."

  "No, it's okay. Wish you were here."

  "I'm thinking about it, thinking what it's like there right about now--the silence of that place, the river, your orderly refrigerator, your warm little body."

  "Could be warmer," I said.

  "This is even more pathetic than campaign sex," she said. "Phone sex."

  "Are you doing something I should know about?"

  "No, but I may after I hang up," she said. "Night, sweetie."

  I met Howard the Furtive Cipher at campaign headquarters in mid-

  morning. He was in his usual costume--rumpled gray pin-striped suit, flower tie. He offered a thin, ironic half-smile. "You're not really my deputy," he said immediately. "And I'm not really the campaign manager. We do what we always did."

  "React calmly in the face of utter turmoil?"

  Another thin smile. "Whatever they want us to do," he said. "Let's go. You know the way. You drive."

  We took his rented white Taurus. I thought about engaging him along the way, but I was too nervous. Howard was as ever-calm, pale, ultra-energy-absorbent. He stowed a battered brown-leather briefcase in the backseat. He sat next to me, staring straight ahead. He was a Irian who never seemed curious, who never fidgeted.

  It was a fine, sunny day, and Fat Willie was outside, taking down the heavy plastic windbreak, preparing his place for spring. He was wearing a fresh white shirt and pants, and a red "M. E Boosters" baseball cap. He started a smile when he saw me, but stopped when he saw that the white man getting out of the car was not Governor Stanton. "'Mornin'," he said, tentatively.

  Howard did not introduce himself. He just stood there. "Willie," I said, "this is Howard Ferguson. He works with the governor too." Willie eyed Howard. Howard nodded, offered a hand, said hello. "Well," Willie said finally. "What can I do for you?"

  Howard said nothing. This was going to be awful. "Willie, could we sit down and talk a minute?" I asked.

  "Sure 'nuf," he said. "Can I get y'anything? Coffee?"

  "No thanks," I said. Howard said nothing, but shook his head-no. Willie led us to the picnic tables just to the side of his kitchen trailer shack, an area still protected by the plastic windbreak. He sat down facing us. Howard put his attache case flat on the table in front of him, clicked it open, took out a yellow legal pad and what looked like court papers, then clicked the case shut and stowed it. Willie watched all this very carefully-which, of course, had been Howard's intention: intimidation. Willie glanced at me; I gave him nothing back.

  "Mr. McCollister, the governor is very concerned about this situation with your daughter and the possible damage it might cause to his reputation," Howard Ferguson began, his voice as small and hard as a bullet. Willie glanced at me; I gave him nothing back, God forgive me. "He wants to see it resolved. He wants paternity to be established, definitively, as soon as possible."

  Willie was confined. Was this inan saying the governor wanted to admit paternity? "The governor's a-"

  "He wants your daughter to have an amniocentesis performed so that paternity can be established," Howard continued, barging through whatever it was Willie was going to say. There were no wasted words, no wasted movements. This was the way black folks figured white folks did business-no grease, no grace, no emotions. Howard, who came from midwestern hard-sod stock, was the quintessential, lipless white man.

  "A what?" Willie said. He wiped his brow. He looked at me. I stared at the table.

  "It is a procedure, performed at the hospital. Amniotic fluid is drawn from your daughter's womb. Genetic material is analyzed. It can be compared with the governor's blood to determine whether or not he is the father."

  "I don't-" Willie sai
d.

  "It's a common enough procedure," Howard said, more casually. He was talking down to Willie now. "It is used to determine the health of the fetus-and that is why you will say you want it performed, to make sure the baby is healthy."

  "How do you . . . get the fluid?"

  "A needle is inserted through the abdomen," Howard said. Willie didn't quite wince; he wiped his eye. "Don't worry, Mr. McCollister-this is a common procedure, and the governor insists that it will be performed by the very best people available. Your daughter will be treated at Mercy Hospital, which will also ensure confidentiality."

  "Mercy, huh?" Willie said. Mercy was considered the white folks' hospital. "And the governor wants-"

  "The governor insists," Howard said. "There are people, Mr. McCollister, who would like to destroy Governor Stanton. He doesn't believe you are one of them. He believes you are his friend. But he can't allow this. You can't allow this. I am sure your daughter is a fine young person, but she is a child, and children are impressionable-and there has been a lot of news about the governor in recent weeks. She hasn't said a word about this to anyone?"

  Willie shook his head. "I tol' her," he said. "She's a good girl."

  "Well, I certainly hope so," Howard said. "You wouldn't want to jeopardize your relationship with the governor and Mrs. Stanton. The governor wants to do everything possible to help you through this time. The Stantons are prepared to be very generous. This procedure will cost you nothing. The governor is prepared to cover all pre- and postnatal expenses. He will do this because he believes you are his friend. But you must cooperate. We must determine-to everyone's satisfaction-that he is not the father of that child. I'm sure you understand his position."

  Without waiting for a response, Howard pulled up his attache case, put his phony papers back in it. He stood up, offered William McCollister his card. "Please call me at this number, and we will make all the necessary arrangements."

  Willie nodded. He shook Howard's hand. He didn't shake mine; this time, he didn't even look at me.

  We pulled away and I felt dizzy. Howard sighed. "What do you think?" he asked.

  "I don't know."

  "I can't believe she won't tell someone, tell a friend, and then we're fucked," Howard said. "Well, maybe not. Say she tells some friends, say it begins to get around-we can just say it's a copycat, a copycat Cashmere." He laughed-a thin, throaty heh-heh, the bloodless fuck. "There might even be a blowback from it, a sympathy reaction, work in our favor."

  "They're good people," I said. "And if she doesn't tell anyone, doesn't that indicate she's probably making this thing up?"

  "That she's pregnant?"

  "No, about the governor."

  "You believe that?" Howard asked.

  I missed a red light and was nearly hit by a truck coming the other way. I pulled over to the side of the mad, sick to my stomach. I leaned out the door and vomited.

  Howard just shook his head.

  Our political family was splintered. Richard, Arlen and Daisy were back in Washington. Brad, Howard, Lucille and I were in Mammoth Falls. Susan worked her own schedule. And the candidate flew about, doing foolish, mechanical things. He did a lot of satellite interviews. These would happen around midday, in a television studio-inevitably a flat, nondescript building with satellite dishes, located in an industrial park. He would sit in a room alone, backlit in mentholated blue. He would have an earpiece and a glass of water. He would have a list of stations and anchor names:

  WHR. C-Charlotte, NC-Richard and Cheryl. WGUL-Charleston, SC-Brody and Kelly. WANB-Anniston, AL-Kelly and Chuck.

  And so on.

  He would do ten, twelve, seventeen at a shot. Five minutes each. Always the same. Always the same first question-and the same evasion: "Awww, Kelly-I don't think folks really care about that. They're concerned about the economy. About what's gonna happen down there in Charleston when the base closes." They were also concerned about what the government was going to do about crime, about education, about . . . It was awful. He would rip out the earpiece when it was over and stomp around. "Tell me, Laurene," he said one day, "what was it about America twenty years ago that caused every third woman, white and black, to name her daughter Kelly?" "I dunno," Laurene said. "Charlie's Angels?"

  The governor was suffering from severe human-contact withdrawal. He would devour every employee in every television station, lingering over their personal stories and their problems, hungry for the sort of campaigning he'd done in New Hampshire. But there was very little of that now. He did three states a day, unless it was Florida or Texas, where he did three markets a day. The weather was better-it was spring-but he didn't experience it much. He experienced airports and hotel ballrooms and hotel rooms, and the plane.

  The plane was as hermetic an experience as the rest of the campaign, only more intense. He could feel the presence of the traveling scorps in the rear; there was the appearance of interaction-he'd go back once a day, just before takeoff, chat in the aisle, say nothing. Laurene and her people tried to keep the scorps occupied-a losing battle, since nothing was happening most days, at least nothing they could see or report. It was all fund-raising and local organizing, and five-minute noninterviews with local anchors. I was happy, for once, not to be too much a part of this. I traveled with the candidate several days a week, mostly weekends, when the bigger public events-debates, rallies-happened; the rest of the time I spent back in Mammoth Falls, working the phones, doing stuff.

  I didn't hear anything more from Howard, or anyone else, about the McCollister situation, and I never asked. I let it slip into the black hole that was Howard Ferguson's portfolio: it was the campaign manager's job to worry about the unspeakable. But I was obsessed by it, pained by it. I'm pretty sure I dreamed about it-horrible dreams that lingered just beyond the edge of my consciousness. I was disgusted by what I had done. I was ashamed. I didn't want to think about what came next. I started running again. Daisy and I agreed to go see Terminator 2 simultaneously, in our respective cities-she, for the third time-and then talk about it. I was beginning to like action movies.

  The campaign unfolded much as we expected. We lost Maine. We lost South Dakota-Bart Nilson won that, even though he'd already dropped out. The next day he endorsed us, and we put him on the plane with Stanton, hoping his prairie integrity would give us a boost in Colorado. We certainly needed one. Harris was all over the air, running a spot we called "Rocky Mountain Hiya," in which he stood in a mountain meadow wearing a plaid shirt and said, "Hello to you, Colorado. My name is Lawrence Harris and I'm running for president. I'm a college teacher, a former United States senator from New Hampshire, which is a state very much like yours-a beautiful state, a place where people really care about the environment, but a place that's suffering some tough economic times, just like Colorado. I think our government should do something about that. We can invest in the future, invest in environmental technology, create new jobs while building a cleaner future for our children." And again, as in New Hampshire, there was a rush of children into his arms. "And our . . ."-he was laughing now-"grandchildren."

  "Shit, he's a pol," Richard said on the phone, after seeing a dub of the "Hiya" spot. "All of a sudden he wants to start spending fuckin' money on the fuckin' environment! Is pork a natural force?"

  "Well, he never said he didn't want to spend money," I said. "He just said he wanted to raise taxes."

  "Henri, coupla things about that spot got me worried," Richard said. "Notice how they have him saying college teacher instead of professor? And the way spending money on the environment flows naturally from his 'Natural Forces' bullshit. This guy Shaplen ain't bad." "But he's still stuck peddling Lawrence Harris."

  "No one knows who or what Lawrence Harris is," Richard said. "And no one's gonna know. He's gonna be in and out of this state by next Tuesday. All they gonna know is what they see on the tube. He could get up there and say, 'I'm Lawrence Harris and I used to play professional football,' and no one'd know any different, specially sin
ce we ain't telling them any different. You can't convince Jack to fire off one of our silver bullets?"

  "No. He's positive negative'll boomerang," I said.

  "How about comparative?" Richard said. "Hi, I'm Jack Stanton and I'm a human being. My opponent is Lawrence Harris, and he has a cork up his ass."

  "Forget about it."

  "So we're just sittin' out there doin' Fast Times at Bronx Science?" Which was what Richard called our main Colorado spot, which featured Jack Stanton speaking to high school kids-and giving a much less convincing version of the speech I'd seen him deliver at the union hall in Portsmouth: "No politician can promise you a secure future," he said, sitting on a school desk in a dark suit, a demographically correct display of acne-free teenagers in front of him. "We're going to have to compete hard against the rest of the world for the best jobs-I want you to have a leg up in that competition, and so I'll work overtime to make sure our schools and colleges are second to none. But we're all going to have to work harder."

  "It's a fucking reversal of fortune is what it is," Richard said. "Harris is promising pork. We're promising hard times. And you know what? People still think we're the airhead. This ain't makin' it, Henri."

  I knew that. I knew it even better after Harris clobbered us in the Colorado debate, the Saturday night before the primary in Denver. It was a strange evening. Susan wasn't there. I flew in last minute. There had been no real debate prep, just Stanton and Bart Nilson putting their heads together with the plane people-Ken Spiegelman, who was flying around with the candidate, keeping the governor's mind occupied, talking issues, and Laurene. None of the political folks were around. I caught up with the candidate just as the debate prep was breaking up, just as he was about to walk through the labyrinthine postmodern series of overhead walkways from the hotel, through some other building, into a generic concrete and cinder-block convention center. The debate would be held in a stark, overlit corner of a large, echoey warehouse of a room, empty except for two thin rows of spectators.

  It didn't feel good. And it was strange to see Charlie Martin still there, waiting, when we arrived. I'd almost forgotten about him. He was out of money and out of the news but still hanging around in the race and onstage. It must have been painful for him: he was extraneous, the story had passed him by. He tried to attack both Harris and us, but no one paid him any attention, especially not after Harris lowered the boom on us.