by Joe Klein
Izzy, who was eighty, had a sense of humor but not much of a following. His show was called the Israel Rosenblatt Hour, but he liked to call it "Shmooze for Jews"-and he kept it light, gossipy; no serious policy stuff for Izzy, mostly nostalgia and spritz. In fact, what he really wanted to know from Stanton was about Momma and where she liked to go in Vegas, who her favorite acts were and whether she took another card or stood pat when she was holding 16. Stanton was talking about how her favorite song was Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler" when Izzy interrupted him and said, "Funny thing, Governor, we've got Senator Harris on the phone . . . Well, this is an honor."
Stanton turned around and looked at me.
"Senator," Izzy said, "we were just talking about Governor Stan-ton's mother and how she just loves Vegas-does your mother have a favorite vacation spot?"
"My mother is dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"And Jack Stanton should be ashamed of the way he's scaring a lot of other elderly people down here."
"Scaring?" Izzy said.
"He's telling them that I'm going to cut their Social Security and-"
"Aw, c'mon, Larry," Stanton interrupted-but calmly, casually. "It's in your book. It's part of that 'classroom exercise' you were so all-fired huffy about up in New Hampshire."
"Jack, you let me-"
"GENTLEMEN!" Izzy said. Then laughed: "Hey, folks, it worked."
"Jack," Harris resumed, "everyone knows what you're doing down here, the sleazy politics you're playing."
"Izzy," Stanton said. "Okay if I get a word in here? I'd like to ask Senator Harris a question."
"Go ahead, Governor."
"Now, Larry, I'm looking at your campaign book, page eighteen-paragraph three." He wasn't looking at the book. He had memorized the passage. But it sounded good. "What exactly does it mean when you say you want to 'study' a freeze in cost-of-living adjustments?" "That's only one possibility," Harris said. "We might want to rework how COLAs are calculated."
"He isn't talking about soft drinks, Izzy," Stanton said. "A COLA is a cost-of-living adjustment. It means that we raise your Social Security to keep up with inflation. Senator Harris doesn't think that's such a good idea."
"Now wait a minute, I didn't say that," Harris said.
"Well, what do you mean, Larry? It's right here in your book." "I'm saying it has to be studied," Harris said. "Who knows? We might even want to raise COLAs."
"Raise them?" Stanton asked, feigning surprise. "But it says right here you want to study freezing them. Folks, I've told you what I'd do: I won't mess with your Social Security. Senator Harris can't seem to make up his mind."
"Jack, that's outrageous."
"Larry, you want to go on to Medicare, the Middle East-I'm happy to talk about all your problems."
Izzy wasn't. He wanted his show back. "Senator Harris, do you have a favorite comedian?"
"This whole campaign is a joke," Harris fumed. "It's a clear demonstration of why people are disgusted with politics and politicians, why it's so hard to have an honest discussion of the issues." "Larry, I'm telling them what my positions are," Stanton said, "You're the one who-"
"You're distorting my positions!"
"No," Stanton said. "You just can't defend your-"
"Not when you play these games- Folks, we just can't afford to keep spending money like this."
"But you just said you might want to spend more on COLAs," Stanton said. "Larry, I think you're confused."
"But I I. . . I . . ." Harris seemed to cough twice. "Excuse me," he said. "Unh," he said. "Listen," he said. "Excuse me." And the line went dead.
When the Izzy show was over, Stanton asked: "What happened? Did he hang up or what?"
I didn't know.
"You think he's okay?"
He was on the evening news. We watched it from the hotel suite we'd taken for a couple of hours, getting cleaned up for our last rally in Miami Beach. Richard and Susan had joined us. The four of us would fly to Mammoth Falls in a Beechcraft after the rally; the scorps would get a last night in Miami and meet us in Chicago on Tuesday. "Well, he looks all right," I said.
"That was a noon rally," Stanton said. "Look, there's Picker." Freddy Picker, in a plaid shirt once again, had an arm around Harris, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. Picker seemed tanned, healthy, confident-especially in contrast to poor Harris, who was clearly furious about everything that was happening to him.
"When this is over, we should talk to Picker," Stanton said. "I always liked Freddy. Smart guy."
"I saw him Saturday night," Richard said. "He did warm-up for Harris-big rally at the fairgrounds, and he wasn't half bad. He woke 'em up. Then Harris put 'em back to sleep again. You can't do a `classroom exercise' at a county fair."
"He rough on me? Picker?" Stanton asked.
"Rougher'n a bull on a sheep. He's got a responsive chorus goin': 'What does Stanton stand for?' He says, 'Y'know, Stanton says he wants to do this and this and this, but you can't do it, cause there's no money-and so, you gotta ask yourself, "What does Stanton stand for?" ' And so on. It was pretty good the-yater, gotta say."
"What's his story?" I asked. "Where's he been?"
"He got elected Watergate year," Stanton said, with some disdain, "and quit after one term. He just up and quit."
"Why?" I asked. "Did he screw up?"
"Not so far as anyone could tell," Richard said. "Had a weird scene at a press conference. What was it-you remember, Governor?" "He was going to announce for a second term," Stanton said. "And he surprised everyone. 'I changed my mind,' he said. `I'm goin' home.' It was real strange. I don't remember hearing much more about it. I was gearing up for my own run. But y'know, everyone thought Freddy was the real deal. It could've just as easily been him as Carter. More easily: He was the governor of Florida. Still looks pretty good, doesn't he?"
"Looks better, lost his baby fat," Richard said.
"I'll give him a call tomorrow," Stanton said. "Congratulate him on the campaign and see what gives."
We did our Miami rally, which went nicely. Stanton spent the ride to the plane on the phone with Leon, who had wall-to-wall good news. We were holding strong throughout the South.
I called Daisy with the news. "So what's with Harris?" she asked immediately.
"He can't be too happy," I said.
"No-you didn't hear?"
"What?"
"He didn't show for his evening rally in Lauderdale."
"No shit," I said. "Hold on a second. Hey, Governor, Harris blew off his Lauderdale rally. Daise, they say what it was?"
"Well, Picker was kind of mysterious. He told the crowd Harris was feeling under the weather-but when the scorps nailed him afterwards, he said he wasn't sure. He hadn't seen Harris. But Mrs. Harris said it was a serious case of the flu, or maybe food poisoning."
It was a massive heart attack, but we didn't find that out until about nine the next morning. CNN had the ambulance shot and Harris being rushed into a hospital, an oxygen mask over his face. I was back at our headquarters in Mammoth Falls, calling around, when the news came on. I called Marty Rosales, our Miami guy.
"Two heart attacks," he said. "A little one after the dustup with Jack on Izzy's show. He went back to the hotel, had a heart guy come in to see him-and then, baboons: the big one last night."
"How big? Anyone know?"
"Well, you know Shirley Herrera-she did some advance for us? Her sister is a nurse over at Lauderdale, and she heard he's in a coma." "Shit. CNN just said 'serious' condition."
"Well, a coma's serious," Marty said.
"Sit tight, Marty. You hear anything firm, call us at this number." I gave him the number at the Mansion, where Richard and I were scheduled to meet with Stanton to work up something for that night in Chicago. "And tonight we'll be at the Palmer House, okay?"
Richard was jiggling; I was freaked. It seemed cataclysmic, incalculable. "You ever had anything like this?" I asked.
"Nope," he said. "Dark side of the moon."
>
We were on our way over to the Mansion. It was chilly, a mid-March day, sun ducking in and out of fast-moving clouds. Richard was riding shotgun, jiggling his legs with his hands pressed between his thighs, a mildly obscene form of meditation. Usually, he thought out loud. But he wasn't saying anything now. He stared out the window. It was, without doubt, the strangest moment yet: Richard, speechless.
And then it got worse. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, trying to play it out, that I didn't quite grasp the significance of what I was seeing in the crescent driveway as we pulled up to the Mansion. There was Susan. She was walking with someone. She had her arm around a woman, a large woman. Their heads were down, close together. We pulled up and Susan looked up, her eyes red. The other woman kept moving forward, looking down. She was large and dark, wearing a church has and a navy blue sailor dress. She looked up at me as I got out of the car, rivulets down her cheeks-Amalee McCollister. I just went numb, staring at her. They moved on past us, and Susan glanced back at me-furious.
"What the fuck was that?" Richard said.
"Nothing," I said.
"Henri, I know nothing. That wasn't nothing. Who was that lady-I've seen her. Henri"-he grabbed use by the shoulders-"what the fuck is going on here?"
"Nothing, Richard. Nothing. You've gotta trust me on this. Please."
Richard eyed me. His natural opacity had evaporated. He was right on me. "Fuck this shit," he said, and walked on inside. "This campaign is just one long fucking blind date."
Stanton was in the study, his head in his hands. He looked up when we walked in. His eyes were red too. But about what?
"I didn't want it to happen this way," he said.
What? Richard and I just looked at him. He was in his wing chair. He had a blue suit and white shirt on, no tie; he was holding a redand-blue striped politician's tie in his left hand. He had selected it thinking, no doubt, that the American public would see hint for this first time that night as the probable Democratic nominee. From the way he was holding it, I could tell that he'd selected it before he'd learned about Lawrence Harris. He had already made the semiconscious calculation that he would have to go to a less aggressive tie. I knew him so well--parts of him.
"It's my fault," he said.
What? Richard and I sat down on the lime-green couch. I thought of all the meetings we'd had in this curious, impersonal room, most of them horrible, but none quite so numb and weird as this. It was possible, I realized, that he wasn't yet aware that Amalee had come to visit Susan. In fact, it wouldn't be at all surprising. It would be very much in keeping with the mysterious emotional concavity of their bond: the most blatant transgressions often had to be ignored.
"Dammit," he said, slamming a fist down. "I was so prideful. Henry, you heard me yesterday. I was so smug with him--I could have treated him with more respect. But I was going for the kill. I wanted to humiliate him. You heard that in my voice, didn't you? I didn't need to take it that far. We were going to whip his butt anyway--I could've been gracious, y'know? It would have been smarter. We were going to need him down the road. He's a smart guy--and he was right on the damn issues--you know that, right?"
"But he was a pompous sonofabitch," Richard said, "and he rubbed your nose in it."
I was relieved that we were on this crisis and not the other. Stanton stood, still holding the tie in his left hand. "Yeah, and I rubbed his nose in it right back--but that's not how you win the big ones. You have to be big to win the big ones, and I played it like a flicking county commissioner. Dammit, I wish for once I could just get a clear shot--y'know? This was gonna be it. Tonight. So what do we--no, I know what we do. We take it down until we know more about him." "Take it down?" I asked.
"I tried to reach her at the hospital," he said, moving on, "but she hasn't returned my . . . Can't blame her, canya?"
"What about Paul Shaplen, or Picker?" I asked.
"You want to try?" he asked.
So I tried. I reached Shaplen about four in the afternoon, just before we got on the plane to Chicago. "The governor's really ripped up over this," I said. "He wants to convey his sympathy to Mrs. Harris." "Fuck him."
"C'mon now, Paul."
"C'mon now yourself, asshole. You think she's got any fucking thing to say to the prick who put her husband on life support?"
"On life support?"
"Fuck you, Burton. Some people'll rent out their pigment to any old piece of shit that comes along."
He was magnificent that night. He had me go out, kill the music, calm the crowd. I don't remember what I said, but they were stone quiet when he came out with Susan. Both of them looked awful. All the networks, I later learned, broke into their schedule to broadcast this moment.
"This is a night for prayer, not politics," Jack Stanton said. "We stand here humbled by fate, mindful of God's power, but we must also keep in mind His grace. Tonight our thoughts and prayers are with Lawrence Harris, and Martha, and their children. We have been competitors this season and sometimes spoke in anger, but always from a base of genuine respect. I think the people of Florida, and throughout the South, will understand if I forgo thanking them for their support this night, forgo any talk of victory or defeat, and ask them to join us in a moment of silent prayer."
He kept his head down for considerably more than a moment. When he lifted it, a tear had slid halfway down his left cheek. He wiped it and said, "I am canceling all campaign events until further notice. I hope you understand. And I hope God, in His infinite wisdom, will soothe and heal and bring comfort to Lawrence Harris and his family"
There was a scattering of applause, but Jack Stanton stopped it by putting his hands out, palms down, then raising his right index finger to his lips, "Shhh," he said. "Not now."
I was on the phone with Daisy about midnight.
"I wish I was there with you," she said.
"I wish you were, too. I feel just, I don't know. It's like this whole thing just went off a cliff. We're still in midair, falling."
"Imagine what it would've been like if we lost," she said. "What do you think happens now?"
"I have no idea," I said. "I'm stumped."
There was a knock at the door. "Someone's at the door," I said. "It's probably bins. I better go. I'll call you later."
"If it's bins, it may be a lot later," she said.
But it wasn't him. It was her. She stood there in the doorway, in bare feet, seeming smaller than usual. She was still wearing the plain navy blue dress and Chanel scarf she'd worn on the podium. "Well, aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked, curtly.
"Of course."
She walked in. I closed the door.
"You sonofabitch," she said, and slapped use across the face. "You cruel, heartless sonofabitch. Amniocentesis?" She slapped me again. "You motherfucker." She shuddered and suddenly wailed, "Ohhhhhhhhh," and began to sob. She was shuddering and sobbing and she leaned into me, her hands tucked onto my chest, separating us slightly, her head on my left shoulder. I put an urns tentatively around her, patting her back. She lifted her face, mascara-streaked and uncertain, needy for once. She moved her hands out, away, and put her lips on mine. Then she opened her mouth, and I had a decision to make. Oh, shit.
Chapter VII
Governor Stanton," Don O'Brien asked in his thick, caramel voice. "Can I offer you a Harp?"
"A Diet Coke," Stanton said, "if you've got any."
I was back at the beginning of time. Senator O'Brien raised himself-massive, ursine-from behind his walnut-and-brass desk and went to the doorless closet where he kept the small refrigerator. The little office was dark and denlike. There were soft lights, heavy gold curtains, no views. O'Brien, uncomfortable in large and light spaces, had given his formal office over to staff and hidden himself in a sup- port room beyond. There was the desk, which took up about a third of the room; Stanton and I sat in two chairs facing the desk; Dot' Mandelbaum, the senator's young strategist-my former counterpart-sat behind us on the small sofa along the back wall. On
the walls were photos of Don O'Brien with every president since Eisenhower, and three others: a laminated cover of Tittle magazine from sometime in the early seventies, featuring a Don O'Brien who looked very much as he did today-white hair, huge red face, bulbous nose and thick lips, but with longer sideburns, his one concession to that inelegant moment in time. There was also a photo of Senator O'Brien-the son of a Southie garbage hauler-receiving his honorary degree from "the Hahvihds." And dominating the room, above the sofa where Dov sat, was a portrait of the senator's deceased wife, Fiona, smiling, head tilted slightly, an overpowering kindness emanating from her eyes. Don O'Brien spent every day staring directly at that portrait.
"So what can I do for you, Governor Stanton?" Donny asked, returning to his seat with a Diet Coke for Stanton and a cup of tea for himself.
"I want to ask you for your support."
Don O'Brien threw back his head and roared appreciatively. It was a reference to the senator's favorite political story-how he'd come home from his first, losing congressional campaign and thanked his neighbor Mrs. Aggie Murphy for her support and she'd said, "But, Donny, I didn't vote for you." O'Brien, crushed, reminded her that he'd gone to the store for her and shoveled her walk free of charge for twenty years, so why on earth wouldn't she vote for him? "Because you didn't ask," she said (or so he claimed).
Stanton, of course, realized that O'Brien's support would not be forthcoming that day. Dov and I had negotiated the logistics of this meeting carefully. There would be no statement of support, no photo op. But Donny had agreed to meet with us, which seemed a victory. It meant that Larkin would have to meet with us as well-which was, I was certain, Donny's primary motive: he lived for Lark's discomfort. "Jack, I've been watching you," O'Brien now said, warmly, "and you puzzle me. I watch you on Sunday nights, on C-SPAN-Road to the White House-it's taken the place of Ed Sullivan in my life. It's quite amazing: they'll show you, or Larry or Bart or that pipsqueak Charlie Martin, just shaking hands for a half hour. Can you imagine? Who'd ever want to watch such a thing? Except for the likes of us, of course. So we have our own private network now." He smiled, shaking his head, looking up at Fiona. "Only not so private. Not much we can get away with in private anymore, huh, Jack?"