Believer: My Forty Years in Politics (10 page)

So, at twenty-nine, I left the security of the
Tribune
for a new adventure.

I was back in campaigns.

I
N
THE
BLINK
OF
AN
EYE
,
I
made the transition from chronicler to campaigner.

After a decade of studious public neutrality, I was now in the ring as the communications director for Paul Simon, in a race that already was drawing the eyes of the nation. At first I felt a bit odd applauding at campaign events. I was accustomed to having my hands filled with a reporter’s notebook and pen. On the whole, though, I was surprised at how easy it had been to trade in those tools for a new career; how naturally I’d adjusted to my new role, and the colorful characters who would become my allies and friends.

On the first day I walked into Simon’s bustling headquarters, just across from City Hall, I encountered an intense young fund-raiser sitting in an open cubicle, working his quarry over the phone.

Curious, I stopped to watch the spectacle.

“Five hundred bucks? Five hundred bucks! You know what you’re telling me? You don’t give a shit about Israel,” the intense, wiry young man shouted at God knows which mover and shaker on the other end of the line. “I’d be embarrassed for you to take your five hundred bucks.”

The kid hung up and stared at the phone, which rang an instant later. “Yeah, that’s better,” he said, in a markedly calmer tone. “Thanks.”

Even at twenty-four, Rahm Emanuel had a gift for getting his point across, a quality I would see on display many times as we teamed up in the decades to come.

Rahm, who split his time between fund-raising and field duties, was part of an impressive kiddie corps of young political talent who found inspiration in Simon’s defiant liberalism. With his bow tie, horn-rim glasses, and ill-fitting suits—several bequeathed to him by a slightly shorter constituent—Simon was the antithesis of the blow-dried, finger-to-the-wind politicians who were increasingly in fashion. He was an authentic, unapologetic liberal in the Age of Reagan, and to the band of idealistic young men and women I was joining, that made Simon the coolest candidate around.

It also made him the perfect counterpoint to Charles Percy, a three-term incumbent whose rapid conversion from reliable moderate to Reagan cheerleader had given whiplash to voters across the political spectrum. Yet Percy, a senior member of the Senate and chair of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, hadn’t made that shift idly. After a rocky start following his election, Reagan was ascendant. Now the Gipper was a solid bet to carry his native Illinois in his race for a second term. Percy was determined to make peace with the conservatives he had battled in the past, and grab hold of Reagan’s long coattails. And if that meant shifting positions on some hot-button issues such as school prayer or professing unbridled enthusiasm for the “miracle” of Reaganomics, so be it.

One irony was that Percy, so willing to subjugate his views to politics on other issues, had held firm on one topic, and it would cost him dearly. As the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, he had strayed from the American-Jewish community by supporting arms sales to Saudi Arabia and proclaiming that Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, officially pledged to Israel’s destruction, was a “relative moderate.” This led to a furious campaign among the pro-Israel activists to oust him. Half of Simon’s money would come from the community, which was critical to his chances. (We happily accepted those donations then. But, in retrospect, it foreshadowed an unhealthy trend toward the issue-driven funding that would increasingly cause public officials to look over their shoulders for fear of offending well-heeled interest groups.)

Simon had a base in conservative downstate Illinois. He had been a popular lieutenant governor in the late 1960s and early ’70s, before eventually winning a seat in Congress. Yet the Reagan tide meant that, to win, Simon would have to swim upstream.

In addition to Rahm Emanuel, Simon’s talented young team included many who would go on to hold public office, lead campaigns, or become noted policy experts. Among them was David Wilhelm, a wholesome twenty-seven-year-old field whiz from Ohio, who eight years later would manage Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and then become chair of the Democratic National Committee.

For the primary, the communications role I assumed had been played by a gifted young lawyer whose rustic-sounding name pegged him as a product of small-town Illinois. It took me only a few minutes of conversation to see that Forrest Claypool was a special talent. Then just twenty-six, Forrest would become my lieutenant in the campaign, my business partner afterward, and, later, a brilliant, reform-minded public official in Chicago.

I would need his help, because my role would soon grow.

When I arrived at the campaign, I found that Simon had hired a new manager. Tom Pazzi, a fast-talking itinerant campaign operative, had served earlier in the 1984 election cycle, in the brief, unsuccessful presidential quest of Senator Alan Cranston of California. It quickly became apparent that Cranston had done Simon no favors by recommending his old aide as a prospective manager.

A short, stocky fireplug, Pazzi loved to talk, and talk, and talk. And he insisted that those of us in senior campaign positions had nothing more urgent to do than be there to listen to him. One thing Pazzi didn’t talk much about was hiring and budget, both of which were growing well beyond the campaign’s capacity to sustain them. Pazzi’s mismanagement was compounded by a quirky personality, and after a staff insurrection, Simon decided to let him go.

Lacking any better options, Simon decided to install me as Pazzi’s replacement.

Green as I was to campaigns, I was well known to the Chicago press corps and political community and, from this new perch, could handle the local politics and shepherd the message. Wilhelm, who was a master organizer, would act as executive director, overseeing the field, budget, and general operations.

When the time came to tell Pazzi he was out, he had already flown to San Francisco, site of the 1984 convention. He had hatched an absurdly elaborate plan to shepherd Congressman Simon through the city during the four-day event, and when we arrived at our hotel, Pazzi was outside, barking into a walkie-talkie: “Pazzi to base, Pazzi to base.” If Simon had any misgivings about the sacking, they probably were allayed by the sight of his manager playing General Eisenhower on the streets of San Francisco.

The ’84 convention was memorable for one more reason. The dispatching of Pazzi complete, I accompanied the Simons to the hall to hear the keynote speech by New York’s governor, Mario Cuomo.

Cuomo had won an upset victory in 1982, after defeating New York City’s popular mayor Ed Koch in the primary, and was emerging as the dynamic, new voice of American liberalism. His keynote didn’t disappoint. In a muscular critique, Cuomo assailed Reagan’s gauzy characterization of America as “a shining city on the hill.”

“A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well,” said Cuomo, with the timing and cadence of a master orator. “But there’s another city; another part to the shining city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages, and most young people can’t afford one; where students can’t afford the education they need and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.”

Cuomo, the son of immigrants, went on to paint the Democratic alternative in hopeful, uplifting language that brought the hall to its feet and, at least for that one night, gave the party faithful the courage to believe.

I learned from his star turn how, overnight, a single, soaring convention speech, viewed by tens of millions, could instantly transform a relatively unknown politician into a potential presidential candidate. Though Cuomo never ran for president, his name stayed at the top of the Democratic wish list until he finally demurred.

Part of my job as campaign manager was to deal with the pols and press I knew so well from my days at the
Trib
. Once a scribe, now I was spending a good deal of time in front of cameras and mikes and working the phones. Though just in our twenties, Wilhelm and I also had the responsibility of keeping our equally young staff up and focused. My principal job, though, was as strategist, overseeing the development and execution of the campaign’s message, that fundamental argument for Simon’s election over Percy. I had studied campaign messaging since I was a kid. Now I had the chance to craft one.

I worked with our researchers to probe every aspect of Percy’s record, however obscure. An abstruse technical vote he had cast in committee in 1980, for example, allowed us to say that Percy had cast the deciding vote in favor of President Carter’s grain embargo against the Russians that Congressman Simon had opposed. This would become fodder for press hits, direct mail, and TV ads in normally Republican downstate Illinois, where grain farmers abounded. We charted several shifts of position Percy had made to retrofit himself to the liking of Reagan-era Republicans, a disturbing litany for the suburban swing voters who had prized his independence and moderation, and a counterpoint to Simon, whose views were as constant and reliable as the classic old wristwatch he wore.

We looked for every opportunity to highlight how the economic policies Percy supported, and Simon opposed, had failed to benefit the state and its working people. No plant closing or round of layoffs escaped our radar. We eagerly foraged the monthly economic reports for evidence to support our case, and charted every speech or interview in which Percy, eager to latch on to Reagan, continued to tout economic policies that had done little for Illinois.

From early morning to after midnight, seven days a week, I would be anchored at the campaign headquarters. I would brief Simon for interviews, speeches, and debates; meet with press staff and field operatives to package messages; and sign off on the direct mail and phone calls the campaign employed. Most interesting to me, I worked closely with the campaign’s media consultants, Bob Squier and Carter Eskew, to help fashion the television and radio ads. These two were at the top of the game when it came to campaign media, and it was a chance to learn from the best.

I loved the energy, pace, and camaraderie of the campaign, which was intense from start to finish, with a flood of negative ads and a series of no-holds-barred debates in which Percy, fighting for his political life, effectively pilloried the folksier Simon.

With the one major televised debate approaching, and the race polling close, Simon was determined not to let Percy push him around again. He summoned Squier, whose acid wit and vast campaign experience were invaluable assets, to lead the prep sessions and arm him with an arsenal of barbed lines.

The debate was ornery from the start, with words such as
sleazy
and
liar
flying freely. And for all of Squier’s diabolically creative, scripted attacks, Simon wound up ad-libbing the single most memorable line of the evening. Accusing Percy of repeatedly mischaracterizing his positions, Simon noted that each of them was hard of hearing. “I’ll make a deal with you, Chuck,” he said. “I’ll turn up my hearing aids if you’ll turn up yours!”

Simon gave as good as he got in the final debate, which was punctuated by gasps and groans from the prim League of Women Voters audience, affronted by the rancorous and personal tone. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones who took offense.

A few days later, and little more than two weeks before the election, I got a call in the middle of the night from our pollster. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “The bottom’s dropped out. We were three down. Now it’s eleven. It isn’t all the debate, but that sure didn’t help.” In savaging Percy, Simon had undermined the aura of decency and character that had always been his greatest strength. Now less than 30 percent of Illinois voters expressed a positive view of either candidate.

The consultants reacted with the state-of-the art advice: go all negative, all the time. Squier had a few scathing spots ready to go. Yet it seemed to me that, in this rancid environment for which we bore some of the responsibility, we needed to get out of the mud bath and remind people why they liked Simon in the first place.

Squier, who was the reigning king of Democratic media consultants in Washington, with a large trophy case of victories attesting to his political acumen (or at least his shrewd choice of candidates) was skeptical of that direction—and of the young novice who was giving it—but we arrived at a compromise, splitting our buy between positive and negative ads.

My idea was simple: a direct-to-camera spot in which Simon returned to first principles, affirming his liberal views about the necessary and positive role of government, for which he had always stood, through high tide and low. Eskew and I collaborated on a script.

“There are a lot of pressures to sell out in politics, so you have to know what you believe and be ready to fight for it,” Simon began. “I still believe in what America has always been about—hope; that we have an obligation to leave the next generation something better than what we found. Government must do its part—not just for the rich and powerful, but for all Americans. My opponent says that makes me old-fashioned. But I’d rather lose with principle than win by standing for nothing.

“I want to be a senator you can count on.”

The last, unorthodox lines, which I added, stirred quite a debate among the consultants and within the campaign. Many were nervous about what would be Simon’s public acknowledgment that fidelity to his principles could cost him the election. “I don’t like it,” Squier grumped. “Sends a bad signal.”

But the message was bigger than that. By declaring that there were things for which he was willing to lose, Simon provided a welcome counterpoint to Percy, who was widely viewed as a political chameleon willing to change colors to win. Yet on Election Night, the early returns were ominous. Television exit polls showed Percy winning, and he even gave an interview claiming victory. Simon, honest to a fault, shrugged uncertainly as he entered our Election Night headquarters when waiting reporters asked him how he felt. Still, Wilhelm and his team felt we were hitting our marks, and they were right. Simon, the unapologetic liberal, would win by eighty-nine thousand votes, even while Ronald Reagan swept Illinois in a landslide. One-fifth of Reagan’s supporters split their votes, choosing Simon over Percy, and many of Paul’s neighbors in Southern Illinois split their tickets, choosing Reagan and their local favorite.