Dirty Sexy Politics (14 page)

Chapter 20
My Lohan Moment

T
he momentum kept swelling and swelling. The pressure never subsided. The week before election day was an all-consuming, nonstop, flat-out, scary, white-knuckle roller coaster ride of rallies, traveling, insomnia, candy bars, Diet Cokes, and stress. If there was a medical instrument that could gauge adrenaline levels, the entire campaign would have been hospitalized.

Mom urged me to take a few days off and catch up on my sleep after drifting off my talking points in Colorado and then dealing with the minor furor it caused. But, all due respect to Mom, “taking a break” from a campaign ten days before the general election is like trying to go to bed early the night before Christmas. You are so wound up, so excited, so strung out and addicted to sugar and the pace of the season, you lie awake in your bed and count every second until dawn.

I suffered through a long weekend of downtime, but it was pure agony to be away from the excitement. I joined up with my mom and dad and the main campaign on a swing through Colorado, then my bus-mates and I spun off to Nevada for two days of our own events, where glamorous Linda Ramone, the widow of singer Johnny Ramone, met up with us in Las Vegas. After a day of campaigning, Josh, Shannon, Frank, and I went on the Big Shot ride at the Stratosphere. I still have the picture of us in my apartment.

LIKE ALL BIG MEDIA EVENTS—LIKE THE OLYMPICS
—there is a lot of attention leading up to election day. While the news attention had been pretty intense for the last two months, now, suddenly, the media was preoccupied with everything about the campaign and everywhere we went. It was like the way some people watch a football game only in the last quarter or the Indy 500 for just the last twenty laps.

Somebody—I’m not sure who—had the brilliant idea that we should milk this media focus as much as possible. On the day before the election, rather than having the campaign hit two states, like morning events in Ohio and an afternoon rally in Arizona, it was decided that Dad should go to seven cities in twenty-four hours.

When I first heard about this plan, I thought it was some kind of a joke.

Seven cities. It’s hard to communicate what this means, in terms of logistics. My dad and mom. The campaign staff, the media traveling with us. Seven arrivals. Seven airports. Seven venues. Seven flights. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This was supposed to be a brilliant way to make a final push of momentum.

But let’s talk about the psychological condition of the staff by that point. For the last month, everybody had been getting by on three or four hours of sleep. Day after day, they were up, down, rallying, up, down, rallying. Just hearing the words
bag call
alone was a form of torture. Add to this, a diet of Coke, Snickers bars, and ramen Cup Noodles, and you can imagine how pleasant everybody was.

As for me, I was numb—almost disconnected from my body. My mind was saying one thing and my body was up to something completely different. It was like jet lag. But since it was the last twenty-four hours of my dad’s campaign, I signed up for the seven-city tour: Tampa, Blountville, Moon Township, Indianapolis, Roswell, Henderson, and Prescott.

It sounded brutal.

It sounded excruciating.

But I didn’t want to miss it for the world.

THE NIGHT BEFORE, WE HAD ARRIVED INCREDIBLY LATE
into Miami for a giant final rally at one in the morning. An entire arena was filled up with people singing, dancing, and applauding for my dad. There was so much energy and spirit and passion in the air that, while waiting for my dad to appear onstage, people were doing conga lines in the field and along the aisles.

It was three in the morning before we got back to our hotel that night—or later—and even though I was zombie-tired, I was too jazzed up to sleep. It was a common problem for everybody on the campaign. In order to stay awake for late night rallies, you’d down caffeine. But when it was over, you couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t unwind, and when I did, I thought about the conga lines and the cheering. The rally had been incredible, and I could tell by the way Dad gave his speech that he was feeling energized and upbeat. But the plans for the next forty-eight hours were daunting. If my mind had remained focused on just this, I would have been okay.

But instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the campaign was almost over. And as much as I wanted it to be over, I couldn’t imagine it. The campaign was my whole life. Or, I mean, I could barely remember what my life had been like before. College was a vague memory, like it had happened to somebody else.

I was caught up in something, and fired up, in a way I had never been. I had fallen in love with politics, the day-to-day logistics of a campaign as well as the philosophical battles and complicated issues that were hard to talk about. I even loved the inner-office dramas, bag calls, and excruciating hours as much as the roar of the crowds and roller coaster.

Maybe it was a form of Stockholm Syndrome, but I was scared to have it end. I knew how much I’d miss the whole thing. And while a part of me wanted it to be over, so I could wash myself completely of the experience, I was also beginning to see that the last year had been impossibly beautiful and moving and difficult and some of the scars I had might never heal.

And what if we won? We were going to win, I told myself, but that scared me too. Was I really ready? If I kept falling apart during a national election, how could I handle being a First Daughter?

And if we lost? You weren’t supposed to think that way. You were supposed to stay positive, and energized, and confident. Deep down, I heard only whispers of doubt. It was easy to ignore them.

Mostly I was anxious, so anxious. “I am never going to be able to sleep!” I yelled out. “All I want is some sleep!”

I’m very anti-drug and never take them but over the summer, a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, had given me some Xanax pills in an envelope with the words
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
written in red marker. They were pills for anxiety, she said. While I appreciated the gesture, I insisted that I would never take anything like that.

But now I was fishing them out. It seemed as good a time as there would ever be. They worked instantly—but maybe that was all in my mind. I mean, literally within minutes of gulping down the pills with water, I was knocked out like a corpse, still in my clothes and makeup from the rally.

Bag call came three hours later, at six in the morning. Oh man. I was zonked. I would have been in full body pain if I’d actually been able to feel anything.

I struggled out of bed and groggily took a shower. Somehow I managed to put on a pair of tights and a stretchy jersey dress. It was the only thing left in my wardrobe that fit. I wasn’t just heavier, I was bloated. My hands were so swollen that my rings had stopped fitting.

Josh came into the room to fix my hair. Sitting up in a chair, while he worked on it, I passed out cold—doubled over with my head down. He let me sleep while he stepped outside on the balcony to have a cigarette, but wound up locking himself out. No matter how hard he banged on the door, I never woke up. And eventually Heather and Shannon had to rescue him.

I don’t remember getting my hair done, to be honest. Nor do I remember getting in the van to the airport. Getting on the airplane is also a big blur, but Shannon and Josh say they had to walk me down the aisle while holding on to my shoulders. When my shoes flew off my feet, they had to scramble to find them.

Once in my seat, located in the media section of the plane, I promptly passed out.

This is where I want to say a big
THANK YOU
to the media, after all the bashing that they’ve taken in this book, because nobody on that plane wrote about—or even seemed to care—that I was drugged unconscious after my first, and very pathetic, foray into the prescription drug world. (Later on, I heard that Cynthia McFadden had pulled aside a campaign staff member after seeing me and had said, “I understand pharmaceuticals are involved.” So I want to give her a special shout-out for not putting it on
Nightline
.) How much the other reporters saw, or actually knew but kept to themselves, I don’t know. But whatever leniency I was granted, I want to say that I appreciate every bit of it.

I also want to say a big
THANK YOU
to Melissa, who threw a blanket over my head when the plane landed at its first stop and members of the media shuffled passed me. Her fear was that somebody would take pictures.

Melissa is a genius, just in case I haven’t given you that impression yet.

Under my blanket, I slept through the first three rallies of election day. But after that, my friends began to worry that I might be comatose.

Somebody called Dr. Harper, a physician who was traveling with the campaign and a longtime and very close family friend—a wonderful and very serious man whom I have known since I was a child. I was barely conscious, but just enough to make it one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.
“It’s the last day of my dad’s campaign and I can’t move my legs. Am I going to be okay, Dr. Harper?”

He determined that I would be fine, as long as I didn’t take anything more. This was especially good news because it meant that my mother and father, who were traveling in the far front of the plane—and had enough things on their minds that day—didn’t need to be informed of my condition. Actually, to this day I don’t believe that my dad has been told about what my friends would later refer to as my “Lohan Moment.” Until now. (Hi, Dad. I love you.)

By the time our plane got to Indianapolis, our fourth stop, I was coming alive again. I pulled myself together enough to attend the rally, which began at two o’clock. But when I came onstage with Dad, I was still woozy and dreamy-feeling, and remember looking out to the crowd and thinking,
Wow, so many nice older faces! And how happy they look!
This seemed like a wonderful sign—the fulfillment of brilliant campaign strategy. Older people vote in higher numbers, and tomorrow I imagined that all those great oldsters around the country would be getting up at the crack of dawn and flooding into voting booths to cast their ballot for Dad. There was no way we could lose.

I am an eternal optimist. Did I mention that? And I couldn’t wait to see Mr. MIT proved wrong. Election day was just hours away and I was utterly sure we could win.

MY DAD’S SPEECHES ON THE LAST DAY HAD SO MUCH
passion and love in them. He always speaks with his heart, and that day, it really came across. My favorite part of the speech was the final line—“We’re Americans, and we fight! Never surrender! Never give up!” Music would play, either Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” or “Life Is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane. I still have a hard time listening to those songs even now.

There is a line from “Life Is a Highway” that I love: “Through all these cities and all these towns. It’s in my blood and it’s all around. I love you now and I loved you then.” And Tom Cochrane screams, “Just tell them we’re survivors!”

That was exactly how I felt. I loved my father as the candidate back in 2000 and I loved him that much more in 2008. I wanted to scream at the cynics and the people with their Hope and Change T-shirts. We were survivors! This fight wasn’t over—and the road didn’t end here.

WE FLEW AROUND THAT DAY IN THREE PRIVATELY CHARTERED
airplanes. The conditions were similar to the three buses that were used on the ground. There was a very nice, very large 737, where my mom and dad sat, as well as the Groomsmen and other important staff and media. A second 747, also very nice, was for the press and other staff.

And then, there was a third plane. It was a much smaller puddle-jumper—smellier, older, and skinny to the point of being tubular. This was no-man’s-land, the Island of Misfit Toys in the air. The sound guys and boom operators were assigned this plane, and other out-of-the-loop techies. There were journalists from unknown publications, or journalists who had been unfairly negative, taken potshots, had interrupted at press conferences, or were just unpopular and irritating to be around.

It shouldn’t be a huge surprise where I wound up, except Mr. Burns had nothing to do with it.

I asked to be there.

That’s right. I begged for that third plane. After being revived in the back of the first plane, I was going crazy listening to journalists and staffers sitting all around me and talking about poll numbers, what the Obama campaign was doing (only two rallies that day), and complaining endlessly about anything and everything. I wanted to get away from the know-it-all vibe.

Ahhh, the crummy third plane. It was small and cramped and the toilet smelled really bad and only worked half the time. When it was broken it made that annoying continual flushing sound. None of that mattered.

It was a paradise to me. It was quieter and my fellow travelers weren’t drunk on power. They were laid-back and fun-loving and had the best “on the road” stories. One cameraman told me all about his former life as a Chippendale’s dancer. This was stuff you don’t get from
Wall Street Journal
reporters, believe me.

But with three more cities, and three more rallies to go, I was exhausted. At one point, while standing in line to get back on the plane, I asked Anna Marie Cox, a
Time
magazine blogger, if it was normal to do this many events on the last day. “No, Meghan, it’s not!” she answered.

It reminded me of the fairy tale “The Red Shoes,” where the girl puts on the magic red ballet slippers to dance, but then realizes she can’t stop dancing—and eventually dances herself to death. It was a morbid vision, but suddenly it was all that I could think about. I was wearing campaign shoes that were making me walk, and walk, and walk. They were making me stand, and stand, and stand. Wave and wave and wave. It felt like it would never end.

Chapter 21
Election Day

T
his is what I remember about election day: I woke up in my parents’ guest apartment in Phoenix with no memory of how I got there.

It was afternoon already. I had missed the entire morning of media craze. Shannon and Heather were hanging out, waiting for me to wake up, and John King’s face was on CNN. He was doing his bizarre screen moves, when he touches his big magic screen and zeros in on certain counties and states and exit polls.

I took a shower and picked out a dress to wear. Trying to imagine what kind of night was ahead, I decided to wear something celebratory and fun—that way I’d be dressing for the occasion that I hoped for, not necessarily the one I’d get. It wasn’t a hard decision. The one true constant of my clothing choices for the campaign was something glittery, something with sequins. Long ago I had decided it was always better to dress up than down. And there was no way on a night this big and important that I was going to wear a suit.

We could still win, couldn’t we?

Couldn’t we?

The dress was so beautiful—knee-length, gold and glittery with sequins everywhere and a gold bow across the waist. It was probably more acceptable for a night on the town in Vegas than election night but it was just what I needed. Josh helped me get my hair in a very curly, extravagant updo.

I decided to walk upstairs by myself to say hello to everyone in my parents’ apartment. I wanted to see my dad and wish everybody good luck. I assumed that we had a very long night ahead of us. Like I’ve said, election days and nights were boring and kind of dreadful, since the call usually wasn’t made until the middle of the night. And it wasn’t impossible that it could go on for days, like the presidential election of 2000, when the vote in Florida had to be recounted. I had a hunch that this time, it was going to be a close election too.

I entered the apartment in a very cheery mood, full of energy, and looking forward to seeing everyone. Inside, besides my family—my parents, brothers, and sister, my grandmother—the usual suspects were standing around: Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, Charlie Black, Brooke Buchanan, and Blond Amazon, along with an assortment of my parents’ assistants, close staffers, the advance team, and of course, the Secret Service.

Something was wrong, though. Everyone was just standing around, kind of dead and super-still. Nobody was moving. It was like they’d been frozen in place. Political people were never quiet or motionless like this, when gathered together. They were always talking on their phones, checking their BlackBerrys, moving around the room, schmoozing. Maybe that’s why they were called “movers and shakers,” because people in politics never just
stood around
.

We must be losing.

What I didn’t know was that we’d already lost.

Dan Yeary, the pastor of our church, North Phoenix Baptist, must have noticed the look on my face. He came up to me and grabbed my hand and said, “Everything happens for a reason, Meghan. God always has a plan.”

I walked into the kitchen, looking for Dad. I was told to go out on the balcony in the other room. He needed to talk to me. When I found him, my brothers, Jack and Jimmy, and my sister, Bridget, were already there.

Dad pulled us into a semicircle, like a huddle before a football game. I was hoping that this was some kind of sign that he knew a secret—a poll or voting area that hadn’t been reported.

No, that wasn’t it.

“Look, guys,” he said. “It seems we’re not gonna win this thing.” That was it. I don’t remember a lot else, except I thought I’d lose it immediately but I didn’t. I hugged my father, told him how proud I was of him, and just walked straight out the door like a robot. I went downstairs to the other apartment, where Shannon and Heather and Josh were waiting, and I told them what happened.

“What?”

“It’s only five o’clock!”

Polls hadn’t closed; people were still voting all over the country, pulling the lever for my dad. But the campaign’s internal polling was already sure that he had lost.

I hated the way it was ending.
Election nights are supposed to go on and on.
You were supposed to be up until the middle of the night, dead on your feet and still waiting to hear the news.

Five in the afternoon wasn’t the way it happened.

The sun wasn’t even down.

My dad hadn’t even eaten dinner.

What about Florida? And Ohio?
What the hell happened in Ohio?
I knew that state so well; it felt like I’d been to every single county, every small town and city, traveled on every highway, byway, service road, visited every possible Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden, and Applebee’s, and met with God only knows how many people.

What about Ohio?

I hadn’t seen this coming—at all. Even in my darkest moments, I figured we had a great chance to win because my dad was so obviously the better choice, the more experienced and dependable leader. Everywhere we went people had been so excited about the election, and excited about my dad. Those conga lines in Miami, the screaming crowds in Indianapolis. Even in the desperate pitch of the stupid seven-city tour of nonstop rallies, deep down I believed that we couldn’t lose.

The feeling of heartbreak was so crushing, so painful, and I blamed myself for not being better prepared for it. If only I were more thick-skinned. Maybe that way I’d be inoculated from ever feeling this wounded again.

What about friggin’ Ohio?

The only thing that I remember doing between five o’clock, when the news of our defeat began to drill its way into me, and the time that I was due back upstairs to regroup with my family for an appearance at the Arizona Biltmore, was holding Melissa’s hand. I grabbed Melissa’s hand and never let it go.

ON THE WAY BACK TO MY PARENTS’ APARTMENT, UPSTAIRS
, I broke down in the hallway where the Secret Service were standing, and it made it so much worse that they’d seen me like that.

Upstairs, my dad called out for everybody—family and campaign staff—to gather in one room and he thanked them for the great work they had done for him, and for “just being there.” With a calm voice and no sign of being devastated, he even remembered to thank the Secret Service, which really got me. They were nowhere near the top of my thank-you list, but of course, my dad included them too.

Outside, there was a lineup of big SUVs waiting at the curb. My parents got in the first one, along with Lindsey Graham and me. Just looking at Lindsey made me fall apart, and I started crying on his jacket sleeve.

Somebody mentioned being upset about the Hispanic vote going to Obama. During the early parts of the campaign, my father took hits for his stance on immigration, and Lindsey was right there with him. Some people even started writing “José McCain and Lindsey Gomez” on protest signs. This seemed to be the final sting for Lindsey and Dad. Nobody had seen that one coming.

As we turned into the Arizona Biltmore, a crowd of Obama supporters were standing on a corner with big Obama signs and jeering at our motorcade. They were so pumped up, feeling so good, but somehow still so angry. It was unimaginable to me how anyone would wait for us on the street so they could rub in their victory like that—and glare at the losers.

When I started to lose it again, my parents said, “Enough crying.” Whatever happened, they told me not to cry in public—onstage or anywhere else. I had to be strong for my mom and dad and my younger siblings. I had to be dignified and not hand the media an opportunity to photograph me with tears streaming down my face. I thought of those jerks on the corner, jeering at us with their Obama signs, and I didn’t want them to find a way to have more glory from our loss.

I asked God for help.

He heard me. Nobody saw me cry for the rest of the night.

Crowds were waiting for us at the hotel, and began clapping as we were ushered on foot to a private bungalow that the campaign was using for the night. The grounds of the Arizona Biltmore are beyond gorgeous—sprawling, manicured, three dozen acres of tamed Arizona desert. People were lined up along the pathways clapping. The hotel staff was gathered, and clapping. My dad led the way, and I could only see the back of his head, glimpses of him in the excitement.

Inside the bungalow, I saw Sarah Palin standing in the kitchen. She looked stunning in a deep blue dress with her hair pulled half up and half down, her signature semi-beehive style. I stopped to play with little Piper for a while. She was happy and jumping around, like most seven-year-olds, and didn’t seem to know that we’d lost. I sure didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

While I talked with Sarah, she was holding some papers in her hand, a speech, I assumed.

“Are you going to speak?” I asked her.

“I want to,” she said, “but others don’t agree.”

“You look beautiful,” I said.

When it came time for my father’s concession speech, we had a long walk ahead of us—five minutes that seemed like an hour—to a place on the Biltmore grounds where a stage had been erected. I grabbed my little sister Bridget’s hand. I remember gripping tightly as we walked together. There was more clapping, and more people lined up along pathways.

The warm welcome felt nice, but only momentarily. Looking ahead at my dad, I couldn’t help but think about how this country that he loved so much, more than anything else in life, and had given so much to—this unbelievably intoxicatingly amazing country—did not want him.

It did not want my old father. It did not want my mother, whom it had never really known. It didn’t want my brothers in the military or my beautiful soul of a sister. And it didn’t want me—an over-bleached glitter girl in a too-happy gold dress on such a sad night. The rejection didn’t feel intellectual or philosophical. It didn’t seem like a bunch of ideas or a political party had been rejected. It felt really personal. It felt like us. We had been rejected. And the pain of this was a complete assault on my emotions and senses.

My dad wasn’t enough and we weren’t enough—not interesting or evocative or beautiful enough. And we weren’t new.

I cracked a few jokes to push this out of my head. I made jokes about anything and everything. They were like old friends, these jokes. And they would get me through—I knew they would. And they would make Bridget feel better too.

“At least the Secret Service won’t have to put up with me anymore.”

“At least I will never have to eat a Snickers bar for breakfast again.”

I could hear Bridget giggling, softly.

“I’ve gained so much weight that my Spanx are breaking at the seams.”

Out of nowhere, Steve Duprey, the owner of the Concord Marriott, appeared and grabbed my hand. How did he get here? I hugged him. “Kid,” he said, “we had some great times, didn’t we?” Nobody has ever made me feel as good, or pulled me out of such a dark place. And best of all, unlike everybody else in my father’s orbit that evening, Steve Duprey wasn’t crying.

THE SKY WAS DARK AND CLEAR. AS WE WALKED ONTO
the stage at the Biltmore, I looked up at the stars shining and they made me feel strong. Before us, the golf course of the hotel was a sea of people, mostly silent.

My dad started to speak. I looked at him standing next to Sarah Palin in her dark blue dress and thought,
I have to remember this
. I wanted to hold on to every single moment. The sky. The stars. The stage that was full of people I loved.
Don’t forget. Don’t forget.

Dad was starting to look sad, but he would keep it together, he always did. When things were hard, he always said, “I’ve been through worse,” and I knew that he was talking about being a prisoner of war. Back in the apartment he had said how lucky he felt to be part of a small group of people who had become a nominee for president. He always held on to his perspective. He held on to things that were good.

My father’s speech was perfect, so beautiful, the most glorious concession speech, but listening to it was one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. Down below the stage, Heather was taking pictures of us—the way she always did—but her face was streaked with tears. I remember thinking how awful, how awful,
this is all so awful
, but at the same time thinking how beautiful too.

Caring about your country was beautiful. Finding hope in a leader was beautiful. Even losing was beautiful.

Then I looked out, beyond where Heather was, at the people gathered on the golf course to hear my dad. So many of them were crying; it was a sea of crying faces. I was so moved by this, so crushed, so happy. Look at how much people loved my dad, and loved politics, and loved this country. This counted for something. This counted for everything. There was so much love all around, and spirit, and faith. And I saw that I was lucky—so lucky—to be John McCain’s daughter and to have been a part of this, the pain and the beauty. And above everything else, I saw that God had a plan and my father being president of the United States was not a part of it.

I don’t really remember walking off the stage. Emotion can be like a drug and wipe everything out of your head. But I do remember being backstage and seeing Sarah Palin’s mother crying hysterically—wailing, and making loud sobbing sounds and hugging little Piper. It was hard to witness. All the other Palins had their game faces on. They knew what their job was. But Sarah’s mother couldn’t do it.

Then, for some weird reason, Sarah stepped back onstage by herself. She was waving to the crowd, saying hi to the cameras, almost as though she were in Alaska—not Arizona. What was she doing? I was shocked. It was as if she wanted to make the night about her, and not my dad. She was trying to have the last word, and the last wave.

What else did she want or need? What was driving her to do this? Possibly it was unconscious, this dramatic bit of upstaging, and she couldn’t see how it could look to us or anybody else. She was supposed to leave the stage, but she couldn’t go along with the plans, even then—even on the last night—and just follow my dad and the rest of us back to the hotel bungalow. She didn’t have a go-along side to her. And I saw something that I hadn’t really wanted to see before: Losing wasn’t an end for her. It was a beginning.