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There was a rustling in the room, like a breeze passing through a tree, and you could hear the old people whispering to one another, or maybe just to themselves, "Social Security, Security, corny, curityity-ity ."

Stanton measured the breeze, let it pass. "Yeah," he nodded sadly. "I know, and you know, how important it is for your Social Security to keep up with the prices at the grocery store. And you know how prices keep going up! I have this chart-some of my young people will distribute it to you-showing how prices in south Florida have gone up during the last ten years-and how your Social Security has just barely kept up with them.

"I also disagree with Senator Harris about Medicare," Stanton said, which caused another breeze-stiffer this time. He waited for them. "He wants you to pay more-page twenty-three in his book. Let me read: 'Part B co-payments should be adjusted for income to reflect the program's original intention of a fifty-fifty split between government and recipient.' He also adds, I want to be fair here, 'The poor should not be affected by these changes. In fact, we should try to alleviate their co-pays wherever possible.' Now, let me try to explain what this means-"

"It means we pay more and schvartzes pay less," said an explosively bitter little man in a short-sleeved white shirt, madras Bermuda shorts and sandals.

"No, that's not true," Stanton replied, though not quite vehemently enough to suit my taste. "And I believe it's very important that every senior gets all the medical care he or she needs, regardless of race or creed. But what Senator Harris is doing here is opening the door to changes that may have an adverse impact. I don't think we can take that chance.

"There are other things in the senator's book. I would recommend that each one of you read it carefully before making this very important decision about the future of our country-and read my literature, my issue papers too, of course," he said, pausing again, walking a fe
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teps, turning slightly. "But there is one other area where Senator Harris and I disagree-and that is foreign policy, specifically the Middle East."

There were whispers and shushes throughout the room. Stanton held out his hands, quieted them down. "When he was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, my opponent had to cast a great many votes regarding the security and the future of the state of Israel." "No!" shouted a woman wearing sunglasses and shellacked hair of a color that did not occur in nature.

"Now wait-I agree with many of his votes," Stanton said. "But there were some . . . Well, I think its important to stand with our friends-and our country has no better friend than the state of Israel. And when we do have a difference of opinion, it should be settled privately. Many of us had mixed feelings about the incursion into Lebanon ten years ago, but I don't think I would have called Israel the 'aggressor' state as Senator Harris did. I think we all know who the aggressor really is in that neighborhood. Nor would I have voted for a resolution opposing the construction of new settlements on the West Bank. Like many of you, I may question the wisdom of such settlements, but I am opposed to interfering in the internal affairs of an ally-unlike my opponent, apparently."

And with that, muffins distributed a list of selected statements and votes Lawrence Harris had made about Israel to the handful of scorps loitering by the door. The scorps didn't even wait for Stanton to finish speaking but immediately came at me, flushed and righteous with the prospect of having some news to report for a change: "Henry, are you guys actually saying Harris is anti-Israel?" Bob O'Connell from The Washington Post asked with utter disgust.

"Absolutely not," I said. "Harris has supported Israel-but there are times when his support wavered."

"And Stanton's support would never waver?" asked Tommy Preston, a black reporter from The Dallas Morning News.

"Come on-that's not the point," I said. "Don't you think it's time we all took a good look at Senator Harris's record?"

"Henry, this is pretty thin stuff," O'Connell said, looking up from the handout. "Did he ever vote against giving aid to Israel? Did he ever vote to reduce aid in any way?"

I let that pass and responded instead to the vile Felicia Aulder of the New York Daily News, who sneered: "You guys must be scared that Harris is beating you here, pulling this kind of crap."

"These are facts," I said. "They are documented. We have differences with Senator Harris on a number of issues. Are you saying we shouldn't point out those differences?"

"But, Henry, this is-"

"And what about those ads Harris put up in Colorado-the antiwar protesters, the jail door. That was high-minded?"

The scorps-satisfied they had picked me clean-rushed off to the lobby, eager to call their bosses. I turned back to the candidate, who had finished speaking and was now in furiously filial mode, awkwardly embracing an elderly woman in a wheelchair while simultaneously looking up and shaking a frail gentleman's hand. Others crowded around and he worked them perfectly, lingering with them, listening, touching, connecting. Twisting around to hug a woman in a walker, he lost his yarmulke. He was about to reach down for it, but a woman with orange hair and absurd breasts that spilled from a peasant blouse got there first. She smiled at him naughtily, then hooked her arm through his and pulled him toward her, nuzzling her chest provocatively against his ribs. He succumbed to this, smiling goofily and bending down in a half-squat so she could place the yarmulke back on his head, then remaining there as she took his face in her hands, stared at him dreamily and kissed him full on the lips, leaving a hideous tangerine smear. He smiled at her, lost in all the touching and hugging, then looked over at me-and seemed to startle. I realized that I must have been frowning.

The next few days were brutal, but very effective. It was almost too easy. Richard had been right: Lawrence Harris had offered us his head on a platter. We went up in every Florida market that night with "factual" ads about Harris's intention to raise the gasoline tax, cut Social Security and Medicare, lay waste to the American dream. It was a saturation bombing campaign-you couldn't watch the evening news or any of the top-five daytime shows favored by senior citizens without catching a Stanton ad. (We did the Middle East number more selectively, with flyers in condo-land and shills calling in to radio shows.)

I am tempted to say that Daisy's ads were classy. Certainly, they were elegant-several cuts above the usual Texas Chainsaw negative spots politicians tend to favor. An announcer said: "Here are some things Lawrence Harris says he would like to do as president." And, in a light, ironic tone, he read passages from Saving the Future, always citing page and paragraph numbers. As he read, words appeared on the screen: "Will raise gas tax 50 cents-Saving the Future, " and "Will cut Social Security-Saving the Future, ." These were the only visual images. At the end, there was a picture of Lawrence Harris-not a mean, ugly or befuddled one, as is the usual practice, but a nice, tweedy one-and the announcer said: "The Harris Platform. A fifty-cent gasoline tax. An attack on Social Security. Less money for Medicare. Can we really afford that?" And a "Stanton For America" slide. Harris responded quickly, though not very effectively, with one of the moldy-oldies of political advertising. He stood next to a television set and rolled one of our ads, then froze it with his remote control clicker: "Just look at this," he said, much too hot for television. (In fact, there wasn't very much to look at just the "Will raise gas tax" slide.) "Haven't we had enough of this kind of garbage?" Harris huffed and puffed. "Jack Stanton doesn't want to talk about these issues. He just wants to scare you. Well, I don't think Floridians scare easy-and I'm convinced that you are sick of politics as usual." He said "you are" instead of "you're." It seemed stiff, cranky. It worked for us.

That was on the air by Friday night. We heard about it in Houston, where Stanton was working a $500-a-plate picnic for one thousand Texas Democrats. We scooted out of there, flying back to Orlando at about 10:30 central time, a planeful of sleepy, barbecue-stained scorps in tow. We landed in Florida just past one in the morning and walked into chaos at the Magic Kingdom West Motel, where a complex of suites and connecting rooms on the second floor served as our makeshift headquarters. Phones were ringing, muffins hustling, the Xerox machines and faxes churning. Leon, Brad and Richard were in the outer room of the Stanton suite working the phones, eating pizza and listening to a fierce argument in the bedroom. Women arguing. Lucille and . . . Daisy? I looked at Leon, who shrugged eloquently-

he didn't know what was going on back there-but he gave me a vigorous thumbs-up and said, "Numbers are good. We're holding, he's folding." Brad, talking to Howard Ferguson back in Mammoth Falls, handed me a condo-land flyer: "Lawrence Harris and Israel: The Facts." Richard was shouting at someone in Miami: "Of course we want the support of the Latino community. Wait a minute." He covered the phone: "Hey, Henri, you better go give your girlfriend some aid and comfort back there, man."

Stanton snagged a cold, congealed slice of pepperoni, peppers and onions on his way to the bedroom-where Susan was working the phone with a finger stuck in her ear, and Lucille was screaming at Daisy: "We gotta conic back at him! We can't let him get away with this."

"What we've got is working just fine," Daisy said. "I told you. I told her," she went on, turning to the candidate and me. "We've been moving ever since we went up with it."

"Jack, you want to respond to this asshole," Lucille said, speaking of Harris (but glancing at Daisy). "Show him."

Daisy showed him a tape of the ad. The candidate grunted. Richard came in. "01' Natural Forces learnin"bout life in the kitchen? Looks pretty sweaty to me."

"What do you think?" Stanton asked him.

"I think," Richard glanced carefully at Daisy, "a campaign this short and intense, an ad don't have much shelf life. We gotta come back with somethin' new by Sunday."

"We've got inspirational positives in the can," Daisy said. "We should close this out on the high road."

"I don't know about going positive at this point," Susan said, off the phone.

"The theory is," Daisy said, "we've nuked Harris. We want to give them some reason to come out for us."

"What are we planning on using?" Stanton asked.

"You, on the desk again," Lucille sneered. "Always on the damn desk. Health care. You think that's gonna fly after this piece of shit?" "It's not just the desk," Daisy said, rising to it, truly pissed: "It's crowd shots, excitement, music, you with kids and seniors, people listening, responding."

"Henry?" Susan asked, and I wondered why she was choosing me to scorch Daisy.

"Tough call," I said. "Anyone have any ideas about what sort of negative we might come back with against Harris?"

Actually, Daisy did-but she didn't know it. "Why don't we just click off his spot?" she scoffed.

"Not flicking bad!" Richard said. "See, the governor could do it casual, funny-make fun of this shitbird's negative. Do it just the way Harris did: Start off with our spot-reinforce our message in a backhand way. But then you pull back and it's actually his spot: You show Harris clicking off our spot. Then, surprise! You pull back again and now it's Stanton, clicking off Harris and kinda laughing about how silly this politics business is, y'knowhattamean? Sayin', 'Yeah, I saw this piece of shit too, and did you nonce how this stuckup-dipshit-asshole still ain't admitting that he wants to raise the gas tax and cut Social Security. Dontcha think it's time to just Vote Smart? Vote for a human being.' Y'knowhattamean?"

"What? What?" Lucille asked, or perhaps said.

"Vote Smart," Daisy said. "Not entirely implausible."

"Smart doesn't work," Leon Birnbaum now said, joining the deliberations. "I tested it. I tried it a bunch of ways. Nope. Can't do it. People think we're being defensive because the perception of Stanton isn't-uhh, smart."

Everyone looked at the candidate. He was all business. "Susan?" He asked.

"Too complicated?" Susan asked Daisy. "A click too far?" "Maybe," Daisy said, but then: "Leon, this a big checkers-playing state? You test for that?"

"Seriously?" Leon asked. "I haven't. I could check if-"

"Not seriously." Daisy laughed. "But I was just thinking. You know how people always say the loser was playing checkers while the winner was playing chess? Well, maybe we should reverse that: Harris the intellectual plays chess. We're down with the folks-we play checkers. And my man, Mr. Jemmons, may have come up with a double jump here: We jump over our negative and his counterattack and land on the other side of the board. Which means we've been hinged
,
we can go backwards and forwards. We sort of make fun of him, saying Ain't he a stuck-up sonofabitch."

"Right-exactly-exactly right," Richard said, bursting. "Why the fuck not?"

"What's going on?" asked Brad Lieberman, just off the phone. Daisy explained it. "Well, I've got some bad news," Brad said. "If you're gonna do it, you gotta shoot now I don't suppose any of you've seen Lucille's four-market plus a dinner in Nashville schedule for tomorrow?"

He passed it around. Several people whistled.

"Wait a minute," Daisy said. "Lucille-you were arguing for cutting another spot, when the fuck did you think we'd be able to shoot it-?" "You don't have twenty-four-hour production capability?" Lucille asked.

"As a matter of fact, we do," Daisy snapped back.