I was surprised when he answered, “I have no idea. I just have no idea what to make of this, or what is going to come of this. I just don’t know.”
“You staying in?” I asked him.
“Are you?” he replied.
“It’s too late to back out now. I’m going to have to see this through, one way or the other. I might be going down in flames.”
“Shit! Well, it’s too late for me to back out now. Either you lose by the biggest margin since the Civil War and I have the shortest professional career in political history, or you win big and I run the next Presidential campaign.”
I laughed at that. I stood up. “Let’s get out of here. I need to go home so that Marilyn can yell at me.”
As we headed out to my car, Brewster asked, “Just how rich are you? Really rich or ridiculously rich?”
“Beyond that. Ludicrously rich.”
“Buy an island rich?”
I laughed. “Sure. Why?”
“Because if we lose, you’re going to have to buy an island and move there, and I’m going to have to move next door.”
I laughed. “Then we better not lose!”
My reception at home was about what I expected. Marilyn’s first words to me as I entered the door were, “ARE YOU CRAZY!? YOUR CHILDREN WERE WATCHING THAT SHOW!” Then she stomped off irately.
My children, on the other hand, took it much better than their mother. All three wanted to see, so I took off the bandage and showed them. Holly and Molly thought it was ‘Gross!’ and Charlie thought it was ‘Cool!’ I checked it out. It wasn’t actually all that bad, being not a whole lot more than a bad papercut, and a lot more dramatic looking that it really was. I rebandaged it with a giant Band-Aid and went back to the living room. Marilyn was unhappy with me the rest of the day.
It was no surprise when all three networks ran the scene that night on the evening news, along with the mandatory “What you are about to see is graphic and violent, and you may want to turn away.” warning. Since they ran it at dinnertime, this just guaranteed a wider audience. Several commentators raised the possibility that I wasn’t all that stable. Curiously, though, several also spoke out about the tactics and slanders by my opponent.
Monday morning’s Baltimore Sun featured a video capture of me holding the knife up to the camera, along with Brew McRiley’s spin, and Stewart’s denouncement of my ‘detestable’ tactics. Still, there was a lengthy piece about the incident in 1983, and how Stewart had gone beyond the limits of spin to outright lies. In 1990 the truth still mattered; it would be another 22 years before the Romney campaign began lying outright and commenting that ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ (Not that Obama was any better, but at least his people were tactful enough not to brag about it.) It got stranger from there. Mid-week, WJZ managed to track down Bill Worley, who had gone through this nonsense during the Democratic primary. He stated on camera, “Andy Stewart would sell his mother for a vote, and then haggle over the price!” So much for party unity!
Brew had a poll run mid-week. We had done these a few times since the primary ended, and I had been consistently trailing Stewart, not by much, but by more than the three percent margin of error. For the first time, we were in a statistical dead heat. I had picked up some among men, but even more among women, who seemed to think it was a good idea to protect my family. Polling ain’t cheap, and we wondered whether Andy knew this.
By now the national press was reporting on us. Both Time and U.S. News and World Report called for telephone interviews on Wednesday. The Saturday after the show was the weekend for the annual summer party, and a reporter for Newsweek showed up on Friday, not knowing about it. What the hell! We invited him along with the other political reporters in town. Brewster had made me invite everyone we could think of.
This was going to be our biggest party ever. We had started out back in 1983 with just the people from the office and the business, the Tusks, and a few others who had been involved in the purchase and construction of the land and house. Since then it had grown. Now, along with the core related to the Buckman Group, we had people from Our Lady of Grace, Fifth District Elementary, families of the kids’ friends, and this year various political types from around the district. Everybody was warned to bring swimsuits and an appetite. We had a rental company bring in a gigantic red and white striped tent, and plenty of tables and chairs, and we had the bathrooms in the main house as well as the pool house. Marilyn and I had even installed a monstrously large grill station on the deck, the type where it is permanently installed with a fixed gas line going to the main tank behind the house.
We kenneled Dum-Dum for the day in Hampstead. That little mutt was one of the sweetest and friendliest dogs I’ve ever owned, but she was also very excitable, and tended to jump and race around. Last year she had scratched one of our guests’ children with her claws. No harm was done, but the little girl was scared. You knew somebody was going to let her out of the house without being on the tie-out, and then she’d run loose. It was safer for us and for her to put her in the kennel for the day.
By late morning people started to show up. Tusker and Tessa and the boys were among the first, and the first thing we did was get the keg station going. The new grill center was totally in stainless steel, had a pair of eight burner grills, six side burners for pans and pots, and built in cold storage underneath. At the far end it even had a cooler capable of holding a pair of half kegs of beer. The beer distributor had brought out a pair of kegs two days ago, along with some bottle beer and soda, and the kegs were cold. Tusker took one look at the system and pronounced it, “Awesome!” I laughed and delegated him to run the keg. We got the first two beers.
Tessa helped Marilyn bring the food out, before getting a beer of her own. Marilyn went with a wine cooler. Then, as guests arrived, Marilyn and I greeted them. You could tell who had been to a previous party. They showed up with their kids already wearing swimsuits, and with spare clothes in a bag in their car; the kids promptly made a beeline for the pool and jumped in. People who never had been there before, arrived fully dressed, and with a swimsuit in a bag. They were directed to the pool house if they wanted to change. Parking was simple — anywhere in the front yard and around to the far side of the house. No way did we have enough driveway to hold everybody! One of the security guys, in shorts and a sport shirt, directed traffic.
The press connection was looking problematical. The Newsweek reporter, a guy named Bill Grass, showed up around noon, after spending half an hour driving all over northern Carroll County, lost. Already present was a reporter from the Sun, Fletcher Donaldson, a young fellow in his mid-twenties. On the other hand, of the three local television stations, only WJZ sent a truck out, and as soon as they figured out that the summer barbecue party really was a summer barbecue party, and not a gathering of the Republican powerful, they took off without even recording any B-roll or doing a voice-over.
Donaldson introduced himself and then promptly stuffed his notepad in his pocket, grabbed a beer, and began circulating. When Grass arrived, he was the only guy wearing a suit. I just shook my head in amusement and waved him over.
“Mister Buckman?” he asked.
I smiled and shook his hand. “Call me Carl. What in the world are you dressed for? This is a party, not a convention! Lose the jacket and tie, and roll up your sleeves, or you don’t get a beer.” He blinked in surprise, but then complied. I tossed his jacket and tie inside the house, and then handed him a beer. He still wasn’t as informal as I was (shorts, Hawaiian shirt, straw hat, sunglasses, and deck shoes, no socks) but he wasn’t completely stiff now. I had Tusker pump him a beer, and refreshed mine as well. “Now, welcome to the party!” I said.