Then the three reporters filed onstage and took their seats behind a desk. I was familiar with all of them. A conservative, a liberal and a young woman who seemed to be an actual independent thinker.
The fun started.
Judged by boxing standards, I had to give the first twenty minutes of the sixty-minute debate to Dorsey. He was his usual bellicose — read asshole — self.
He played all his greatest hits.
‘It’s time all the real patriots in this country take our country back.’... ‘Have you ever wondered how many people in Congress actually go to church on Sunday?’... ‘Are you comfortable knowing that homosexuals are teaching in our public schools?’... ‘Now the government is running our healthcare system, more teenage girls than ever are getting pregnant. But it doesn’t matter because they can just get a free government abortion.’... ‘Wouldn’t you like to wipe that superior smirk off the face of liberals when they’re talking about people who own a lot of guns?’
He was skillful enough to twist any question he was asked into a mini-rant about his idea of taking the government back.
But at the twenty-four-minute mark — I was keeping close time — he made his first mistake. Asked about how he could support yet another tax cut if he wanted to balance the budget, he said, ‘Right now there are men and women out there who are planning to make this country ours again.’
‘Are you advocating armed insurrection?’
‘I’m advocating driving the criminals and treasonists out of D.C.’
‘You’ve spoken to several militia groups who seem to believe in armed revolution.’
‘That’s your interpretation, not mine. I’ll speak to any group that loves this country as much as I do.’
He was shrewd but it was too late for that. In an off-year election such as this one the opposition generally took many more seats than the president’s side. Dorsey had muted himself in the past three weeks and, coupled with the millions being poured into TV by his uncle, had caught up with us. But that night his vague response to the question about the militia groups capping his entire greatest-hit routine suddenly sounded threatening. He brought the old doubts about his wisdom back into focus.
The second twenty minutes were all Jess. She sounded sane, judicious and full of the kind of quick detail that impresses the electorate.
Dorsey stumbled. He started using words like ‘responsible’ and ‘cooperative’ and phrases such as ‘the common good.’
The third twenty minutes was a fifteen-minute triumph for Jess, but right in the middle of it Dorsey had a good five-minute stretch attacking her for some of her more controversial votes — controversial in this age of plutocrats. Money for science, education and cancer research could be made to sound wasteful and Dorsey did a fine job of making them all sound like that. Jess was able to wrest back the lead by saying that she had an aunt at the Mayo Clinic right now suffering from breast cancer and she was glad she’d cast the Obamacare vote. She asked if there was a single person in the audience who had not been touched by the cancer of a loved one, and not just once but at least two or three times. I think a few of the people on his side of the aisle wanted to join the standing ovation our side gave her. She’d slashed his throat and he spent the last few minutes writhing in death.
Then came the questions from the audience. Predictably, the plants for both sides did their sleazy best. Boiled down, the questions were either ‘Are you still having sex with the family dog/cat?’ or ‘If you had a chance to renounce your Russian citizenship, would you do it?’
They were too predictable, in fact. A fair share of the audience was starting to leave. I saw it as a pretty easy slog for both Jess and Dorsey. He managed to turn aside our bombshell question with an armada of anti-media and patriotic rants that won hearty applause from his side and some actual boos from ours. The son of a bitch never managed to answer a question straight on; in boxing that was called slipping a punch. In politics that was called making your case.
Dorsey’s four previous questioners, despite the fact that they weren’t naked and hadn’t once mentioned Sasquatch, still had about them the faint stench of fanaticism. Two of them had glassy-eyed grins on their faces when they asked their questions, as if their queries would leave Jess gibbering and resigning. One of the other two wore a red, white and blue lapel pin large enough to serve a pizza on. And the fourth turned and gave two thumbs up to the stage before he stepped to the microphone.
But the good one, the one Dorsey had saved for the real shiv in the belly, was as upper-middle-class presentable as the woman from the Voters’ League itself. Maybe mid-fifties, gray-blonde chignon, gray Armani suit and impeccably patrician face and poise. There was even a touch of Jackie O in her voice.
‘Congresswoman Bradshaw, since you are so actively pro-choice I feel it’s fair to ask if you, personally, have ever had an abortion?’
Jess handled the question with simple and believable grace. ‘I’m not an advocate for abortion as some people claim. I’m merely saying that girls and women should have the choice of how to deal with their bodies. And no, I have not personally ever had an abortion.’
A cool, convincing answer. A quick survey of the panel’s faces told me that they agreed with my assessment.
‘You’ve really never—?’ the woman jabbed again.
But halfway through her question they cut her mike.
This part of the evening had finished.
Six
I headed immediately for the bullshit room, as it is so fondly called by operatives and press alike.
Adjacent to the auditorium was a small room filled with fine arts of various kinds. This would be used for more personal events. Right now maybe as many as thirty reporters and twenty camera people packed the place. The one absolute law governing the aftermath of a debate is that your man or woman, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, won the debate. Pounded the opponent into dust. Clearly entranced the audience and confiscated the vote of every man and woman in the auditorium.
But we really had won, so all I had to do was brag. Well, I had to tell at least a few lies to earn my keep.
Reporters, especially the TV type, love tabloid journalism. Slash, disembowel. But tonight they had to know that we’d won without much trouble.
‘How’re you feeling, Conrad?’
‘As if I could go ten rounds with the world champion.’
‘The world champion of what?’
‘You name it.’
Polite smiles.
‘What did you think of Dorsey’s performance?’
‘Which part? Canceling cancer research? Loyalty oaths? Or advocating violent overthrow?’
‘You’re accusing him of advocating armed revolution?’
‘I don’t have to accuse him of anything. It was implied in everything he said.’
‘Think tonight’ll help you in the polls?’
‘Absolutely. The congresswoman was at her best and Dorsey was at his worst. I’m surprised his campaign manager hasn’t attempted suicide by now.’ Realizing I sounded too arrogant, I said, ‘It’s simple. Jess is the serious candidate here. She has a vital interest in making government better and that means saving the parts that work and getting rid of the parts that don’t. But you have to do this carefully, intelligently. The well-being of millions of people is at stake every time a major policy change is made. That’s why you want a person who has respect for her job. Serious respect.’
On the other side of the room there were cheers as Trent Dorsey held his clenched hands up in the air the way a winning boxer does. He was following the number-one law of the bullshit room — despite all evidence to the contrary. He was proclaiming himself the winner.