Something else had been rattling around in my brain, as well. I was really rich now. I could buy lots of stuff, like an island villa — or a plane! How much would that cost me? I was now worth around $1.75 billion. At even a 5 % return on my investment, which was ridiculously low, that was an annual income of over $87 million. I had to be able to pay operating expenses on a plane or helo at that level! I could probably fly home most nights. That really redefined commuting!
Marilyn had to be with me for at least a night or two in Washington, but the kids had school, so we had to make plans. We made arrangements for a sitter to stay with the kids at the house for a few days, along with one of the security people. We would drive (well, be driven, anyway; it was so weird to be driven instead of just grabbing the keys and going) down Saturday night, Marilyn would stay through the introductory day on Sunday, and then get driven home on Monday. I could get my security detail to drive me around as necessary during the week, and then get me home at the end of the week.
The orientation schedule took up an entire week. We would start out on Sunday at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, and we had booked a large suite for me starting Saturday night. One thing I knew was that in this job, more than any other I had ever had, I would need to schmooze. A suite with a parlor or living room could be useful. This was even more important when we bought a home. In this, my wealth was a major advantage. Washington is one of the most expensive cities in America. A large home in a nice neighborhood in a scenic setting, with a nice yard for the kids to run around in, would probably set me back several million dollars, on a par with what I paid for Hougomont, and way beyond the cost of our home in Hereford. However, did I want to buy a house? What if I figured out I was a disaster as a Congressman? Maybe a lease with an option to buy would be better?
Monday and Tuesday, after I sent Marilyn back to our children and normalcy, we were scheduled for ‘How to be a Congressman!’ classes in the Capitol building. You know, the fun stuff, like where are the bathrooms, and taking the class photo. It would be like going back to elementary school. Wednesday and Thursday we would meet with various Congressional caucuses. We would be able to vote for leadership positions, and I was guessing, find out what committees we would be on. The fun day would be Friday, when they draw names out of a hat to determine our offices. Thirteen years after graduating from Rensselaer, I would be back in a frat house playing Room Roulette!
Meanwhile, for the entire week, we would be wined and dined by all sorts of people there to ‘help’ us out. All sorts of lobbyists and senior politicians would be looking to line up the support of the young and naïve Congressmen, who still have visions of making a difference. There would be breakfast meetings, luncheons, and dinners with everybody looking to line up or buy our votes. Imagine Darth Vader, only without the light saber, but with a plateful of chocolate chip cookies. Then, after you’ve eaten the cookies, you will be lifted off your feet and have the life crushed out of you. Damn good cookies, though!
To what extent I still had visions of making a difference I wasn’t sure. Marilyn generally considered me a pessimist, but I consider myself a realist. I knew I could make a difference, but what would be involved and what I would need to do were still questionable. The one thing I had learned, over two lives, was that I had the internal strength to survive no matter what, and that I could lead. I considered Ted Kennedy, who I had met already. As much as we disagreed on things and as much as I disliked him on a personal basis, the man could lead a group of fractious individuals, and get things done. Now I had to learn, from him and others.
I packed both a large suitcase for myself as well as the hanging bag with a number of different suits. Nobody had said anything about a black tie dinner, so I left my tuxedo at home. Marilyn packed a couple of nice dresses for Saturday and Sunday evening, and something a bit more casual for Sunday during the day. She did tell me, which made me laugh, that she was wearing low heels except for dinners; no way was she wearing high heels for three days running! Monday, she swore, she was going to wear jeans and a tee shirt and look like a bag lady when she went home. It was a good thing she had a driver for that; it was a two hour drive home, and on her own Marilyn would get lost and drive home by way of Arkansas and Ohio.
It was an interesting group I was joining. We had 48 incoming Congressmen, two of whom had already been in Congress, lost, and won back their seats. We also had six new Senators, two of whom had never been in Congress even as Representatives. Of the 48, 27 were Democrats and 20 were Republicans; Vermont had elected Bernie Sanders as an Independent. Bernie was an interesting guy. He mostly worked with the Democrats, and ended up as a Senator.
There were a lot of names on the list I had received that I knew would become big deals. John Boehner of Ohio would end up as Speaker of the House. Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, would become a Senator and then lose in the 2012 primary for President. I had a fellow Marylander, Wayne Gilchrest from the Maryland 1st (basically Maryland’s Eastern Shore area), also a Republican, and I resolved to make sure I met him. The saddest to me was Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a certified hero from the Viet Nam War, the last Navy ‘Ace’ who shot down five MiGs. He spent 20 years in the Navy and 14 years in Congress, before being caught taking bribes and sent to prison. What an incredible waste!
It was an overwhelmingly Democratic House. There were 270 Democrats (plus Bernie Sanders, who might as well have been a Democrat) and only 164 Republicans. For the time being, at least, the Democrats were calling the shots. I knew that in four years there was going to be a major upheaval, one of those cataclysmic watershed events when the voters would ‘throw the rascals out!’ Right now, though, the Democrats called the tune.
I looked over the brief bio pages on us wonderful folks. I wasn’t the youngest guy in the crowd, but I was close. It looked like most were about 10 years older than me, and a few were quite a bit older than that. The oldest was a guy named Dick Nichols of Kansas, who was 64. The youngest was Jim Nussle of Iowa, who was only 30. I was a year older than Tim Roemer, two years older than Dick Swett, and three years older than Rick Santorum.
I briefly wondered about my fellow classmates. Were they sitting there in their rooms, reviewing their bios and wondering about me? Who was this punk kid? Did any of them know anything about me? Had they read, or even heard about my books? Did they read the business magazines, or only political stuff? Or had they seen the news about the billionaire investor who wanted to play at being a Congressman? To be fair about it, the only reason I knew any of them was because of what they would become. Probably the biggest difference was that these guys probably had at least a semblance of an idea about what they were doing here.
Realistically, I was probably the most famous of the newbies. Following the election, I had made the covers of both Fortune and Business Week. (I missed the trifecta; Forbes not only didn’t have me on the cover, they didn’t even mention me on the inside!) Fortune had Geoff Colvin write a follow up piece to his original cover article back in the summer of ’86, called ‘Mister Buckman Goes To Washington’ and basically updating the bio piece from before. Thankfully, a large separate piece also wrote about the future of the Buckman Group, with bios of Junior and Missy, and details about the planned joint venture, Marquardt/Buckman Investments. Junior and Missy were really earning their paychecks! (Dave Marquardt got top billing? Trust me, my ego could handle it! This was going to make me a shitload of bucks!) Business Week only had me in a photo about a quarter of the page on the front. Inside I was simply a one page photo and blurb in an article overwhelmingly about the politics of the next Congress. Nowhere was it mentioned that I didn’t have a fucking clue what I was doing.