Moral courage is the most important courage of all. It is the courage to make the right choices, choices that help not yourself, but others. When friends came to me ten years ago and said they had read my books and heard my speeches, they told me to put up or shut up, put my money where my mouth was, and step up to the plate. However you want to put it, the challenge was to stop complaining and start fixing, and run for Congress. This was a scarier proposition than anything else I had ever done! I chose courage! Courage is a choice!
Courage is about the choices we make in everyday life. It is the choice of a pilot staying with his dying plane just a little bit longer, to miss the elementary school even if he won’t be able to punch out. It is the choice of a fireman going into a burning house to search for a child. It is the choice of a Coast Guardsman who says he has to go out, but he doesn’t have to come back. It is the choice of a father who is dying of cancer, but stays on the job just one day longer, so his children can stay in school just one day longer. It is the choice of a mother who works three jobs so that her children will be able to go to college.
And courage is the choice of a leader, a leader who makes choices to benefit an entire nation, choices to benefit not just a voter, but that voter’s children and grandchildren, choices to benefit everyone, and not just those who voted for him. George Bush has that courage! George Bush chooses courage! Courage is a choice, and George Bush has made that choice!”
At that point I pivoted into the speech that Matt Scully had originally written, but now modified and edited to fit the new slant to the speech I had given. I spent about half of this section praising George Bush and the other half damning Bill Clinton. At times I was really stretching George’s compassionate conservatism to be some form of courage. It was easier to label Clinton’s choices as ‘cowardly’; all I had to do was point out that by spending more than we were taking in on taxes was a cowardly pandering to special interests. Never mind that for the last couple of years we had been running a surplus, that was only because ‘courageous’ Republicans had forced it on him. The bullshit was getting pretty deep by the time I ended.
The big thing was to keep a rhythm and syncopation going. It was like running through a list of bullet points, but at the end of each item, I would thunder out, “George Bush has that courage! George Bush chooses courage!” By the end of this section they were stomping their feet and waving “Courage” banners around, and yelling along with me when I hit the bit about George Bush. We just wanted them rocking the house down!
It was finally time to bring things to a close. I needed to go out on a positive note, but with something dramatic. I paused and let everybody settle down.
“When I was a boy and decided to live my life with courage, I discovered something amazing! Courage is fun! Courage is exhilarating! Courage is intoxicating! Courage is liberating! Courage gives you the freedom to live your life on your terms and not somebody else’s! When our very nation was founded, and we rose up as one people to demand our freedom, we demanded courage from ourselves! Courage gave us the great nation we now have, and only courage will allow us to keep this nation free!
Choose courage! Choose freedom! Choose George Bush! Courage is a choice! Courage is a choice! Courage is a choice!..”
By that point they were all on their feet stomping and yelling and chanting “Courage is a choice!” I led them for a moment, but then stepped back and looked offstage. Marilyn and the girls were all standing there, even the mutt, and I motioned for them to join me on the stage. They trooped out and I picked up Stormy as the place went berserk. You could practically feel the waves of energy and emotion rolling through Union Center. We all waved at the crowd for a couple of minutes, and then moved off the stage.
“Dad, that was amazing!” exclaimed Holly.
Molly put it a little more succinctly. “Holy crap, Dad!”
I looked at them for a moment, as the nervous energy flushed out of me, and I suddenly felt drained. I staggered for a moment, and found a stool to rest on. As others came up to me and shook my hand and told me what a wonderful speech it was, Marilyn looked at me worriedly and asked, “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Tired is all. I’m still a bit weak, I guess.” We leaned against each other and Stormy licked us both until we gave her to the girls.
At that point, a staffer came up to us and said, “Congressman, Governor Bush would like to have you and Mrs. Buckman see him in his suite, if you could.”
I looked over at Marilyn. “Command performance, hun. Ready?”
“Of course.”
I looked around and found Frank and waved him over. “Frank, let’s get the car and get back to the hotel.”
“Can do, Congressman!”
Marilyn told the girls to walk Stormy and they headed towards the parking lot. Marilyn looked at me and said, “I think even they were impressed by your speech. Choose courage, huh?”
“Just so long as they don’t think they can have the courage to get their driver’s licenses any time soon. Then I’d have to show them the courage of my boot to their butts!” The way those two yammered on their cell phones constantly, they were an invitation to a car wreck!
She turned to the staffer and said, “Give us a moment to freshen up.” He assented and we went in search of a rest room. I was still a bit weak, and my ribs were really killing me from the exertion, but I wasn’t about to collapse now. I used a restroom and straightened myself up, and then went out to wait for my wife. Afterwards we were driven over to the Ritz-Carlton. We went inside and took the kids and dog upstairs, and then continued up to the Bush suite, which was a couple of floors above us.
Marilyn noticed the Secret Service agents standing post in the hallway and outside the door to the suite. “Do we get Secret Service protection, too?”
I shook my head. “Highly doubtful. The candidates get it, but that’s about it. If we win, that’s a different matter. Still, we’ve been living with some form of security for years now, so this shouldn’t be that big a deal.”
We made it inside without setting off any alarms, and were greeted by Governor Bush. He enthusiastically shook my hand, saying, “That was a hell of a speech, Carl! It made me wonder if you were running for President and I was the Vice President! Great speech, great!”
“Thank you, George, you’re too kind.”
“Are your daughters with you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “They’re a couple of floors down. It’s getting late for them and they are probably walking the dog.”
“She’s adorable!” gushed Laura. “She was in that basement, too? Oh my heavens!”
“Your girls here?” I asked. The Bushes had twin daughters also, Charlie’s age, but fraternal, not identical.
Laura shook her head. “They have their own rooms. They’ll join us on stage tomorrow, but otherwise they won’t be campaigning. Your daughters seem to be taking to it well.”
I made a wry smile at my wife. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Never mind him. They think it’s all quite exciting. I am sure that by the time school starts they will be more than happy to stay home!” she replied.
“Can we get you something?” asked Bush.
I noticed several other very senior staffers in the room, Karl Rove and his wife Darby, Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne, and a few others. I saw Joe Allbaugh but he was standing by himself, as was Jim Nicholson, head of the RNC. Several of them had what looked like drinks in their hands, but I noticed the Bushes didn’t. George had taken the pledge a number of years ago, after Laura cleaned him up and dried him out. I nodded, saying, “George, I would just about kill for a drink, but if that’s a problem for you…”