“Five bucks from each of you.”
“Ten bucks?”
“Trust me on this, it will be worth it,” I told them.
“What are you up to, Carl?” asked my suspicious sister.
“Trust me!”
“The last time a man said that to me I ended up with three kids!”
I grabbed one of the ball caps and stuffed it in my back pocket, and collected a couple of fives from the boys. Then we all went off to the rally. Once there, I had the Rottingens standing on the side of the stage. The two boys were really excited by it all. Then I went up to the podium when I was introduced.
“Thank you! Thank you! It’s good to be back in Rochester, really good! In case some of you weren’t aware of it, my sister and her family live here, and Marilyn and the kids and I have been here several times visiting them.” I turned towards them and said, “Wave to everybody, guys!” Alex and Harry waved madly, their mother a bit more sedately and self-consciously, and John with a forced smile.
“Now, before we get going here, I just wanted to address something. I heard somebody say that politicians should wear NASCAR driving suits, so that people would be able to see who has bought and paid for them. Well, far be it for me to deny that, so here goes.” I stopped and pulled out of my pocket the H&A ball cap and stuck it on my head. “Harry and Alex’s Yard Work, the best yard work in the Rochester area. They do lawns in the summer and shovel snow in the winter, and do cleanup work the rest of the time. For quality work, call H&A Yard Work!” Off to the side the two boys were giving each other high fives and jumping up and down in excitement. As the audience laughed, I tossed them back the ball cap and said, “After we win the election, I’ll take you two over to the White House and you can give us an estimate on a bigger project!”
Harry was nodding frantically in agreement. Alex thrust a fist in the air and yelled, “YES!” Beside them their mother’s jaw dropped, while John clapped a hand to his head in disbelief.
“Best ten bucks you two ever invested!” I told them. I waited a few moments for the laughter to die down, and then went into my standard stump speech.
Afterwards Suzie laughed and said, “You just made their day!”
“Just doing my civic duty!”
“I can’t believe you did that!” laughed their father. “I am never going to hear the end of this!”
Needless to say, my mugging for the camera made the evening news shows, as well as the late night comedies. Gore tried to portray it as my making light of the way George Bush was selling his candidacy to the highest bidder. That simply backfired when practically everybody in the country told him to get a sense of humor. KAAL TV 6 News in nearby Austin even managed to interview the principals in H&A Yard Work, and asked them about their Uncle Carl.
My personal flaws were endlessly categorized and exposed. The fact that Marilyn and I drank wine was elitist. The fact that I preferred Canadian and Irish whiskey over good old fashioned American bourbon was a sign I was ‘weak.’ If I had a beer I was pandering to the cameras. Even my drug use was explored. Despite the fact that the head of the ticket, George Bush, had admitted to an alcohol problem, and refused to answer questions about cocaine use, John Kerry came after me. So figuring the best defense was a good offense, I admitted it.
Sam Donaldson was doing an interview with me on a Sunday morning and said, “Congressman, President Clinton has said that he tried marijuana but never inhaled, and didn’t like it. There have been reports that you smoked marijuana also. Care to comment?”
I put on my most innocent face. “What do you want me to say, Sam?”
“Is it true you smoked pot in college?”
“Yes.”
“Did you inhale?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He looked stunned at the answer. “So you are admitting you smoked marijuana?”
“Sure. I didn’t do it often, but when I did, I inhaled. I daresay the vast majority of my generation did so at some point at that age.” I gave a wry shrug at that.
“When did you stop taking drugs?” he pressed.
“Well, let’s be specific. The only drug I ever used was marijuana. I have never used anything else. The last time I smoked pot was sometime my senior year, shortly after Christmas,” I answered.
“Why did you stop?”
“I was finishing up my doctoral work and getting ready to go into the Army. I just didn’t have the time for the distraction. It wasn’t part of who I was. I quit. Never thought about it again,” I told him.
“Why didn’t you use other drugs? They must have been available,” Sam asked.
“Oh, sure, there was all sorts of stuff available. It just scared the pants off of me. I was never even tempted.”
“Did Mrs. Buckman take drugs?”
At that I just laughed. “You can ask her that yourself. Go ahead! I want to watch!”
What surprised most everyone was that this turned out to be a non-event. Nobody gave a shit. Even the hard right didn’t scream. This was partly because I was a Republican, and they didn’t want to take me down like they wanted to take down Clinton eight years ago. It was mostly, though, that the times they were a’changin’. Marijuana use was no longer considered a big deal, not when various state legislatures were talking about medical marijuana and decriminalization. It was simply not the issue it had been less than a decade ago.
Things were moving along fairly smoothly through August and into the first week of September. We had gotten a much bigger boost from our convention than the Democrats. We were in the hard core muddling through section of the campaign. Both sides were wondering about, and trying to prepare an ‘October Surprise’, a news event designed to negatively influence the election.
October Surprises were mythical, since if you managed to pull one off, you could never admit to it. Previous candidates included announcements that peace was impending in the Viet Nam War (Humphrey vs. Nixon), a supposed secret deal between the Republicans and the Iranians to keep the hostages until after the election (Reagan vs. Carter), and various Iran-Contra allegations (Bush vs. Clinton.) Now what would happen, and to whom? You wanted the surprise to happen in October, when you had enough time to manipulate the resulting furor, but not enough time to allow the opposing team to fight back.
It occurred the weekend after Labor Day, on Sunday, September 10. The New York Times Sunday edition’s headline was ‘VP Candidate War Criminal?’, with a smaller headline on the main article ‘Buckman Accused Of Mass Murder!’
Moments after this was announced on Sunday Morning on CBS the phone rang. Frank Stouffer was staring horrified at the screen as he screened the call. Then he turned to me and said, “We’ve been ordered back to Washington.”
Chapter 132: October Surprise
Sunday, September 10, 2000
The first thing we had to do was get out of the hotel. All of our cell phones were going nuts, and a few minutes later there was a knock on the door. Frank opened it to find the hotel manager. The lobby and front entrance were swamped, and he was having a hard time keeping reporters from slipping past the lobby. I nodded.
Turning to the others I said, “Everybody! Five minute drill! Get to your rooms and get packed, now!” I turned back to the manager. “I need two trucks or vans, to carry us and our luggage out the back. Can you make that happen?”
He stared for a second and said, “I guess so. They might not be very fancy, and I’ll need them back.”
I pulled out my wallet and slapped five one-hundred dollar bills in his hand. “We don’t need fancy. We need quiet. Can you make that happen?”
The hand went into his pocket. “I’ll get right on it.” He headed towards the door.