My political career was swirling the bowl. On the plus side, I was still filthy rich, so I wouldn’t have to go to work as a lobbyist. I had actually had that thought for the briefest of moments, and then snorted in laughter, and called ARI. The American Renaissance Initiative began pushing Republican Congressmen to vote against the impeachment. Nothing like spending a little money to help.
The one thing I had never figured on, though, started Thursday morning. The House vote as a grand jury would be on Tuesday September 15. Two Thursdays before that, the morning of the 3rd, I was in the Westminster Field Office, meeting with Cheryl and the rest of the staff. Mid-morning, who walked in but Fletcher Donaldson. Fletcher was still with the Baltimore Sun, and was now their senior political correspondent, with both bylined articles and an opinion column that was on the verge of being syndicated. He ignored the protesting intern who tried to bar my open door, and stuck his head around the corner. “Carl, you want to call off your attack dog here?”
I snorted and waved him in. “Fletcher, you are rude, crude, and socially unacceptable!”
“My mother would agree with you. Let’s talk.”
I rolled my eyes at that, and said, “I’m sure I have an appointment. Let me call in and make one!” I brandished my cell phone and mimed making a phone call.
Fletcher ignored this as well, and sat down across from me. He leaned back in his chair and threw his feet up on my desk. “So, Carl, you want to tell me about your pissing match with Newt, and how you expect to win?”
I leaned back and threw my own feet up on the desk. To the extent that any politician can have friends in the media, Fletcher was a friend. Certainly, we were on a first name basis. “Fletcher, I have no idea what you are talking about! Newt Gingrich is a personal friend and a mentor, and has earned my respect and the respect of all of his colleagues, both Republican and Democrat.”
“Carl, I’ll bet you’ve been practicing that line for a week now. I’ll also bet you practiced the line to your kids about those quarters under their pillows coming from the Tooth Fairy.”
We batted it back and forth for about ten minutes, with Fletcher trying to get something from me about me going up against Newt, and my protesting my innocence. Then Carrie, the young intern who had tried to keep Fletcher out of my office, appeared in my doorway, a worried look on her face. “Uh, Congressman, uh, you should see this.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, Carrie.”
“Uh, sir? You really should take a look at this.”
I glanced over at Fletcher, and shrugged. I stood up and got to the door before he did. “Carrie, keep him here and don’t let him out.”
The poor girl dutifully tried to stay between Fletcher and the doorway, so he feinted right and slipped around her to the left. Carrie scampered behind us, looking more than a little flustered. I found most of the staff staring at the mail bin, a plastic box the Post Office brought around every day with the office’s mail. “Well?” I asked.
Cheryl pointed at a large and misshapen envelope, and then at two others that were similar. One was already open. “Look,” she said, pointing at the desk it was laying on. Sitting there on the desk was a small bar of soap, of the size and type typically found in hotel bathrooms, still in the wrapper. “It was in the envelope, along with this note.” She passed it onto me.
I turned it over in my hands. It was a simple enough note, written on plain white paper. “Wash your hands well, and vote no on the impeachment.” It was signed “Ellie Hines.” There was a return address on the envelope, for “E. Hines” in Arcadia.
While I read this strange missive, Cheryl opened the second envelope, and shook out a second bar of soap, with a similar message. I took it and set down the first note, which was grabbed by Fletcher before I could stop him. The third bulky envelope contained a full size bar of soap, partially mashed in the envelope, and a message saying to vote no on the impeachment.
We all stared at the mail, with Fletcher reading them as well, and the silence was broken by my cell phone ringing. I flipped it open and lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Carl, it’s Wayne Gilchrest here. You’ll never guess what I got in the mail today!”
“A bar of soap!”
“How’d you know?!”
“Same here! I got three. Was there a note?” I asked.
I heard a paper rustle. “It basically told me to vote no on the impeachment. Did you have something to do with this?”
“I had no idea.”
Wayne said, “I’m making some calls. You should do the same.”
I grunted agreement, and looked around the room. Fletcher Donaldson asked, “Congressman, could I get a statement?”
I didn’t know what to say, but Cheryl saved me. “This is the voters saying they want the impeachment voted down, and they want Congress to censure the President instead.”
“Yes, exactly,” I said in agreement.
“Right.” Fletcher pulled his car keys out. “It’s always interesting talking to you, Carl. I’ll see you around!” He was gone before I could say good-bye.
I had Cheryl call the office down in D.C. to see if any soap had shown up there, but the answer was no. That changed the next day. Friday I flew down to Washington and read the Sun. Fletcher had a piece on the Opinion page about the soap I had received, along with most of the Congressional delegation from Maryland. He had spent part of yesterday afternoon calling around to the various Field Offices to see what was going on. In Washington, when the mail came around, I received four bars of soap, and I called back to Westminster and was told another three had come in. I also got a bunch of phone calls from my fellow Congressmen, asking me, “What the hell is going on, Carl?!”
That Thursday and Friday it was just a trickle of soap. By the following Tuesday, the 8th, the day after Labor Day, it was a torrent! Hundreds of bars of soap were pouring into the Capitol, all with an admonition to wash our hands and forget about the impeachment, or get to work solving problems, or stop the bickering. The point they were making was obvious. The impeachment was nowhere near as popular as Newt thought it was. By the end of the week, one bright young Democratic staffer down on the first floor had placed a garbage can out in the hallway with a sign on it saying “Soap Only”, and the name of a Washington D.C. homeless shelter on it. All those bars of soap would be donated to charity! I don’t know how many homeless people there were, but they must have been the cleanest in the nation! We got sent a lot of soap!
Jerry Ferguson managed to book me to speak on This Week with David Brinkley on Sunday. It was the last chance I would have to publicly speak against the impeachment before the vote the following Tuesday. The topic of the day would be the ‘Soapbox Rebellion’, so named by Fletcher Donaldson in an opinion piece that went national. Brinkley didn’t bother pitting me against a Democrat; his second guest was Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of my putative bosses that I was ‘rebelling’ against.