Charlie graduated from boot camp in November and Marilyn and I took a few days off and flew down to South Carolina. Once there, we managed to leave the security team at the gate and act like the other parents down to see their offspring march around. Nobody seemed to know who Charlie was related to, and when we offered to take him home with us for his leave, he told us that some of the guys were heading to Miami for a few days, and would it be all right if he went with them. He promised to come home when he got leave at Christmas. Our little boy was growing up.
Meanwhile, the Republican campaign for the 2000 elections was well underway! Everybody and their brother had been making pilgrimages to Iowa and New Hampshire, well, everybody who was running, anyway. How these two miniscule states ended up being the arbiters of national politics completely escaped me. The political future of an incredibly complex and multiculturally diverse nation would be decided by a bunch of fundamentalist farmers and hardheaded Yankees. This couldn’t be what the Founders had in mind when they thought this mess up!
This was the third presidential election since I had gotten to Washington in 1990 and I had learned one thing from them. The single solitary lesson I had learned was that never, under any circumstances, did I want to run for President! It was one thing to run around a couple of small Maryland counties nights and weekends, keeping my name and face fresh in front of the voters. It is something completely different to try and do the same thing across fifty states and face down a dozen guys who would happily sell their mothers to a Mexican whorehouse and rape nuns to get the job.
As 1999 ended it seemed like everyone and their brother was running for the Republican nomination. We had Senators, a Governor, a former Vice President, some Cabinet Secretaries, and a bunch of businessmen who were all vying for the privilege of whomping on Al Gore’s ass. While a bunch of Democrats were talking about running for the Democratic nomination, other than the Vice President, to my knowledge none of them had even formed the obligatory ‘exploratory committee’ prior to declaring. This was one of those legal fictions allowing candidates to run all over the country giving speeches and ‘learning about the concerns of the people’ while collecting campaign funds without legally campaigning.
As far as I was concerned, there were only two serious candidates for the Republican nomination. George W. Bush was the Governor of Texas, and the son of George H. W. Bush, the former President. John McCain was the senior Senator from Arizona, and was the only member of the Senate with the political chops and skill to run for the office. The others, like Steve Forbes or Pat Buchanan or Dan Quayle were either has-beens or wannabes without either a clue or a chance.
In ’92 I had of course supported President Bush, who had been the only guy running. I ignored Ross Perot as nothing but a troublemaker. Four years later I had supported Bob Dole. I had known he would take the nomination, but seriously, none of the others interested me anyway. I slept soundly supporting him. Bob had been thankful, of course, but it wasn’t like I was any sort of power in the House, and the Maryland Ninth wasn’t going to vote for him in any case.
My, oh my, how things had changed! The Maryland Ninth still wasn’t going to vote Republican, but I was now the Majority Whip, and had a certain degree of influence. I began to be courted by the candidates, being asked to be seen with them, to go to fundraising dinners, to become known as an adviser. Sometimes the candidate themselves might come calling and sometimes it might be one of their campaign staff. Some were serious players with good ideas (I liked Orrin Hatch, Liddy Dole, and Lamar Alexander, but I knew they would never generate the money it would take to make even a serious run) and some were jokes (Herman Cain!) The worst to me were the ones doing it because they had a cause that they were pushing, at the expense of everything else, like Pat Buchanan and his hard right agenda. Pat had already lost in 1992 and 1996, and had gotten shriller and more unelectable with every election. Another pathetic excuse for a candidate was Steve Forbes, who made a big push for me to support him, simply because we were both ludicrously wealthy. Big difference? I made my money (with a fair bit of foreknowledge, to be sure) and he inherited his, a lot of which he spent with a campaign and message which failed to resonate with anybody.
For most of 1998 and 1999 I was able to tap-dance around the issue, simply promising to support whoever was nominated. It was obvious early on that the only two serious players were going to be Bush and McCain. The party establishment, the RNC and the state parties, were all lined up behind George Bush, and I was certainly hearing this from both groups. On the other hand I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that George Bush was going to be one of the most disastrous Presidents this nation had ever seen. On practically every choice he made, whether foreign or domestic, he managed to come down squarely on the side of the wrong choice! McCain could be a hothead and a loose cannon, but he was simply smarter.
I had a meeting in my Westminster office with Millie Destrier (Bob had died last year, a real loss, because Bob was just a hell of a nice guy!), now the head of the Maryland Republican Committee, Jack Nerstein from Carroll County, and John Steiner’s replacement for Baltimore County, Macy Adams. All three of them were pushing me to publicly come out in favor of George Bush. It was late in the day, after hours, and the four of us were having drinks. Nobody was around to overhear us and we all knew each other long enough to be candid.
I had listened to their arguments, and had simply replied, “I can only promise to support the candidate who eventually wins. Why should I commit myself now, and maybe end up backing the losing horse?”
“With George, you know you’ll be backing the winner,” countered Millie.
“That is circular logic, Millie, and won’t stand on its own,” I said with a smile.
“It’s not circular if you look at who is going to win. When you look at the donors and the campaign contributions and the rest of the supporters, none of the others have a chance! This is going to come down to either Bush or McCain,” said Macy, and I nodded in agreement. She continued, “Between the two of them, McCain just doesn’t have the backing. It’s going to be George Bush.”
I gave a wry shrug at that. It might be true, but I didn’t have to like it.
Jack asked, “Carl, what’s your real problem with Bush? There’s more to this then just hedging your bets.”
“And say there was? Say that you are right and I am wrong, and George Bush becomes the next President of these United States. I do not need it getting out that the House Majority Whip doesn’t think much of the President! Tell me how that plays out well for anybody?” I replied.
“So tell us! Listen, I swear I won’t tell anybody what you said here tonight,” he said. The others promptly made the same promise, which I was free to value for whatever I felt it was worth.
I sighed. Here was another dilemma — do I tell them their candidate was a moron or do I tell them I don’t trust them not to tell tales out of school? “Okay, just hear me out on this, and if anybody ever flaps their mouth, I’ll hear about it!”
I freshened my drink and Millie’s, the others were all right. “Listen, George Bush has a lot of stuff going for him. On paper, everything is perfect! Republican establishment, money, education, military service, a background in business, owner of a sports team, governor of a big state — everything you would ask for if you sent down to Central Casting for a Republican Presidential candidate. But if you start digging at anything, it becomes real obvious real fast that there is nothing underneath the surface.”