Della had liked that leaflet, but he liked his second one even better. It showed the face of a handsome black wearing a hard hat tipped at a rakish angle. The caption asked:
This time, Della’s text raked over Cubbin’s refusal to resign from the Federalists Club after the black government official had been blackballed. Mickey Della had liked both of his leaflets so much that he had had a million of each printed.
At first, Charles Guyan had tried to ignore Della’s attacks. Guyan put out an eight-page tabloid newspaper that was mailed to each of the union’s 990,000 members. The tabloid dutifully recorded Cubbin’s past achievements. It was a sprightly-looking paper with big type and lots of pictures, but praise is never as interesting as slander, and Guyan had the feeling that nobody read it.
Guyan felt lost without television. With a minute spot he could destroy an opponent’s entire campaign. He needed only twenty seconds to show why his own candidate should be elected. He was accustomed to thinking in sharply defined scenes that lasted sometimes no more than a second or two, but which could have devastating impact. It was two o’clock in the morning after Mickey Della’s last leaflet appeared when Guyan came to his decision. He picked up the phone and placed a person-to-person call to Peter Majury of Walter Penry and Associates.
“I think we’d better meet,” Guyan said after Majury whispered his hello.
“Yes, I think that would be decidedly advantageous. Where are you now?”
“In Pittsburgh. At the Hilton.”
“Ted Lawson and I will be there at ten. Would you mind ordering breakfast for us both?”
The meeting lasted only an hour, but to Guyan it was worth five years of personal experience in practical politics, the ward-heeling kind that he had never known. The first thing that Peter Majury did was to casually hand Guyan the picture of Sammy Hanks dressed in his tennis whites.
“We thought you might be able to use this,” Majury said.
“Jesus,” Guyan said. “Where’d you get it?”
“Ted found it someplace, I think.”
“Ah, hell, tell him,” Ted Lawson said. “He’s gotta learn sometime.”
Majury smiled slightly and smoothed his hair. “Ted paid a burglar he knows five hundred dollars to steal the picture. He paid him another five hundred to put it back — after we made a copy.”
“You might get a kick out of this, too,” Lawson said. “We didn’t print too many of them, but I’ve got it fixed so that every time Sammy rides in a car he’ll see this bumper sticker around and he’ll think there’re millions of them.”
He handed Guyan a bumper sticker printed in bright yellow and scarlet Da-Glo that read: “SAMMY HANKS SUCKS.”
“Jesus,” Guyan said.
“Merely a minor irritant to Sammy, but we thought you’d find it amusing,” Majury said.
“We’ve got some more stuff, too,” Ted Lawson said.
“One item in particular might be useful. It’s a compilation of remarks that Hanks has made about Cubbin over the years.” Majury scanned a sheet of paper that he had taken from a large manila envelope. “Yes, this is it. On October twenty-first, 1969, in Philadelphia, Hanks called Cubbin — and I quote — ‘The greatest man in the American labor movement.’ On February twentieth, 1967, in Los Angeles, he described Cubbin as the man who ‘has earned my respect, my love, and most important, my undying loyalty.’ It goes on like that. Do you think you can use it?”
“Christ, yes,” Guyan said, “except you’re making me feel a bit simple.”
“There’s lots more in there,” Lawson said, indicating the manila envelope.
“You shouldn’t feel simple, Charles,” Majury said. “If this were a regular campaign and you had full use of your own medium, which is, of course, television, then you would be perfectly matched against someone like Mickey Della. But in a print campaign such as this there is virtually no one who can match Mickey for sheer viciousness unless, of course, it’s Ted and I. I think we’ve given you enough ammunition to finish the campaign, but if you run into any problem, just give us a call.”
“I’ll do that,” Guyan said, deciding that if he must deal in slime, he might as well trade with the guys who owned the pit.
By four that afternoon, Ted Lawson and Peter Majury were sitting in Walter Penry’s office, giving him a report.
“I think that Guyan will work out rather well after all,” Majury said. “Once he found that he was out of his depth, he called for help. That shows a certain amount of resourcefulness.”
“Good,” Penry said. “Can you think of anything else that we should do?”
“Nothing except in Chicago,” Majury said. “I’m having a very difficult time finding out just how they intend to steal it there.”
“Keep working on it,” Penry said.
“Oh, I intend to, but it will cost.”
“How much have we spent so far?”
“Nearly a hundred and fifty thousand,” Lawson said.
“And we gave Cubbin?”
“About four hundred and fifty thousand.”
“So we’ve got about fifty thousand dollars left?” Penry said.
“Yes.”
“Is that enough?”
“I... uh... think so,” Majury said. “That reporter wants ten thousand.”
“For one question?”
“Well, it’s going to be a rather big question.”
“All right, pay him. When are they going to announce it?”
“Tomorrow. This is Friday so that will give them a day over two weeks to build up the publicity.”
“You’re sure Hanks will accept?”
“Oh, yes,” Majury said. “He’s been yelling for a debate with Cubbin.”
“But it won’t be a debate?” Penry said.
Majury shook his head. “No.”
“Okay,” Penry said. “On Sunday, October fifteenth, Cubbin and Hanks appear on — Christ, I can never remember the name of the damn thing—”
“‘The Whole World Is Watching,’” Majury said.
“No wonder I can’t remember it. All right, they appear on that, side by side, to be interviewed by a panel of distinguished newsmen, so-called. Both sides and the network will give it a big buildup because it’ll be the only appearance of the two candidates together. And this program will make or break Cubbin’s campaign.”
“Unless they manage to steal it from him in Chicago,” Lawson said.
“Yes,” Penry said, looking at Majury, “unless they steal it from him in Chicago.”
Majury smiled and again smoothed his hair. “For some reason,” he said, “I don’t think they will.”
25
There were several reasons why the television program “The Whole World Is Watching” had proved to be surprisingly popular, the principal one being that it was scheduled one hour before the network’s Sunday pro football game.
But the program had other features. It chose its controversies carefully and it always procured the two chief spokesmen for the opposing sides. Then, too, its panel of four newsmen had been selected for their overall nastiness, and the program often disintegrated into a yelling match that delighted its pregame audience who got the comfortable feeling they were keeping up with public affairs without sacrificing entertainment.
The program’s moderator, although “provocateur” would be a more accurate description, was Neal James, the syndicated political columnist who specialized in political muckraking and whose backlog of libel suits seldom totaled less than twenty million dollars. The more heated the discussion, the better James liked it, and if the program’s pace flagged, James was always ready with an insultingly provocative question or observation that more than once had sent a guest into bitter ranting. On three occasions, fists had been used and this, of course, had served as a delightful appetizer for the nearly forty million fans who were settling down for a long afternoon of fairly mindless violence.