Saturday, November 4
A high school band exploded into a rousing rendition of "Hail to the Chief" as I walked inside the ballroom of the Chicago Sheraton. A pair of stocky Secret Service agents in trademark dark suits escorted me along the side wall to a holding area cordoned off with velvet ropes near the side of the dais.
The crowd of several thousand Republican partisans was up on its feet cheering wildly. Hutchins, who had just walked out onto the stage, had a smile on his face as big as Lake Michigan. He waved his arms back and forth above his head, stopping only to point out people in the audience whom he recognized, giving them a thumbs-up sign as he mouthed their names. He actually did this to me, letting his eyes linger a moment on mine before turning his palm up toward the crowd as if to say, "Look at all this." He appeared elated, the antithesis of that last time I called on him in the Oval Office.
And why shouldn't he be? He was barnstorming across the country in a rousing campaign swing, unveiling a series of commonsense policy initiatives designed to take the public discourse beyond the routine stalemate of partisanship to a place he called "The American Way." At every stop, in cities like St. Louis, Cleveland, Houston, and Atlanta, there wasn't just enthusiasm but adulation. Pollsters said his lead had increased to about five points, give or take. It was a combination, they said, of the honeymoon that any president gets when he takes over at a trying time, his survival of an assassin's bullet, and his newly floated battery of ideas.
And those ideas flowed with abandon, ignorant of traditional party lines. In a bald appeal to the American mainstream, he warned the Republican-controlled Congress not to send up any more bills that would curtail abortion rights, lest they wanted to face another veto and anger a president of their own party. He told the Democratic leadership not to even think about turning back welfare reform. He proposed a sweeping overhaul of Social Security that would allow young workers to invest their money privately in Wall Street and be virtually guaranteed a long-term rate of return double that of anything the government had ever provided. And he proposed health care reform that was met with enthusiasm by key members of both parties, the U.s.
Chamber of Commerce, and the AFL–CIO.
How popular had he become? That morning's Chicago Sun-Times, a bratty little tabloid, had endorsed Hutchins on its editorial page, and also had Hutchins's photograph splashed across its front page, with several of his proposals bulleted down the side, all under the fawning headline
"Clay's Way." A Washington Post endorsement described him as "a leader with the common sense of Mark Twain and the political instincts of Franklin Roosevelt."
"These aren't Republican ideas," he boomed from the podium in Chicago.
"These aren't Democratic ideas. These are American ideas." The crowd fell into a near frenzy.
"Not a bad little reception, huh?"
That was Royal Dalton, the White House press secretary who had taken the job in the first days of the Cole administration and was about to lose it in the first days of the Hutchins administration, though I'm not entirely sure if he realized that fact yet.
Speaking of which, my intention was to reject the press secretary's job. I'm a newspaper reporter-always have been, always will be. I don't look good on television. I don't particularly like politics, mostly because I don't particularly like politicians. I disdain the idea that, as a press secretary, I'd ever have to suck up to someone like myself, some cynical reporter whose bullshit meter jumps off the charts at the first sign of any insincerity and virtually explodes at the suspicion of a lie.
That said, I'd use the rejection as a chance to ask some much-needed and belated questions.
"Kind of reminds me of Nixon in Egypt about a month before he resigned," I said to Dalton. He looked at me quizzically, then decided to ignore the remark.
"So I have you slotted for about fifteen minutes with him, after this event. He'll go up to his suite in the hotel for some private time, and you're due to be brought up there right after him."
Dalton was having to speak louder. The crowd had broken out into a chant of "Clay's Way, Clay's Way." Hutchins stood on the podium pretending to be mad that they had interrupted his speech, holding his hands up in a plea for quiet, peering over the crowd with a mock sour look on his face.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he shouted into the microphone. "You have to let me finish. I have to continue across the country. I have an election to win, an agenda to put into place. I have to get back to Washington, victorious, to make sure those career politicians aren't misusing any more of our money and dampening any more of our American dream."
My God, how campy. But the crowd went crazy, the sound of the applause and the cheers swirling toward the cavernous ceiling, mixing with the red, white, and blue balloons that floated in the netting overhead.
Dalton said, "It's been like this at every stop. I've never seen anything like it."
I gave the press secretary a quick up and down. He was dressed in a gray chalk-stripe suit with a brightly colored bow tie pinned up against what looked to be a remarkably expensive shirt, the type that had French cuffs adhered by monogrammed gold cuff links. As I may have mentioned, he had a rather puffy, pasty look to him, no doubt honed by years spent in conservatories playing the piano as a child or reading Shakespeare in his room in boarding school, or tucked away in some corner of a library at his Ivy League university. He made George Will look like the Marlboro Man.
"On background," he said, "between you and me, over in the West Wing, we just have to watch out that he doesn't get too carried away with this populist message." He gave kind of a knowing laugh, mostly through his nose, as if he had just said something funny, though I wasn't sure what it was. "We just have to make sure he doesn't start believing all this centrist pablum he's throwing out. God, President Cole must be rolling over in his grave."
On stage, Hutchins appeared to be on a roll himself.
"Look," he said, speaking with no notes in front of him, winging it, enjoying himself. "Let's make a deal. I like deals. Deals are what helped me get rich before I came to Washington. Here's the deal I want to cut with the American people. I talk about the American dream an awful lot, and I do it for a reason. I happen to think the American dream is the backbone of this wonderful country. The role of the government isn't to make sure you fulfill that dream. That's too easy for the people and too hard for the government. It's unrealistic. No, the government's role should be to make sure that every American-and that's every single American, black or white or red or brown, male or female, young or old, gay or straight-has the opportunity to pursue his or her dream. So here's what I want to do. I promise you, I guarantee you, I will work until the day I leave office to make sure that every American gets the education they need to pursue their dream.
That means the best primary and secondary school education, that means the best post-high-school education, that means the constant availability of job retraining for those who lose their livelihoods and are forced to look for something else, something different, a little bit later in life. I also promise you, we will not allow discrimination-not here in America, not under this administration, not because of age, sex, race, or even sexual preference."
The crowd was silent, listening intently, perhaps in a collective understanding that they were witnessing a rare moment of political improvisation. Dalton, on the other hand, had an uneasy look to him that bordered on actual fright.
"Here's what I want in return. I want you to be Americans, to go back to our roots. That means showing compassion for those less fortunate.
That means helping those who can work find a job. Let's break this cycle of dependence once and for all. Let's never return to the welfare state that we became. On the other hand, let's not be cruel.
Some of us need a helping hand, and to give it, that too is the American way."
A roar of applause, and Hutchins, looking businesslike now, waited patiently for it to stop.
"Let's end the crime. Let's end the discrimination. Let's put our time and our money where it ought to be put, and that's toward making this country a better place to live, where opportunity is available for the asking, and dreams can be fulfilled by those willing to work toward fulfilling them. That's the deal I'm ready to cut with you. That's the deal that's going to make an already great country even greater."
The crowd jumped to its feet in a massive roar. The balloons overhead showered down like a patriotic snowfall. Amid the noise and the blaze of color that framed this snapshot of triumph, I caught Hutchins's eye one more time. It was a fleeting moment, so maybe I'm wrong. But it wasn't the look of delirium you might expect, nor was it a look of despair. It struck me as a look of need, almost a plea, though what he might have really needed from me, I had absolutely no idea.
Hutchins sat at the head of an antique dining table drinking straight from a can of Diet Coke in what must have been the largest hotel suite I had ever seen. Two aides stood on either side, pointing out something on a sheaf of documents spread out before them. I had arrived in the company of one of the Secret Service agents, a man so large that the fabric on the collar of his white button-down shirt didn't appear so much tight as absolutely furious, ready to burst from the immense neck muscles that constantly pressed against it.
Hutchins pulled off his half glasses when he saw me come in and advised me where to sit. He pushed the papers together, straightened them on the table, and handed them to one of his aides, saying to him in that rock-hard voice, "Tell Benny I said to hand-deliver these to Senator Mitchellson Monday morning. I don't care where he is, Washington or Georgia or whatever. Tell Benny to tell Mitchellson that I said I'm ready to meet him halfway. Then tell him if he's not ready to meet me, whether I win or lose, we'll cut his fucking legs out from under him.
Tell him he'll need a fucking wheelchair just to get around the Senate floor."
"Yes, sir," the aide said, then sprinted from the room like the Cowardly Lion racing from Oz. As he left, Dalton appeared out of a nearby room and pulled out a chair as if to take a seat. Before he could, Hutchins told him he preferred to conduct the interview in private. When Dalton protested, Hutchins put his hand up, and the conversation was brought to an end. You don't easily question the president. That was a good lesson to take away from this meeting.
Hutchins sat in silence for a moment after everyone had left, and I had no choice but to follow suit. Finally he said, "What'd you think?"
I couldn't tell if he really cared. He had just stood before thousands of cheering, adoring supporters. They were pumping signs with flattering slogans high in the air. They were screaming his name.
They were even laughing at his less funny jokes. I should be so lucky.
Network television crews were beaming the appearance live into living rooms across the nation, in a precursor of what would likely happen in Tuesday's election, just three days away. And here he was, asking what I thought about it all.
"I thought your tie didn't match your suit."
I don't know where that came from. I was hoping for one of those belly laughs. Instead, he gave me a bemused look and said in a softer-than-usual voice, "This is one of my favorite ties."
He picked up his half glasses and twirled them in his hand. He put them on for a minute and glanced at a sheet of paper in front of him, then pulled them off and placed them back on the table, clasping his hands together in front of him.
"So here's what I have in mind," he said. "You heard me out there. I have lots of thoughts, and the crowds love them, for what they are.
But they're little more than unformed ideas. I have to figure out how to translate what's going on up here"-he conked his closed fist against the side of his head- "to the policy-making structures of the West Wing and the rest of that rathole we call Washington."
He paused for nary a moment and continued.
"That's where you come in. First, you help me translate my thoughts into actual policy initiatives. For example, you help me take this American dream idea and spin some real meat-and-potatoes proposals out of it. You figure out how it plays within the White House, how we get people on board. Second, once we figure out a set of proposals, you help create the message around them to sell them to the public.
Everyone of my predecessors here has said that's the biggest problem of the presidency, how to communicate your message to the public. You could sit in the Oval and devise a cure for cancer, but it won't do you a damn bit of good if the public doesn't understand what the cure means and if they don't believe that the president is personally behind it."
He broke for a moment longer than before and looked at me hard. He tapped his glasses on the table once or twice and took a pull from his can of Diet Coke. I wasn't sure if he was done yet, so I didn't say anything. Ends up, he wasn't.
"My idea is to announce your arrival in the briefing room on Thursday, two days after the election. I figure you can probably start in the week or so after that. I don't want to rush it too much and have the Record pissed off at me. We'll keep Dalton around until right after the holidays, then I have a slot saved for him over in the U.s. Trade Representative's office. He can talk about Rwanda or Chilean imports or whatever the fuck it is they talk about over there. He'll like that."
He wasn't really asking me about this; he was telling me. He wasn't so much looking for a yes or no as a simple acknowledgment that the Thursday after the election would be a good time to make the announcement. I must admit, his strategy did have a certain appeal to it. A weaker man might have said, "Yes, this all sounds good."
Instead, I said, in that unusually formal tone that I seemed to reserve just for him, "Sir, I have no government experience whatsoever. I don't even have political experience. I really don't believe I'm the guy you need in there right now, for your sake."
"Bullshit. I didn't have any presidential experience when I came to the Oval Office, and look at me. I'm up in virtually every poll. This is now my race to lose, and I won't. For chrissakes, the country loves me. Did you see that crowd today? It's almost absurd."
He continued, "I'd rather have someone from outside government than from within. I'd rather have someone who's skeptical of what I'm saying rather than another pansy-assed yes-man. You'd be the first hurdle to any idea. If it doesn't get past you, it doesn't go anywhere. You also understand the news media, and that's exactly what I need. I have to know from inside the White House how these things are going to play inside the press."
I started to believe him myself, started to think that, yes, I could help the president, that I was precisely what he needed, that I could turn his window of opportunity into a reality of success. He was good.
I'll give him that. That's probably why he was the president, seemingly destined to win a full term.
Then this voice popped into my mind for roughly the millionth time in the last week-that crystal-clear voice of an aging man who was warning me that this assassination attempt wasn't what it seemed.
Well, we were trying to figure out what it was, Havlicek and me. We were getting up early. We were staying up late. We were burning the phone lines, climbing on airplanes, helplessly waiting for calls from my anonymous voice, hopeful that the next little piece would make the entire puzzle clear. Some of the pieces were starting to come together. I had names to go on now, names like Paul Stemple and Curtis Black. They had a common bond-an armored car robbery some twenty years ago. We just had to figure out how the past related to the present.
"Mr. President, before I go on with my decision, I need to ask you something. Why did you pardon Paul Stemple?"
I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock behind me, the rhythmic breathing of Hutchins sitting across from me, the soft, absent tap of his glasses against the wooden tabletop. I looked at him and he looked at me, his forehead scrunched into an expression that may have been concern, but may just as well have been anger.
The moment stretched on, the rift of silence widening into a veritable canyon.
"Jack," he finally said, his voice straightforward, betraying neither anger nor surprise, "I don't really know. My best recollection is that Mr. Stemple was going to be pardoned by President Cole. I believe he was on his list after I was sworn in, so I went ahead and issued the pardon. I believe that's the case, though I'd have to double-check."
He had me with that answer. How was I supposed to check with Cole, or get one of his aides to dig up such minutiae in the throes of the last weekend of an election campaign?
As I sat in silence, Hutchins continued, his voice taking on more of an edge. "But here's what I do know. I'm the best goddamned president who'll ever seek your help. That's all you really need to know right now. As far as why I was shot, I'm hoping like hell to find that out as soon as I can. I really don't want to be shot again. I think you'll join me in agreement that it's not a fun thing."
Well, that all seemed like an effective evasion, leaving me little in the way of follow-up questions. Also, I really didn't have a good enough handle yet on what I was talking about to pursue the line any further. I was fishing, and going back and forth in my mind on whether I should throw out the name Curtis Black. I decided it was premature.
I gave it one more try, saying, "There's something terribly odd about that assassination attempt."
Okay, so now he seemed exasperated. "We have an army of FBI agents working on this issue right now. The only odd thing is that they haven't nailed down an exact motive yet. They will, Jack. In the meantime, you and this guy Havlicek are obsessing over a point that I'm sure will very quickly become clear. The FBI is doing their best work.
They're not trying to screw this thing up. They're not trying to cover anything up. Sometimes these investigations just aren't easy, and sometimes they don't work out in the neatly set schedules that you press people demand."
I said, "Maybe you're right," though not for half a second did I think he was.
Then I breathed a long sigh and said to Hutchins, "Sir, I've thought your offer over hard. I really have. I'm honored by it. I was tempted by it. But I can't accept it. I'm a newspaper reporter.
Sometimes I don't even think I have any say in the matter. It's just what I do, and what I'll continue to do, and what I sometimes suspect and fear I'll always do."
He stared at me again, silent. My mind flashed to the adoring, applauding crowd in the ballroom from a few minutes before, to all the noise and the festivity, and now to this room, to the sullen silence, to the juxtaposition that was often the president's life. He was the leader of the free world who had once told me he felt anything but free. Forget all his power. Here he was stewing that he couldn't persuade some reporter from South Boston to come work on his staff.
"You're making an enormous mistake, young man," he said, sternly, looking me in the eye. He pushed his chair out and lifted himself up to show me to the door. "We're all done here," he said. "I have some business to do."
I got up and slowly walked over to the door, and when I got within a few feet of him, I stuck my hand out to shake his. He ignored me and said, "This is a decision you'll regret for a long time to come."