Read Online All Too Human: A Political Education by George Stephanopoulos - Free Book Online
Authors: George Stephanopoulos
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disingenuous, and it would call too much attention to the fact that Clinton had laughed at the joke rather than focusing fire on our rival who told it. So we would try to keep Clinton out of the story. Our official response was this statement from me:
“What Governor Clinton has said is that he and Bob Kerrey are good friends. …” The opening phrase sends a double message: Not only is the story old news, but it's not even important enough for Clinton to make his own statement. “Good friends” is a signal to Kerrey's people that we won't go out of our way to hurt him, which is not to say that we will go out of our way to help him.
“Senator Kerrey clearly thought it was a private conversation, and Governor Clinton is going to respect that. …” This is Senator Kerrey's problem; Clinton is merely a forgiving observer. Our guy just
listened
to the joke, as opposed to the poor sap who told it. But we do “respect” Senator Kerrey's right to lose sight of the fact that he's in the middle of a presidential campaign, where everyone knows there's no such thing as a private conversation.
“There were a lot of bad jokes flying around that auditorium … some more tasteless than others.” We're not saying Clinton's never told a bad joke; you press guys probably have one on tape. But yes, if you insist, Kerrey's joke was worse. It was — and this is the key word, the most vivid word in the statement, the one that turns the knife — “tasteless.”
I was pretty happy with the language. Even better news for us was the fact that Kerrey was in San Francisco just as this was breaking. That alone guaranteed a second-day story, and Kerrey prolonged his agony by going on a binge of self-recrimination. Telling this joke, he said, had caused him to confront “an unpleasant side” of himself. It was time, he continued, “for me to evaluate my own behavior.”
There is such a thing as apologizing too much. Kerrey's response kept the story going and made him look weak. At a stage in the campaign when even the most trivial incident is dissected by the punditocracy to distinguish between the candidates, Kerrey was sending the message that he wasn't yet ready for prime time. While his blunder wasn't the talk of the nation, it was the subject of no less than four stories, plus a column in the
Washington Post
.
The joke drowned out any coverage we might have gotten on Clinton's congressional testimony advocating D.C. statehood. But the real point of our visit to Washington was a private meeting later that night with Jesse Jackson. Jackson had just announced that he wouldn't run for the Democratic nomination, so the black vote was up for grabs, and Clinton's relationship with Jesse could make the crucial difference.
A few of us accompanied Clinton to a dinner meeting on Jackson's turf— the private room on the second floor of a restaurant in his Northeast Washington neighborhood. It felt like the meeting of two gang leaders, each with a small entourage, sitting down to see if there was an alliance to be formed or a battle to be fought. This was the first time I had seen Clinton and Jackson together, and I was struck by their size, their huge hands and oversize heads.
Clinton and Jackson needed each other. Clinton wanted Jackson's endorsement and the votes that went with it, but without appearing to ask. As the titular leader of African American Democrats, and a man who'd won more primary votes in the past than anyone now in the race, Jackson expected to be courted — and to play the role of kingmaker. Jackson probably also calculated that Clinton was the only other candidate in the race who could cut into the campaign of the only African American in the race, Virginia governor Doug Wilder. Wilder and Jackson were more rivals than friends. If Wilder did well in the primaries, it might threaten Jackson's preeminent position in the black community.
Dealing with Jackson was a delicate task, which we had muffed in the Dukakis
“What Governor Clinton has said is that he and Bob Kerrey are good friends. …” The opening phrase sends a double message: Not only is the story old news, but it's not even important enough for Clinton to make his own statement. “Good friends” is a signal to Kerrey's people that we won't go out of our way to hurt him, which is not to say that we will go out of our way to help him.
“Senator Kerrey clearly thought it was a private conversation, and Governor Clinton is going to respect that. …” This is Senator Kerrey's problem; Clinton is merely a forgiving observer. Our guy just
listened
to the joke, as opposed to the poor sap who told it. But we do “respect” Senator Kerrey's right to lose sight of the fact that he's in the middle of a presidential campaign, where everyone knows there's no such thing as a private conversation.
“There were a lot of bad jokes flying around that auditorium … some more tasteless than others.” We're not saying Clinton's never told a bad joke; you press guys probably have one on tape. But yes, if you insist, Kerrey's joke was worse. It was — and this is the key word, the most vivid word in the statement, the one that turns the knife — “tasteless.”
I was pretty happy with the language. Even better news for us was the fact that Kerrey was in San Francisco just as this was breaking. That alone guaranteed a second-day story, and Kerrey prolonged his agony by going on a binge of self-recrimination. Telling this joke, he said, had caused him to confront “an unpleasant side” of himself. It was time, he continued, “for me to evaluate my own behavior.”
There is such a thing as apologizing too much. Kerrey's response kept the story going and made him look weak. At a stage in the campaign when even the most trivial incident is dissected by the punditocracy to distinguish between the candidates, Kerrey was sending the message that he wasn't yet ready for prime time. While his blunder wasn't the talk of the nation, it was the subject of no less than four stories, plus a column in the
Washington Post
.
The joke drowned out any coverage we might have gotten on Clinton's congressional testimony advocating D.C. statehood. But the real point of our visit to Washington was a private meeting later that night with Jesse Jackson. Jackson had just announced that he wouldn't run for the Democratic nomination, so the black vote was up for grabs, and Clinton's relationship with Jesse could make the crucial difference.
A few of us accompanied Clinton to a dinner meeting on Jackson's turf— the private room on the second floor of a restaurant in his Northeast Washington neighborhood. It felt like the meeting of two gang leaders, each with a small entourage, sitting down to see if there was an alliance to be formed or a battle to be fought. This was the first time I had seen Clinton and Jackson together, and I was struck by their size, their huge hands and oversize heads.
Clinton and Jackson needed each other. Clinton wanted Jackson's endorsement and the votes that went with it, but without appearing to ask. As the titular leader of African American Democrats, and a man who'd won more primary votes in the past than anyone now in the race, Jackson expected to be courted — and to play the role of kingmaker. Jackson probably also calculated that Clinton was the only other candidate in the race who could cut into the campaign of the only African American in the race, Virginia governor Doug Wilder. Wilder and Jackson were more rivals than friends. If Wilder did well in the primaries, it might threaten Jackson's preeminent position in the black community.
Dealing with Jackson was a delicate task, which we had muffed in the Dukakis
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