Read Online All Too Human: A Political Education by George Stephanopoulos - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: George Stephanopoulos
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ordered decaf and the rest of us had a drink. Within minutes Carville and Clinton were competing. Who knew more about politics, who was the real Southerner, who had the most sophisticated take on Super Tuesday's primary chessboard. Everyone agreed that the black vote could make the difference for Clinton — and that New Hampshire was a crap-shoot. After Carville and Begala left, Clinton turned to me in the elevator and said, “Those guys are smart.” Which meant, of course, “They agree with me.” They signed up with us a couple of weeks later, and the
Post
reported that we treated it “as the December equivalent of winning the New Hampshire primary.”
True — and that wasn't the only good news coming our way at the end of 1991. Clinton was catching on, even with liberals who had been suspicious of him. At the early cattle calls, he'd tell the crowds, “I'm a Democrat by instinct, heritage, and conviction. My granddaddy thought he was going to Roosevelt when he died.” The party regulars would stomp and yell, oblivious to the unspoken yet unmistakable “but” at the end of the sentence. Clinton was establishing his bona fides, rallying skeptics with words he knew they wanted to hear. But the fact that he had to do so out loud was an implicit warning: “
I come from your world, but if you don't change with me and cut me some slack, we'll never get anything done, because we'll never win.”
Most liberals knew this, understood that Clinton wasn't really one of us. But it felt good to get lost in the partisan reverie, to be carried back to a time when photos of FDR graced Democratic mantels like the icons of a patron saint, a time when the Kennedy brothers epitomized the best and the brightest, a time long before McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis were caricatured into a sadly comic Mount Rushmore, symbols of a party out of touch and doomed to defeat. It felt good, again, to think about winning.
Only one other Democrat could still stir the party faithful in the same way, and he was the cloud over our heads as 1991 drew to a close. No matter what we said or did, the campaign wouldn't feel entirely real until the eternally ambivalent front-runner finally declared his true intentions. Nobody knew what Cuomo was going to do. He was teasing the press, the party establishment, his potential opponents — and the longer he took to make up his labyrinthine mind, the more frustrated we got. He had frozen the race.
Reporters were dying for Cuomo to jump in. It seemed as if every time the governor of New York scratched his nose he received more fawning coverage than we could get with a series of substantive speeches. What could be better than an enigmatic and eloquent intellectual who quoted Saint Francis of Assisi and didn't dirty his hands by actually entering the race? Few figures are more appealing than the reluctant statesman untroubled by ambition but willing to accept the burden of office for the good of all. “Cuomo Sapiens,” the
Post
called him. “The Thinking Man's Non-Candidate.”
Although I had shared those feelings, I was ready to engage. Clinton resisted most of our efforts to draw clear lines with Cuomo, but we got an opening when Cuomo took the first shot. Joe Klein was stirring the pot. In a
New York
magazine interview with Cuomo, he got the governor to criticize Clinton's plans on welfare and national service. Schmoozing on the phone with E. J. Dionne of the
Post
, I saw we had the opportunity we'd been waiting for. Maybe if we lobbed the grenade back to Cuomo, E. J. would have enough material to write a story and frame the debate.
I scratched out a statement and drove my battered Honda to the mansion to show it to Clinton. In his makeshift basement office, Clinton edited the statement and stood over me while I dialed the phone, wishing, I knew, that he could pick up the phone and talk to E. J. himself but knowing it wouldn't be smart: Candidates don't debate noncandidates. But by attacking
Post
reported that we treated it “as the December equivalent of winning the New Hampshire primary.”
True — and that wasn't the only good news coming our way at the end of 1991. Clinton was catching on, even with liberals who had been suspicious of him. At the early cattle calls, he'd tell the crowds, “I'm a Democrat by instinct, heritage, and conviction. My granddaddy thought he was going to Roosevelt when he died.” The party regulars would stomp and yell, oblivious to the unspoken yet unmistakable “but” at the end of the sentence. Clinton was establishing his bona fides, rallying skeptics with words he knew they wanted to hear. But the fact that he had to do so out loud was an implicit warning: “
I come from your world, but if you don't change with me and cut me some slack, we'll never get anything done, because we'll never win.”
Most liberals knew this, understood that Clinton wasn't really one of us. But it felt good to get lost in the partisan reverie, to be carried back to a time when photos of FDR graced Democratic mantels like the icons of a patron saint, a time when the Kennedy brothers epitomized the best and the brightest, a time long before McGovern, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis were caricatured into a sadly comic Mount Rushmore, symbols of a party out of touch and doomed to defeat. It felt good, again, to think about winning.
Only one other Democrat could still stir the party faithful in the same way, and he was the cloud over our heads as 1991 drew to a close. No matter what we said or did, the campaign wouldn't feel entirely real until the eternally ambivalent front-runner finally declared his true intentions. Nobody knew what Cuomo was going to do. He was teasing the press, the party establishment, his potential opponents — and the longer he took to make up his labyrinthine mind, the more frustrated we got. He had frozen the race.
Reporters were dying for Cuomo to jump in. It seemed as if every time the governor of New York scratched his nose he received more fawning coverage than we could get with a series of substantive speeches. What could be better than an enigmatic and eloquent intellectual who quoted Saint Francis of Assisi and didn't dirty his hands by actually entering the race? Few figures are more appealing than the reluctant statesman untroubled by ambition but willing to accept the burden of office for the good of all. “Cuomo Sapiens,” the
Post
called him. “The Thinking Man's Non-Candidate.”
Although I had shared those feelings, I was ready to engage. Clinton resisted most of our efforts to draw clear lines with Cuomo, but we got an opening when Cuomo took the first shot. Joe Klein was stirring the pot. In a
New York
magazine interview with Cuomo, he got the governor to criticize Clinton's plans on welfare and national service. Schmoozing on the phone with E. J. Dionne of the
Post
, I saw we had the opportunity we'd been waiting for. Maybe if we lobbed the grenade back to Cuomo, E. J. would have enough material to write a story and frame the debate.
I scratched out a statement and drove my battered Honda to the mansion to show it to Clinton. In his makeshift basement office, Clinton edited the statement and stood over me while I dialed the phone, wishing, I knew, that he could pick up the phone and talk to E. J. himself but knowing it wouldn't be smart: Candidates don't debate noncandidates. But by attacking
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