"Just fine."
Behind me, our son was standing stock still in the kitchen, realizing this was where a dead guy had laid. He looked at me guiltily, asking me silently, 'Here?' I didn't say a word, but subtly pointed towards the end of the island, where Hamilton had landed on the floor. Charlie's eyes opened wide, and he backed out of the room.
Marilyn looked at me and asked, "What in the world was that all about?"
I smiled and poured some wine for both of us. "I'll tell you later."
Steve Rymark proved himself a formidable opponent. In some ways, not only did he run on his own record, he ran on mine, in a negative fashion. He was a big believer in gun control, so D2A showed I was an out of control gun nut, playing into the hands of the National Rifle Association. Additionally, of course, I was part of the Newt Gingrich Gang of Eight that shut down the government and raised taxes. Whatever was going wrong in government, you could be sure that it was my personal fault.
There wasn't much I could protest about with this. It was true. We had fundamentally different views of the Second Amendment. I was one of Gingrich's protégés, even if he wasn't speaking to me at the moment. I was a charter member of the Gang of Eight. We had shut down the government and we had ended up raising taxes. I had voted for the linkage between the continuing resolution and limiting the debt ceiling.
When you get handed lemons, make lemonade. We worked up some quotes and sound bites that would make me sound leader-like. When I got hit by questions or complaints, I was to adopt a tough love attitude – these were things that had to be done, or the country was going to hell in a hand basket.
"Yes, I was part of the government shutdown. Am I happy it got to that point? No, of course not! Did we need to institute the discipline to fix our problems? Yes we did!"
and
"This stuff is important! Budgets and deficits and taxes are important! It's not fun and it's not sexy and it's not exciting, but it's important. Somebody has to lead on these issues, and if it isn't going to be Bill Clinton, then it will have to be us. I am one of those leaders!"
and
"Budget deficits matter! We have borrowed money from around the world to pay for things that we should be paying for ourselves. One of these days they are going to come calling! Why are we borrowing money from China to pay for [fill in the blank]? If it's that important, we have to either pay for it ourselves, or find the money elsewhere. We have to stop spending money we don't have!"
and the ever popular
"I pay my bills! You pay your bills! Your kids are paying their bills! So why can't the government pay its bills?! This stuff matters!"
All this was part of the stump speech. The overall approach was one of sorrow. Yes, I know it was a terrible thing, but if Clinton wasn't going to behave responsibly, and take action, then we would have to force him to take action. That was when we got to the second half of the speech, the results we had to date.
"Was it pretty? No! Was it fun? No! Was it necessary? Yes! Did it work? Yes! The budget deficit for this year is half what it was last year! Next year it will be even lower! We need to clean up our act and get our financial house in order! We are going to eliminate the deficit, but only with the continued support of the voters – you folks out there. We have to fix this mess, and to do that, we need to stay with the program and send me back to Washington to lead this fight!"
We were just going to have to see how it all played out.
Chapter 121: Children, All Sorts
1996 - 1997
Well, I survived the '96 election. As close fought elections went, this was cleaner than most, simply because neither of us gave the other any dirt to throw. I'm not talking about our records as public servants, but about the personal stuff. By now my life was an open book. What was Steve Rymark going to accuse me of, killing my brother? Please! Old news! As for him, believe me we looked! His zipper seemed tighter than mine. Donna Rymark simply glowed as she grew bigger during the campaign. When she gave birth to another son in August, the only thing we could think to do was to visit them in the hospital, all of us, kids included, each carrying a large box of infant disposable diapers and smiling for the cameras.
It was an expensive election. We had to match Rymark ad for ad, and he had a lot of money to spend. There was a feeling at the Democratic National Headquarters that a bunch of us who were tied to Gingrich were vulnerable, and they funneled some money to local candidates. Additionally, the Maryland Ninth is not a poor district, especially in the Baltimore county area, and Rymark had more than a few donors able to give the maximum. He had a war chest ample to fight me.
Rymark spent a lot of time beating on me about being a member of the Gang of Eight and shutting down the government and being a buddy of Gingrich. The best I could come up with was that he was a liberal Democrat who hated the Second Amendment. I just kept up my regular ground game, donating to worthy causes, speaking to every group available, and pushing the incumbency card hard. November 5, my 41st birthday, I managed to get reelected. It was a 55-45 win, which was roughly half the margin I had been averaging. By most standards it was a landslide, but to say it was unnerving was an understatement. Steve Rymark called at half past eleven that night and conceded quite graciously. By the time I made my speech, it was too late for anybody to give a shit.
Maybe I'd get lucky and in 1998 he'd run for something else, anything else! On the downside, most of the upcoming races would have Democratic incumbents, like Parris Glendenning for Governor or Barbara Mikulski for Senator. Then again, the good news for me was that we were no longer in an era when the loser could try again in a few years. Nowadays, if you lost, you were generally through. I probably wouldn't have to face Steve Rymark and his unbelievably adorable family ever again. On the downside, if Donna Rymark ever decided to run for office, I was up shit creek! If they went to picture ballots, all she had to do was wear a low cut blouse and I was totally screwed.
Ultimately, about a month after the election, Steve was approached by the re-elected Clinton White House and offered a position as the United States Attorney for Maryland, replacing Lynne Battaglia, who took a job as a Federal Judge. It was a no-brainer move. At the start of the year he had been an assistant county prosecutor, and at the end of the year he was the Federal prosecutor responsible for the entire state. If he did well there, he could run for Senate or Governor someday.
If the Democrats were hoping to tar and feather the Gang of Eight and ride us out of town on a rail, they uniformly failed. All of us survived the election, as did Newt. The same could not be said for all of our colleagues, however. The Republicans still controlled the House, but we lost 10 seats to the Dems, making it 228-206-1. Newt held onto his position as Speaker, but there was some loud grumbling. More than a few of our colleagues were looking at the results, and at the much tighter races they had fought to stay where they were, and were pointing fingers at Gingrich for making life a lot more difficult for them. On the plus side, nobody was pointing fingers at me or anybody else in the Gang of Eight (Seven now, since Rick Santorum was a Senator and beyond us mere Congressmen). For one thing, they had all voted as Newt had demanded we vote, so the blame for their seriously depleted campaign chests was on him.
I'm not sure if Newt noticed the finger pointing. I am sure that if he did notice, he didn't care. He was on a mission, a mission to destroy Bill Clinton. He began talking about impeachment, at least quietly, and seemed to be looking for an excuse to make it happen. He took the stunned looks on the faces of those he talked to as approval.