On the plus side, Holly and Molly were naturals! They were gorgeous and outgoing, bubbly and cute, and could handle a five minute speech without batting an eye. They were judged to be a real advantage.
The best we could do was simply to keep Marilyn off of the podium. What they couldn't understand was how warm and personable she was in person, just talking to people, and yet be so horrendous in front of an audience. How could she introduce me at the convention, in what was now a tradition? I settled it by suggesting that we combine her introduction with another tradition, the biographical film on me. She could do the voice-overs and talk about me in a personal sense, without having to memorize lines or stand in front of a crowd. They scribbled out some trial notes and sat Marilyn in an armchair and tried it, and that went well. Her speechwriters began some serious scribbling. We had found a job for Marilyn!
Wednesday they had her try this some more, and Marilyn worked out much better. She was fine as long as nobody slapped a mike and a camera in her face. By the end of the day, we had settled on how she would handle things. When we split apart to do our campaigning, I would take the girls to the Heartland and Marilyn would go with her bunch to Baltimore, where a bunch of writers would comb through our family photos and develop my biography.
As for me, I had to do some campaigning! Thursday night we would fly to Lexington Kentucky, where I would give a speech at a fundraiser. Friday we would board a bus and drive south into Tennessee, stopping every few hours to give a speech. I would have my daughters with me, and we could give them a shot at speaking. They thought this was incredibly exciting. I knew better, but I was just their father, so they didn't have to listen to me. I simply smiled at that. They'd learn.
Chapter 128: Stormy Weather
Thursday, July 20, 2000
They learned, all right! By Thursday they were heartily bored and sick and tired of the whole thing. The first day or two had been interesting. Marilyn and I had never taken the kids to Kentucky or Tennessee, not even on vacations, so everything was new and interesting to them. We would roll into some little town, and the local Republican committee would have a stage set up somewhere, maybe the local school or the courthouse or veteran's hall. The local organizer would introduce Holly and Molly, who would then do four or five minutes and introduce me. I would come out and hug my daughters, and then deliver a stump speech. Afterwards we would meet the local reporters, have a meal, and climb back on the bus. Two hours later we were someplace else.
During all of this I would be surrounded by 'consultants', who would basically plan everything I did, from the time I woke up, until the time I went to bed. There was a wardrobe consultant, so that I would be appropriately dressed. If I had to wear a suit, they would decide what color suit and shirt and tie; if I was in shirtsleeves, they would decide how far up the arm they would be unrolled. If they didn't stay at the appropriate height up my arm, they would be more than happy to staple them into position. There was a speech consultant, to edit the stump speech as needed. There would be somebody to liaison with everybody locally. There were food consultants to tell me what I was eating and when. There was probably a bathroom consultant, to make sure I took Vice Presidential dumps at appropriate times.
You have to be real damn careful with consultants. Consultants are professional worriers. You can't make a joke, since it might just offend somebody. You can't say you are for something, or against something. You can't give details lest they be turned against you. The best politicians know when to ignore the consultants and let the chips fall where they will. The worst campaigners ended up like Mitt Romney, afraid to say anything to anybody without it being run through a consultant, and ending up looking phony and plastic.
Do all this for twelve hours a day or more, and it gets real old, real fast. The twins learned not to eat very much at these things. By the end of the day I wasn't sure where I even was, and I needed help to not fuck up by not knowing where I actually was and who I was speaking to. By Thursday the girls were making up mock versions of their speeches, and our chief handler caught them practicing them in front of some laughing reporters on the bus. As a VP candidate, I had national correspondents along with me, not so much to cover what I was saying, but in the hope I would manage to fuck up massively on camera. I was sent back to stifle my daughters, and it really burned his britches when I sat down with the reporters and laughed along with them. Afterwards I told him that as long as my daughters were poking fun at their dad, the reporters would laugh along. If they poked fun at the Governor, I'd clamp down on them. What a nitwit.
I figured I'd call Marilyn and get them sent home over the weekend. It would give them a break and she could use some feminine companionship for a bit. I probably wouldn't see her again until the convention. At 2:00 we rolled into Springboro, Oklahoma, which was somewhere east of Shawnee, which was somewhere east of Oklahoma City. We had already been through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Friday and Saturday would see us into Nebraska and Kansas. By Sunday I would be doing mock speeches in the back of the bus myself!
Still, everything looked fairly average. It was warm, but not ridiculously so. The weather forecast was for a heavy thunderstorm in the afternoon, which is pretty normal. My speech was in the high school gymnasium, and even though it was the summer, they had the "Pride of Springboro" - the Springboro Okies basketball team and the Okie Cheerleading team - there to liven things up. Well, that was the plan, anyway. As we got off the bus and headed into the school, I commented to the girls that it looked like we were going to get a real thunderboomer, it was dark and getting darker, with clouds on the horizon, and that in these flat plains, they'd probably be able to see it coming from miles away.
We went inside and used a couple of empty first grade classrooms as makeshift dressing rooms before heading towards the school gym. Outside the sky kept getting darker, and the wind seemed to be picking up as well. Still, I've been in thunderstorms before, and as long as the power stayed up, nobody cared. We were directed to the gym, where a stage and backdrop were set up, and were moved to hide behind the backdrop. The local dignitaries were there, the mayor, the school principal, the town council, and the local Republican honchos. I would meet the various Congressmen and Senators at dinner that night in Oklahoma City.
After a few minutes, Holly and Molly made their way to the stage, amid a lot of cheering and applause. They did their speech and then called me out. I came out and gave them both a hug, and sent them off the stage. "Thank you! Thank you! I am so glad to be here! Now, let me ask you, are those girls great, or what!" There was some more cheering and applause, and the twins dutifully came back out with smiles on their faces, waved again, and departed. "It's good to see the cheerleading squad here, since my girls are cheerleaders back at Hereford High. As for you fellows on the basketball team..."More raucous cheers – basketball is a big deal in Oklahoma! " ... Sorry guys, they're still a little young for you! I might let them start dating when they hit their thirties!" More laughter at that.
Suddenly the world's loudest siren went off, seemingly right over my head! Everybody in the room started talking, and I looked over at the guy next to me, who happened to be the mayor. "Fire alarm?", I asked.