I skipped any of the spin sessions or political coffee klatches after my speech, and Marilyn and I headed over to the Saint Paul, where we were staying. The only people in the limo were Marilyn and me, and a pair of Secret Service agents. I just stared out the window while Marilyn held my hand.
"Penny for your thoughts?", she said.
"I can't break a penny. Not worth that much."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just thinking about all of this. Would it have been better to just have gone off and been boring and predictable like you said?", I told her, looking at her face.
She shrugged and smiled. "Probably have been boring and predictable."
I chuckled at that.
She nudged me in the ribs and laughed. "I'm proud of you. You are a good man."
I had to smile at her. I waggled my eyebrows and asked, "And all these years I thought women didn't want a good man."
"You are so disgusting!", she laughed. Then I got another nudge. "Just how good are you?"
I waggled my eyebrows some more, and Marilyn laughed as we went inside. Later, at the Saint Paul, we spent quite a bit of time determining what was 'good' and what wasn't before we finally fell asleep. I might have hit 52, but the plumbing was still working just fine.
The next day we flew home, and I watched the rest of the convention on television. My speech got some air time Tuesday evening, but that was about it. By Wednesday everybody was talking about Tuesday night's speech by Mitt Romney, a 'healing moment' as he called it, and what this all portended for the future if John McCain won. Jeb did a marvelous job Wednesday night lighting up the fires under the base with a 'What has Obama ever done?' speech. He was the designated attack dog, and he did the job well. John gave a great speech Thursday, accepted the nomination, and thanked everybody before sending them all home. We picked up about a 4% boost after the convention, about the same amount the Democrats had picked up.
I was given a chance to speak to the nation on the upcoming election in early September. I agreed to a meeting with several reporters and a couple of cameras in the Map Room, without too many limits on topics. We talked about current foreign policy and my plans for the balance of my term, and what I thought of how John McCain was doing. Once they began questioning me about politics, it got interesting. For the most part I toed the party line, that John was holding his own, that it was a tight election, and that John would be a far superior President. Some of what I said did not reflect well on Senator Obama.
Chuck Todd: "Senator Obama has been quoted as saying that your administration is behind the citizenship controversy as much as Vice President McCain's campaign is. How do you respond to that?"
Me: "I heard that and I was somewhat surprised. Certainly none of this is coming out of either my office or that of the Vice President's and I am personally familiar with most of the people in the McCain campaign, and can assure you the campaign isn't behind it either. I have repeatedly stated that the Senator is a native born citizen and a Christian. What more does he expect out of me? Does he want me to personally track down every website and tell them to behave? That simply shows a surprising naiveté about the power of the Presidency on Senator Obama's part! If he thinks that just because somebody is the President that they can shut down rumors and innuendo in a nation of 300 million people, he is sadly mistaken. If I had that power, I think I would have used it a long time ago, in my own life."
Nothing like bitch slapping a candidate for saying something foolish out of exasperation. It is one thing to call somebody wrong, it is another to call them naïve.
Chip Reid: "It was reported recently in the Chicago Tribune that Senator Obama considers the Republican Party hidebound and antediluvian. How do you characterize the Democratic Party?"
Me: "As good and loyal Americans with a Presidential nominee not worthy of their votes. I like Democrats. I married one, remember!"
Chip: "What about the hidebound and antediluvian characterization?"
Me: "That simply shows how little the Senator knows about the Republican Party and what we stand for. I knew exactly what my party stood for when I joined it back in college. I don't know what party Senator Obama is talking about. I characterize our party as very progressive."
Thomas Friedman: "You consider the Republicans a progressive party?"
Me: "Very much so. You simply have to look at our history. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, ended slavery. That's pretty progressive, don't you think? That continued on with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Were you aware that the Republicans in both the House and the Senate voted for civil rights at a far higher percentage than the Democrats did? Again, pretty progressive. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican when he broke up the trusts and monopolies, helped unions, passed laws protecting our food and drugs that are still in effect, and created the National Park system. Sounds pretty progressive to me! Dwight Eisenhower created the interstate highway system, a radical idea at the time. Richard Nixon passed the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the EPA, and OSHA, all progressive ideas. I would state that it's the Republican Party which is the true progressive party in this nation."
Thomas: "That doesn't seem to be the current philosophy of the party?"
Me: "No? Then tell me how a Republican Congress passed the DREAM Act, the most far reaching immigration reform bill we've had in decades. Again, progressive, and certainly not what Senator Obama thinks of us. If he doesn't understand what we stand for, how does he think he will work with us to run the country? This is a nation with many different beliefs. He is a hard core liberal, which is fine as far as it goes, but he has to be able to work with people who aren't, and I see absolutely no sign he can do that. John McCain has passed that test, if you ask me."
Chuck: "Do you think Senator Obama is qualified to be the President?"
Me: "Well, the Constitution specifies that you have to be a natural born citizen, or have natural born parents, and you have to be 35 or older. He meets those qualifications. Other than that, no, probably not."
Chuck: "Why not?"
Me: "A big part of this job is simply showing up and getting things done. You can throw out all the lofty rhetoric and speeches, but sooner or later you need to actually tell somebody to do something and make it all work. Now, this is simply my personal belief, not the official pronouncement of the President. Still, before I ended up here, I had commanded troops, had run a multibillion dollar business, and had been the House Majority Whip, another leadership position. John McCain had command in the Navy, and had been a committee chair in the Senate, a leadership position. Between the two of us we've been behind dozens of major legislative bills. Jeb Bush was a governor and then had business experience running things. Now, I like Barack Obama, even though our politics are different. He's a nice enough guy, but would somebody please tell me what major legislation he's ever been responsible for? What he's ever managed other than his Senate staff? I'll grant you that he gives a great speech, certainly better than I've ever done, but sooner or later you have to stop giving speeches and get something done. What's he done?"
That caused a real consternation in the Democratic campaign apparatus! Senator Obama spent the next week trying to tell people what he really meant to say, and that he wasn't naive and that he was able to work with anybody and that he had the skills to actually run things. Meanwhile the Democratic campaign loudly proclaimed how I was using the Presidency to actively campaign for my hand-picked successor. (They seemed to think this was unfair; our side thought it was business as usual.) John told me the next day that he loved my description of the party as progressive, since it both took the wind out of the Democrats' sails for a few days, and shut down the conservative base for a bit. They hated being called progressive, but they couldn't argue with the facts I had stated. Mind you, some of the current crop would happily repeal most of the laws I had mentioned, including the Emancipation Proclamation, but they weren't getting a vote.