* & __ SECRET$ W0IERSMlevel above the Republican counterparts of people in that room. I was immediately struck at how different I was from the other recruits. Everybody was 25 or under, and only two were women. Later I found that higher level campaign workers were predominantly female. Role reversal. Seventy-five percent of the guys had Jewish, Irish or Italian names. Almost everybody was from Massachusetts or New York, and the only other person who looked forty was one of the women in the room. I was demographically unique. Two kids from California, and one kid from Texas shared my minority status. After a pep talk we were told to report to an East Des Moines labor temple for a night of telephone canvassing. You’re in the army now! At 9:30 PM I still had no place to sleep. There was some mention of putting me up at Andrea Dukakis’ apartment. As it turned out, I ended up in a woman’s apartment who later became one of my telephone bosses. Three young women shared their small two-bedroom apartment with about seven guys in their early twenties and myself—a pretty bad hippy crash pad. The cheap pressed-wood paneling had a few holes in it. Silverfish skittered about in a kitchen sink piled with dirty dishes. A large flag of China draped over the fireplace was the only significant piece of decor. Ah, my lost and found youth. These living arrangements guaranteed that someone would be coming in until 3:30 AM, with someone else waking up and walking over bodies by 6:00 AM. I had traded in my well-appointed house in Eugene for this? My senior status secured me a single bed which later turned into sleeping on a box spring. I donated my mattress and a few blankets to guys sleeping on the floor or couch. DUKE POLITICAL CULTURE The first four days were filled with a tutorial on the ins and outs of political campaigning. Hours were spent detailing volunteer recruitment, press relations (None, unless we tell you!), canvassing, giving the Dukakis rap, (Goodjobs at good wages! and Mike Dukakis cares a* *1 5J about peace, people and the environment.), telephone manners, scheduling and doing campaign events. Having had ten years of Demo politics, the only thing even somewhat new to me was the word surrogate. Hint: It’s not artificial insemination. This refers to people standing in for the candidate: mom, wife, children, Rep. Chet Atkins of Massachusetts, The Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner, and even more obscure people. One of the few surrogates with any kind of name familiarity at all was Father Drinan, the Catholic priest whose anti-war stance had made the Pope rule that he and a few Sandinistas could not hold elected office. The Duke bosses conformed very closely to standard political types. Joe Ricca, number two man in Iowa, was a pure political technician—the kind of guy who obviously did his job and did it well. You didn’t want to cross Joe Ricca. Theresa Villmain, the Dukakis Iowa campaign head, was a fearsome woman. Plain and thin, her energy level could only be described as ultra-manic. Always enthusiastic!! Always fast-talking! It was rumored she could eat a five-course meal in five minutes. Food was served either in campaign headquarters or in a Greek restaurant. It was always fast-food grease and sugar. Group activity left hardly any time for the individual. This was like being indoctrinated into some obscure religious cult selling flowers in the Des Moines airport. The campaign and politics were the only focus of any conversation. At one point, my roommates were astonished when I showed up with a current Wall Street Jourpal. They were amazed a) by the fact that someone actually had enough time to buy a paper, and b) by physical evidence of contact with the outside world. MEETIHGTHE PRESIDEHT It was announced on the third day that the candidate was going to personally interview us the next morning. My first job interview by a man who would be president. Avoiding a beer party, I went to the flophouse to get a few hours of precious sleep. By 6:00 AM I was wide awake with a high degree of energy. After a five-mile run, I was the last person to use the shower, grateful for lukewarm water. I put on my power suit. Twenty of us sat on chairs in a small, windowless room. The Governor came in and was handed a three-ring notebook that held our resumes. Mine was the best looking one in the bunch. I could easily see them, sitting in the front row three feet away from the Governor. The kids probably hadn’t been looking for serious work as long as I had. I was the best- dressed, and the oldest too! Who cares? Mike Dukakis wasted no time. He looked at the resume for no more than five seconds; then had a short, but casual conversation with each of us. The Texas kid and the California kid were chatted up with something like “Well, you’ve come a long w a y . . . . ” His conversation to me began with, “You’re a little old to be doing this, aren’t you?” Think fast, Karl! I gave my response only a C-. “Well, I try to keep up with these guys by running five miles this morning.” My Ronald Reaganesque inflection was a little ridiculous. Gov. Dukakis talked about his Boston Marathon run and his exercise program. Afterward, the troops assembled to listen to the Dukakis stump speech for the first time. I sat down, and Dukakis stood right beside me. What can you make of immediate impressions? Adjectives for the Duke: intelligent, learned, well- adjusted. He came across as a brilliant manager. There wasn’t a single weird or kinky streak in the guy. His only flaw was that his moral standards were cast in stainless steel. If anything brought comeuppance to the Dukakis administration, it would be the Greek Puritan getting in the way of the manager-pragmatist. The only other hint of non-perfection was his side comment to the troops, “Whatever you do, don’t put it in writing.” Though this followed right after Sasso’s Biden-killer video, I speculate that President Dukakis ' would get along quite well with the CIA. ALMOST PEARL HARBOR DAY DES MOINES AND CHEROKEE, IA The green recruits were assigned stations and mustered out. My hope was that my long political history would qualify me for some responsible, demanding job at headquarters. As it turned out, I was parked in the upper-lefthand corner of the Iowa map in a town called Cherokee. It seemed I had been assigned there simply because I came from the Pacific Northwest. American campaign logic had struck. I measure campaign logic by what I call the Insanity Quotient. On a scale of 0 (too mundane for a winning campaign) to 100 (beyond criminally insane), the Dukakis organization appeared to be a 10, i.e. arbitrary and capricious. This was far better than some congressional campaign crews I had seen. A more typical campaign would have a boss played by J.R. Ewing on a crystal meth jag, ruling a claque of nitwits, incompetents, sycophants, and paranoid-schizophrenics. My foster parents in Cherokee were Don and Marilee Johnson, a Methodist minister and his wife. They literally adopted me as their own. Not enough can be said about the hospitality, generosity, and character of people who are willing to take a total stranger into their home for the sake of a cause. Besides free room and board, there was an important ground of emotional support and total access to their social network of friends and parishioners—a wonderful source of stability. Clinton St. Quarterly— Fall/Winter 1988 9
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