Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [75]
Just sixteen years old, Claudia had time before she’d have to make a decision. But she enjoyed contemplating that possible life in Tucson. She pictured herself biking the same Tucson trails that Gabby loved. It might be a long while before her stepmother could get back on a bike, if ever, but Claudia could take those rides and enjoy all the scenery. Then she and Gabby could talk about what she saw or who she met along the way. Claudia would enjoy that, and it lifted her heart to think that Gabby would, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Higher Callings
As Gabby fought for her life in the early days after the shooting, she had no idea that she was at the center of a boiling nationwide debate. Political discourse in America had become increasingly angry and belligerent, the rhetoric mean-spirited and threatening. The question of the moment: Had hateful, confrontational politics played a role in the shooting in Tucson?
Some argued that a troubled twenty-two-year-old man went to that shopping center to assassinate my wife and to murder and maim other innocent people solely because he was mentally ill. It wasn’t the influence of political rhetoric. It was schizophrenia.
Gabby couldn’t speak for herself after she was shot, but I knew exactly how she felt about the toxic political climate and the use of violent imagery in campaigns. She hated it. And she worried that some people, influenced by what they heard and read, could be motivated to respond with violence. She’d already seen it in her own congressional district, in her own office.
She was well aware that unstable people, like everyone else, watch the news, see campaign commercials, and seek information on the Internet. They are sometimes obsessive followers of politics. And because they may have a skewed way of processing information, it’s possible that angry, violent words could motivate them to do disturbing or terrible things. Gabby didn’t just talk to me about this risk. She also spoke publicly about it.
Especially during the debate over the controversial 2010 health-care bill, Gabby paid close attention to the threats and violence in other congressional districts. Pictures of nooses were sent to congressmen in Michigan and South Carolina. A New York congresswoman received a telephone message mentioning snipers, and a brick was thrown into her office. A shot was fired into a Virginia congressman’s campaign office.
For weeks leading up to the health-care vote, protesters had gathered outside Gabby’s office in Tucson, jeering loudly and angrily. They held nasty signs, including some that showed Gabby dressed as Death and carrying a scythe. Checking messages on the office answering machine, Gabby’s staffers would have to log calls such as: “Is that c—going to vote for the health-care bill?”
Some angry callers would demand to talk directly to Gabby. “Is that Communist bitch there?” more than one asked. Gabby’s staffers tried to remain cool. Her communications director, C. J. Karamargin, had an urge to answer, “Which Communist bitch are you looking for?”
Staffers joked about their efforts to sweet-talk “crazy callers,” but they were nervous, too. At times things felt sinister. During healthcare forums, C.J. thought the hostility “was rumbling like a volcano.” He wondered when the lava would flow. But he was struck by the ways in which Gabby worked to ease the tension. When people were rude at the forums, Gabby responded forcefully and firmly, but in a way that was quintessentially her. She wouldn’t scold or wag her finger. Instead she would cajole her audiences. “Hey, guys, let’s try not to be rude here, OK?”
Bill Clinton used to talk about himself as being like an inflatable clown; if you punched him, he came right back up. Gabby’s staffers said she reminded them of Clinton in that regard. She endured verbal blow after verbal blow, and she bounced right back up, trying to smile.