Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [109]
My head was spinning. The judge had just pointed out numerous instances of the law being broken—but he was still going to let the election take place. I was doomed.
Scheduling the election on a Friday during the Christmas season was a genius move by the school board. Have you ever gone to vote on a Friday? Exactly. So who would even know when this particular Friday rolled around that it was “election day”? The haters who wanted me out of there, that’s who.
Each side got to write something on the official ballot. The recallers had a hundred words where they outlined my “crimes.” And I had a hundred words to answer their charges. I decided it wasn’t worth wasting my time. I wrote, simply, “The question that is placed before you on this ballot is a moral question that must be decided between you and your conscience. I sincerely trust that you will make the best decision possible for you and your children. Love, Mike.” In addition to being the youngest elected official, I might have been the first person to inscribe the word love on an election ballot.
On recall day I was back in the same gym where I had won the seat two and a half years earlier. When I arrived at 7:00 a.m., the citizens recall committee was already in action. The school board clerk allowed them to sit at the table where the voters sign in and check off who had shown up and who hadn’t. Every half hour or so, they would hand off the names and go call those who hadn’t come in to vote yet. It was quite the operation to watch, and once again I had been outsmarted (and outspent). In the weeks leading up to the election I did what I had done before to win. I wrote up a “Letter to the people of Davison” and went and knocked on every door in the district.
The line snaked the length of the gym to the back by the doors, out through the hallway, and to the front of the school. By the time the polls closed thirteen hours later, it was clear this was a huge turnout.
In the middle of the gym they set up four long lunchroom tables to form a square on which they dumped out the paper ballots. The count began with the “YES” ballots placed on one table and the “NO” ballots stacked on the other. For the next hour and a half, who had the highest pile went back and forth. Higher and higher, neck and neck they climbed. And then something happened. The pile of “NO” ballots kept growing: 100 higher. 200 higher! 300 HIGHER! The final ballot was placed atop the pile favoring me and the clerk declared that the recall had failed and I had won.
On the bleachers on the south side of the gym, where a hundred or so student supporters had taken perch, there was a scream from someone, and then more screams followed. A spontaneous party broke out and there was jumping and dancing all across the gymnasium floor. Me, I was just relieved. The TV cameras were there to record the event and I went live with the anchorman at 11:00 p.m. I thanked the people of Davison, declared the local Republican Party dead, and promised to remain who I was. I also apologized to my parents for putting them through this. It had been especially hard on my mother. The recall committee was made up of the people she had lived with in Davison her whole life. The head of the committee—my dad was his coach in junior high football. The copies of the recall petitions I was able to obtain in court revealed the names of many we thought were family friends. The guy my dad ushered with in church signed it. My mom’s friend from high school signed it. The girl I sat next to in band—her, too. They were all there. And to this day, if you ask my dad (now ninety) if “so-and-so” had signed the petition, he would be able to tell you in an instant.
They call it “Irish Alzheimer’s”: you forget everything—except holding the grudge.
I served out the rest of my term, always voting the way I wanted, but worn down from the whole experience. I was asked to speak to the students at the high