Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [32]
Another friend from high school, Hall “Cap” Adams, agreed to handle our advertising. He had printed up pocket-sized campaign cards designed for me to hand out to voters. I thought carefully about what my positions should be and managed to condense what I believed at age twenty-nine and what I believe today into twenty-three words onto the card. The policy portion read: “firm foreign policy, strong defense and a freer trade policy, effective civil rights measures, reduction of the debt, incentives for increasing economic growth.”
My parents, despite initial skepticism, quickly became enthusiastic supporters. Dad let us use a vacant house he was in the process of fixing up as our temporary campaign headquarters. My mother even spoke on my behalf. “I have heard many comments about your performance on behalf of your wayward son. I’m sure it was not a pleasant task, but the victory was well worth the many hours you spent working toward it. I am delighted with your stamina,” I wrote my mother after she gave a talk supporting me at the Women’s Republican Club of New Trier Township.1
Joyce and our friends went to work on making the candidate more presentable. For one thing, it was clear early on that I wasn’t a very good public speaker. Ned Jannotta and Joyce arranged to use an empty hall one evening so I could practice and they could critique me. I went up on the stage and gave my stump speech to the almost empty hall, over and over, while they would yell, “Stand up straight!” and “Get your hands out of your pockets!” and “Quit popping the microphone!” until I started doing a bit better. I found public speaking was like anything else: Unless you have some remarkable natural talent—which I didn’t—when you’re starting out, you don’t do it very well. But if you work on it and work on it, you can get better. I used to say it is like training an ape. If you do it right you get a banana and if you do it poorly you don’t. And pretty soon you start doing it right.
I had to deal with the impression that at twenty-nine I simply was too young to be a congressman. It was a particular problem since the incumbent, Mrs. Church, was so much older. So I traveled around the district as often as possible with Joyce so voters would see that I was married. As it happened, the election two years earlier of the young President Kennedy proved helpful to me. Kennedy had successfully overcome questions about his age and inexperience. The youthful image he and his family projected proved to be a winning asset.
To get my name out, Jannotta and I decided to meet with prominent local leaders and ask for their public endorsements. The idea was that their endorsement would create a ripple effect, so their friends and colleagues would learn they had endorsed me, which might encourage them at least to hear me out as well. We decided to think big and looked for one of the most prominent business leaders in the district. Donold Lourie, the chief executive officer of Quaker Oats, became an early target. My mother again was helpful; she had known Lourie’s mother years before. Another stroke of luck was that Lourie had been an All-American football star at Princeton. The meeting was of pivotal importance to my campaign, and I was going to use every possible advantage I could. So I gathered together my friends Ned Jannotta, Brad Glass, and Jim Otis—all of whom had been on Princeton’s varsity football team—and brought them with me.
Lourie was delighted to meet his fellow Princeton football alums—maybe too delighted. All he wanted to talk about was Princeton football. But I did manage to pry in a request for his help. Lourie graciously said he would give it some thought. I figured I had little to lose by indicating my sense of urgency. “Let me explain our situation,”