Truth - Al Franken [3]
I crossed the street with my entourage of young producers and researchers, heading for our broadcast position in the southwest corner of Copley Square. This was an exciting night for me, I reflected, but what really brought me satisfaction was seeing the jubilance surging through their young bodies. How many nights had I lain awake worrying that their expectations would be shattered? I had challenged them to give their all to this endeavor. And even if their all wasn’t nearly as much as my all, they had come through. And now their sacrifice would be vindicated. Grizzled political veterans such as myself knew that the rigor of the campaign would now give way to the rigors of governance, but I wanted to let them have this moment. To savor it. They would learn about budget reconciliation and recess appointments in good time; tonight was a night for celebration. For revelry and drunkenness. For dewy young bodies entwined in an at-first-tentative, then urgent embrace of love. Moistly thrusting . . .
A clap of thunder rumbled in the distance. Ah, I thought. A good omen. Mother Earth was about to be replenished, just like our drought-stricken political culture.
My phone rang. Felt. Mark Felt.1 My secret inside source, who would be providing me with the exit poll numbers the minute they arrived on his desk. That afternoon, Felt’s phone calls had delivered nothing but good news: Kerry was winning Pennsylvania! Kerry was winning Ohio! Kerry was winning Florida! I eagerly answered.
“What’s the good news, Felt? Utah?”
But instead of good news, Felt delivered something very different. Mixed news. It looked like Florida was going to be a lot closer than early exit polls had indicated. Ditto for Ohio. And Utah was trending solidly red, though polls wouldn’t close there for several hours.
Uh oh. Maybe I had misinterpreted the thunderclap and the blackening sky. As a chill rain began to fall, one word appeared in my mind: foreshadowing.
Still, most of the news had been good. Kerry didn’t need both Ohio and Florida to win. He just needed one of them. And Ohio had lost over two hundred thousand jobs during Bush’s first four disastrous years in office. There’s no way Ohio could go for Bush. Right? Right?
Hey! There’s Barney Frank. It seemed like every Democratic congressman in Massachusetts was in Boston tonight. I went over to Barney for a chest bump to lift my slightly flagging spirits. But Barney was in no mood for such antics, and his chest bump lacked its usual brio.
“How’s it looking, Barney?” I asked expectantly.
He looked glum. “Cautiously optimistic.”
Cautiously optimistic? That’s not good. That’s an optimist’s way of saying, “We’re screwed.” I’ve instructed my wife that if a doctor ever tells her that he’s “cautiously optimistic” about my test results, she is to pull the plug immediately. I saw what happened to Terri Schiavo. I don’t want to become a political football on the basis of cautious optimism.
Onstage, the Black-Eyed Peas had launched into “Let’s Get It Started” (the politically correct version of their hit “Let’s Get Retarded”), which had featured prominently in every meeting of five hundred or more Democrats during the campaign season. My staff was gamely bobbing and grooving in the freezing rain. No reason to give up hope yet. That’s what Jesse Jackson would have told them if he had been there. Oh, he was. And he didn’t look hopeful. Crud.
Another thunderclap rang out. Only this time it wasn’t from the inky sky. It was a figurative thunderclap, emanating from the massive video screens flanking the stage. Tom Brokaw was telling us that Bush was doing much better in