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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
Sex columnist Dan Savage goes undercover, and hatches a plot, inside Bauer 2000 campaign headquarters in Des Moines.
Jan 25, 2000 | It took a $12 cab ride from downtown Des Moines to get to Bauer 2000 campaign headquarters. But by the time you read this, Gary Bauer's Iowa offices will probably be deserted, its computers, staffers and fax machines broken up and possibly redistributed among more viable Republican candidates, like, oh, Alan Keyes. But when I arrived three days before the Iowa Caucuses, the offices of the former Reagan domestic policy advisor and future presidential-election footnote were humming. Softly.
I was the only new volunteer who walked through the door that day, and the campaign staffers didn't quite know what to do with me. They didn't seem all that accustomed to finding work for volunteers, and only after 10 or 15 minutes of asking around was Andy, the young Bauer staffer I was handed over to, able to find something for me to do.
If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then the Bauer campaign isn't exactly crowding the Lord. The place was a mess, with paper strewn all over the floor, posters and flyers falling off tables and empty cans of diet soft drinks on every surface. Andy, looking every inch the capable campaigner in blue suspenders and a tie, showed me a cubicle, handed me a list of phone numbers and gave me a script. I was supposed to call everyone on the list and ask if they were going to their caucus on Monday night. If they were, I was supposed to ask them if they were going to support Bauer. If they were not supporting Gary, I was supposed to talk them into supporting Gary.
Pretending you feel fine when you've got the flu is exhausting -- and I had the flu in a big way. On my flight to Minneapolis, I felt this itch in the back of my throat. Waiting for my flight to Des Moines, a headache kicked in. On the plane, I started to sneeze. In the cab to the hotel, I started to cough. By the time I got to my room, I had the flu. I got undressed, crawled under the covers and stayed in bed for the next two days. By all rights, I should be back in my hotel room laying in bed, where I spent the last 48 hours. I don't want the Bauer people to realize how sick I am, so I'm relieved that they've stuck me in an out-of-the-way cubicle, where unobserved I can allow myself to look as miserable as I feel.
On day three, still sick as a dog, I decided I had to get out of bed and do my job. I had planned on following one of the loopy conservative Christian candidates around -- Bauer or Keyes -- and writing something insightful and humanizing about the candidate, his campaign and his supporters. Then, from my deathbed, I caught Gary Bauer on MSNBC. "Our society will be destroyed if we say it's OK for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman," Bauer said. Seeing Bauer go off about gay marriage reminded me of something he said back in December when the Vermont Supreme Court came out for same-sex marriage. "I think what the Vermont Supreme Court did last week was in some ways worse than terrorism," Bauer told the Associated Press.
