Saturday, May 17, 2008
Episode 2: The balloon battle heats up, and Bill Bennett enters the picture.
Jan 28, 2004 | Stuart and Jeannie One were taking a short break, eating flan and orange juice, when she saw them. "Oh good lord," she said, and tilted her head west, up to the bleachers, where Sergei and Nicky were sharing a notebook and a pair of binoculars.
Sergei was dictating to Nicky the size and quality of the fair's attendees. "Two New Adopters, four Elder Strivers, two Young Believers, six Teen Nihilists, two New Empty Nests, three New Bohemians, four Gray Powers, two Country Casuals, three Middleburg Managers, one New Homesteader, five Boomtown Singles, two Old Glories, four City Startups, two Young & Rustics, five American Classics, and Older White Man with Young Czech Mistress. Two New Adopters, four Old Adopters, six Recalcitrants, four Pluggers, five Shruggers, one Recidivist -- "
Stuart made his way up the bleachers to stand between them.
"Look who's here," Sergei said.
Little Nicky smiled like it hurt. Truth be told, Nicky didn't much like Stuart.
"Here, put this on," Sergei said, giving Stuart a leather flight jacket. It was approaching 80 degrees and would climb 10 more when the sun finally dragged itself to the roof of the sky. "It'll be 90 today," Stuart said. "Why?"
"You'll look virile, capable, sexy."
"It's so heavy!" Stuart said, in a way that straddled complaint and a simple sense of wonder.
"With the jacket, you look like an outsider, a maverick. You're the Wild One."
Stuart was going to, and then didn't, make a joke about how funny it was that he was considered the outsider, when he was being pushed by the state GOP machine only because his family name was known by the town's older residents. But he couldn't think of a way to make it funny. Together the three of them watched the people drift into the fairgrounds.
"This should be good," Stuart said.
"Once we deal with the blimp," Nicky noted.
Stuart hadn't noticed the blimp, but now did.
"Don't look so impressed," Sergei said.
Stuart stopped looking impressed.
"That blimp is our enemy," Sergei said.
Stuart nodded. Sergei was exceptionally good at pointing out his enemies.
Stuart appreciated Sergei's strong sense of self, his strong sense of what needed to be done, his strong opinions and quick judgments. Stuart didn't want to wear an 11-pound leather bomber's jacket on a day like this, but he had much too much respect and appreciation for Sergei to say no. He knew he was lucky to get Sergei on a smallish campaign like this, chiefly because Sergei told him this often, and told him again just then.
"You're lucky to have me on a smallish campaign like this!"
He said all this in a vaguely and messily European accent that no one could place. Stuart felt sorry that he'd made Sergei even have to point out how fortunate he was.
Sergei Andropov was considered one of the best campaign managers in California, even though he hailed from pre-Gorbachev Georgia, was educated in Switzerland and now lived in Minnesota. Did he claim responsibility for Jesse Ventura's seizure of the governorship? He did. Was he actually responsible for that seizure? Probably. He was everywhere and nowhere, like dust and David Gergen. Were the rumors about Sergei true? Had he fired a guy because his name was Maurice? Usually and yes. He now had handled a number of successful California campaigns, each one of them breaking records for fundraising and spending, though he still pronounced Los Angeles Los Anghaleze, and couldn't tell the difference between Catalina Island and the Farallons.
Sergei had the look and posture of a badger, specifically the University of Wisconsin badger mascot, with his barrel chest and angry hair, which intimidated many and rightfully implied that Sergei would fight anyone over anything, and, like the badger, preferred his clothing snug. He had worked actively on 34 campaigns, 18 in the U.S., 10 in Belgrade, two in Lithuania and one each in Russia, Spain and Montenegro -- and had consulted clandestinely on 50 or so more. He had been equally passionate about each one. Could he remember each of his candidates' names? He could not. Did he know his record? He did. He was 32-2. One loss in the Ukraine, which he didn't really count because he'd been suffering from mono throughout, with the one American loss in Massachusetts and that race was the candidate's fault, because she wouldn't listen to him and continued, against his implorings, to wear pants. He made clear than no woman can wear pants and win but she wore pants and lost and whose fault was it? Barbara Boxer rarely wore pants. Ferraro wore pants and look what happened to her! But still she wore pants because she was difficult and out of touch and a loser.
During their first meeting, he'd warned Stuart about being difficult. "Difficult candidates make the best losers," he'd said, and then pointed to a plaque above his file cabinet that bore that very axiom. Looking around his office, Stuart wondered if Sergei had an in with an engraver, because he seemed to have engraved everything he'd ever said. VOTERS AREN'T BORN, THEY'RE REGISTERED!!! Three exclamation points after that one. If Sergei used one exclamation point, he used three. BEFORE YOU CAN RUN, YOU MUST LEARN TO CRAWL!!! said another, heralding a trend in his declarations, for next to it was TO GO FOR THE GUSTO FIRST YOU MUST DRAWL!!! and below that ANYTHING IN LIFE WORTH FIGHTING FOR IS WORTH CRAWLING FOR!! On his immaculate desk was a paperweight that read: THE BUCK STOPS HERE, and then in parentheses, J.K.
"That means just kidding," Sergei had said, when he saw Stuart looking at the engraving. "Some people think it's someone's initials, like Jack Kerouac or something, but it's not. It means just kidding, because I like to kid. I am a kidder and a crazy man. I am a political animal!" he yelped, and laughed and laughed. "Now, do you have any last questions before we start getting you elected?"
Stuart had one question then, and repeated it to Sergei now, as they stood on the bleachers, watching their constituents -- "Look at that!" Nicky said. "Two Multi-Culti Mosaics with three Golden Ponds and one Crossroads Villagers!" -- wander into the fairgrounds:
"Do you really think Fred Savage will come to my rally?"
Sergei had promised Stuart as much, because outside of having an in with an engraver -- which he did, and man that was sweet! -- he had ins with all the prominent Republican celebrities in L.A., Fred Savage and Scott Baio among them, and was working on Drew Carey, that fickle libertarian bastard. On Sergei's car, an old Buick LeSabre, he had a bumper sticker that read I CHOOSE NOT TO RUN, quoting Coolidge and echoing the fact that Sergei had run once, himself, in South Dakota -- he'd taken up residence there, thinking it would be his easiest route to the Senate -- and had lost, miserably, to a man named Bob Evans, who didn't spend a penny against a badger-looking man named Sergei Andropov.
So now he was doing what he was meant to do and yes, he loved and believed fervently in all of his candidates, except those who lost, who he called losers who didn't want it in the first place. The only people who belonged in office, Sergei felt, were those who won, because who wants a loser in office? No one. He loved his winners, and he loved making them winners. Each race presented a unique set of problems, and each one presented him with an opportunity to make flyers, and he loved to make flyers. Flyers were the lifeblood of small-budget campaigns, which was his specialty. Anything under $300,000 was his area of expertise, and with that kind of money, TV was pretty much out, flyers were in. He had a number of his best flyers framed around his office. VOTE FOR ADLER, one said, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! WACHOVIA FOR AMERICA, another read, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
"People in America don't like to be late," he'd explained. "I tried the same slogan in Spain. It did not work so good."
Just behind Sergei's desk was a large, elaborately framed pastel drawing of his grandfather, Edward Bernays, standing in front of a tunnel, holding a corndog.
Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and the inventor of public relations. Those two words, public and relations, had never been uttered together before Edward Bernays, an American who invented consumer desire and used his uncle's theories of latent wants and fears to sell everything from cars to war, and engineered not only the inauguration of Hoover but the overthrow of at least one South American government. Edward Bernays had a sister, Anna, named after the senior Freud's odd and strident and possibly deranged daughter, and she'd married a Russian named Alexei, who brought her to Georgia and there birthed Sergei, who came into the world with a smirk and eyes alight. Sergei liked to think he looked something like his Uncle Edward, but there was no resemblance whatsoever. Sergei was clearer, more direct, obviously possessed and very funny. The joy he took in running campaigns was a joy to behold, if the beholder can see clear to do so.
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