CHANNEL 3 CHICAGO
ANCHOR: We have a breaking news story which will have a tremendous impact on next week’s national election. Amanda Crawford, a former staffer for Illinois Senator Thomas Moran, has filed a paternity suit against the Senator. She contends that her three-year-old son, also Thomas, was conceived in the Senator’s office in the Senate four years ago during the August recess. We take you to Tamar Montcrief in Washington.
MONTCRIEF: That’s right Luci. Twenty-four-year-old Mandy Crawford brought her son with her when she and her lawyers entered the Federal Court House in the District of Columbia. She was obviously a very distraught young woman.
CRAWFORD (a pale, pretty blond in jeans and sweatshirt. In tears. She is surrounded by lawyers, security, and public relations): He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t return my phone calls. He wouldn’t answer my letters. I had to think of my poor Tommy here.
(Her handsome son with dark red hair stares at the camera)
See, doesn’t he look like the Senator? Isn’t he cute? The Senator told me that he wasn’t happy in his marriage because his wife wouldn’t make love with him and that he would divorce her and marry me. He was very nice to me at first but then when the August recess was over, he seemed to lose interest. I still love him, but he’s let me down.
REPORTER: Did you consent to sex, Ms. Crawford?
CRAWFORD: Not at first, no.
REPORTER: Where did you have sex with him?
CRAWFORD: Usually in the closet in his office.
REPORTER: When?
CRAWFORD: At the end of the day when everyone else went home.
REPORTER: Why did you wait till the week before the election to reveal your affair with the Senator?
CRAWFORD: I wrote him last week and told him I would sue him before the election unless he talked to me about poor little Tommy.
(The baby begins to cry)
PUBLIC RELATIONS PERSON: I think that’s enough questions for now. Mandy finds this all very painful.
MONTCRIEF: This sensational news is likely to have a profound impact on next Tuesday’s election, especially since her little Tommy was born in District General Hospital exactly nine months after Ms. Crawford’s affair with Senator Moran. We now go to our Congressional correspondent Marty Gordon. Marty?
GORDON: That’s right, Tamar. Most senators are not in Washington on the Friday before an election. However, we do have Senator Winston Evergreen available for comment … What do you think of this shocking scandal, Senator?
EVERGREEN (ROTUND AND ALMOST CLERICAL): I’ve been in the United States Senate for a long time and I’ve heard just about everything. Yet as a devout Christian man, I am shocked by adultery. Senator Moran was a young man on the make, a typical new Democrat who wants to run the country. He was hoping to continue his mischievous role as a member of the Democrat leadership. Now it looks like lust has destroyed him. I for one won’t miss him.
GORDON: Now for a view from the White House, we go to John Kramer at the White House. John, what are they saying over there?
KRAMER: They’re not saying much on the record, Marty. But
off the record they’re pretty pleased. Senator Moran has been a thorn in the side of the administration since he came into the Senate almost six years ago. The White House thinks he’s a slick and dangerous operator and that his now certain defeat in Illinois will signal a return to Republican control in the Congress and here in the White House.
ANCHOR: Sorry to interrupt, John, but we now have a reporter who is interviewing Senator Bartlett McCoy in Kentucky. Senator McCoy has sponsored several legislative measures with Senator Moran. We take you to Joan Merton in Lexington, Kentucky.
MERTON (BREATHLESS): Senator McCoy do you have any comment about the scandal involving Senator Thomas P. Moran?
McCOY: Yes, I do, ma’m.
MERTON: And what is that comment, Senator.
McCOY: My comment, ma’am, is that it is all balderdash!
MERTON (BAFFLED): “Balderdash, Senator”
McCOY: Yes, ma’am, pure balderdash, not to use a more scatological term. A cheap election trick, in which I am sure the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is not involved, because I’m a member of it. Tom Moran simply isn’t the kind of man who would engage in that sort of behavior. He is a true gentleman …
MERTON (CUTS HIM OFF): Back to you, Luci.
ANCHOR: Now we turn to our chief political correspondent, Arthur Kincaid in Washington. Arthur, what’s this scandal going to mean for the Democratic party next Tuesday?
KINCAID: I’m afraid it will mean defeat, Luci. Senator Moran, one of the most promising younger Democrats in the Senate, faced a tough election challenge from former Senator H. Rodgers Crispjin. Now he will certainly lose by a large margin, thus threatening the Democrats’ paper-thin advantage in the Senate. A more serious question for those who see this election as a Democratic revival is whether Senator Moran’s negative coattails will drag down their presidential candidate in Illinois which has always been a swing state in presidential elections. I suspect that the Democrats are thanking heaven that Tom Moran didn’t accept the vice presidential nomination.
ANCHOR: We have just learned that the Chicago Daily News, which had endorsed Senator Moran in today’s edition, will withdraw its endorsement in the Sunday edition. We have also learned that Senator Moran will hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon. It is expected that he will withdraw from the race … Now for weather and sports.