JIM RUSSELL PROGRAM
(Russell is in Washington in his usual studio. Senator is in Chicago with skyline background)
RUSSELL: You certainly have been the victim of a very crude plot, Senator.
MORAN: Crude, Jim, but very effective politically. One can’t imagine a better way to steal an election than a media scandal over the final weekend of a campaign.
RUSSELL: Both a senatorial and a presidential election …
MORAN: Precisely.
RUSSELL: Did you see something like this coming?
MORAN: I knew they would try something at the last minute. I wasn’t smart enough to suspect what it would be.
RUSSELL: Who are they, Senator?
MORAN: I don’t know Jim, not for sure and I’m not going to make any accusations.
RUSSELL (SMILES): Sticking to your principles?
MORAN: Trying to.
RUSSELL: They are the people who blew up your car and your campaign headquarters, fired rifle shots at you, and organized the riot in South Chicago?
MORAN: There seems to be a pattern … The politics of a banana republic, appealing from the ballot to the bullet—or a poison dart.
RUSSELL: Do you see a banana-republic trend emerging in American politics?
MORAN: Do you remember when a group of Republican thugs
intervened in the vote-counting in Dade County, Jim? Yes I think there is such a trend.
RUSSELL: Do you think that your chances will improve because Ms. Crawford has admitted she was paid ten thousand dollars to lie about you?
MORAN: Cheapskates! … I think it’s too late, Jim, to make any difference. The Daily News in Chicago endorsed me on Friday and revoked its endorsement this morning. I’m told they will apologize tomorrow morning. That may well be too late. The New York Times spread the story on its front page yesterday, didn’t report my press conference today. What will they do tomorrow?
RUSSELL: Can they deliver many votes in Chicago?
MORAN (GRINS FOR THE FIRST TIME): Probably not, but they have contributed to the atmosphere of scandal. One of their people called me yesterday to ask me about the obligation I felt to Ms. Crawford. I tried to persuade her that the charges were lies. She didn’t want to listen. No one from the Times came to my press conference.
RUSSELL: Do you think you will lose on Tuesday?
MORAN: I wouldn’t bet against such an outcome. Before this phony scandal, we were probably way ahead. I don’t know and I don’t think anyone else does how the people of Illinois will react.
RUSSELL: Will you be sad if you lose?
MORAN: If it were my fault, if I had blown it, if I let people down, yes I’d be sad. But I don’t think it will be my fault.
DEBATE ON CHICAGO PUBLIC TELEVISION
Similar cast of characters, Senora Gonzalez is absent as is Leander Schlenk. They have been replaced by a reporter (woman) for a national news magazine named Lorene Philippi.
MODERATOR: Well, Senator, it looks like you’ve been cleared. Ms. Mandy Crawford admits that she lied on Friday.
SENATOR: Yeah? Who gives me my reputation back? Mandy Crawford was a victim too. So, I suppose, were the media who were suckered in by the taste of blood.
HONEYWELL: You sound bitter, Senator.
SENATOR: Speaking of blood, Harold, did my blood type turn out to be O as I claimed yesterday?
HONEYWELL (EMBARRASSED): I thought we had to be sure.
SENATOR: You’re sure now?
HONEYWELL: We will apologize tomorrow morning and restore our endorsement.
SENATOR: How much good will that do?
HONEYWELL: Frankly, I don’t know.
QUINN: Do you have any thoughts, Senator, on how this could have been avoided?
SENATOR: Not running in the first place.
PHILIPPI: Have you heard Senator Crispjin’s comment on the so called scandal?
SENATOR (BRIGHTENS): No, what did Mr. Crispjin have to say?
PHILIPPI: He said that he did not believe you had answered all the unanswered questions.
SENATOR: Did he say what were the unanswered questions I didn’t answer?
PHILIPPI: No.
SENATOR: Well I guess I can’t answer them can I?
GRAHAM: There is a lot of anger in your heart, isn’t there, Tommy?
SENATOR: You got it, Grayson. I’m angry at the conspirators but also at the media who gobbled down the bait the conspirators provided. Anger in the present circumstances is justified and even virtuous.
HONEYWELL: It is your opinion that in matters like this the media should not rush to judgment?
MORAN: It is also my opinion that Lake Michigan shouldn’t turn cold in the winter.
QUINN: You are hinting that once the media have a possible sensation, they don’t pause to see if there’s any truth in it?
MORAN: I’m not hinting at it, Mary Alice. I’m asserting it bluntly. Surely somewhere in the feeding chain of the networks there ought to have been someone that asked whether this might be a last-minute election dirty trick.
QUINN: I wasn’t working that day. As soon as I heard the five o’clock news, I called our news director. I tried to tell him you were in Spain at that time. He didn’t have time to talk to me. We’re going to apologize tonight.
MORAN: I hope they don’t fire you, Mary Alice.
QUINN: I don’t think they will, no way.
MORAN: My lawyers, and there are many on the O’Malley side, will be listening very carefully. They may still demand payment. But I’m glad you will still be around.
HONEYWELL: There just wasn’t enough time.
SENATOR: So you rushed to judgment. You did not exercise due diligence. I’m not sure that excuse will satisfy my lawyers. Moreover your comment is an admission of moral bankruptcy.
PHILIPPI: My magazine wants to put your picture on its cover next week.
MORAN: Nothing is more successful than martyrdom.
PHILIPPI: Win or lose? Will you accept?
MORAN: Talk to my media director, Dolly McCormick.
PHILIPPI: I would like to hear what your wife and daughters have to say, if you give them permission.
MORAN: They don’t need my permission. If this goes down, you’ll find them prepared to talk all day and into the night.
GRAHAM: I went to a couple of churches out on the South Side this morning. African-American people won’t forget their friends.
MORAN: That’s very good news.
HONEYWELL: You’re denouncing the media because we didn’t check facts.
MORAN: I think the courts might decide that fact checking on a charge like the one you made was a failure of due diligence and hence actionable. At Ms. Quinn’s channel, they didn’t want facts, they wanted to feed on raw meat … Now, we have had two rounds of questions about the Crawford Scandal. Could we now have just a little time for issue questions. Senator Crispjin and I differ on most of the issues which face the country. Isn’t anyone interested?
QUINN: What was your most important achievement during your term?
SENATOR: Immigration reform and that was, oddly enough, an administration bill. Second one has to be pension reform. Third is vouchers for poor kids.
QUINN: Those are pretty good achievements for a first term. And you’re slated to be Deputy Majority Leader when you go back.
MORAN: If.
HONEYWELL: Are you ready to forgive those who organized the scandal?
MORAN: Forgiveness is at the core of my religious faith, Harold. But I want to be able to cut the cards in the future.
PHILIPPI: One more family question?
MORAN (A TOUCH OF A SMILE, FOR THE FIRST TIME): Sure.
PHILIPPI: How did your wife and children react?
MORAN: Fury.
PHILIPPI: At you?
MORAN: At the conspirators and at poor little Mandy.
PHILIPPI: They didn’t believe the possibility that you might have strayed from the path of virtue?
MORAN: My daughters were very angry at the claim the poor little toddler’s hair was the same as their red hair. My wife tells me that I am a one-woman man, which I guess is the truth.
MODERATOR: One more question, Graham?
GRAHAM: In your heart, Senator, don’t you believe that you’ll win?
MORAN: I’ll have to examine my heart later, Graham. In my gut, where the politics emotions rise up, I think that it could go either way.
“No questions about issues,” my wife and my daughters hugged me when I left the sudio.
“You totally gotta win, Daddy,” Maryro informed me. “I have a lotta big bets with Georgetown dweebs.”
We drove up to a rally in an affluent neighborhood where the parish precinct had voted Democratic for the last four presidential elections. We sang the Mexican and Irish songs, promised the beginning of a new era. Our next stop was in Lake County, and after that out in DuPage, both for Mexican-Americans. Everywhere there were cheers. A lot of people were pleased with us. When we returned, Chucky and Rosemarie were waiting for us, as were a number of the family lawyers.
“We’re getting apologies, guys,” Chucky chortled. “We’re getting offers for settlement from the media, not generous enough. So we’re playing hard guys. Oh yes, Tommy, Mandy called.”
“Poor thing was sobbing,” Rosemarie said, a touch of sympathy in her voice. “She claimed that she didn’t have a hundred million dollars. We reassured her by saying that since she has apologized we have forgiven her.”
“Nothing from the Senator?” I asked.
“Not word, Tommy,” Chuck chortled. “He must have realized that it didn’t work.
“We go after Bobby Bill,” I said, “because he has to be stopped. We don’t sue the former Senator, however. By now he knows that no matter who wins, he loses.”
The next morning with daughters and the Sanchez kids in tow, we hit three more malls, a very useful place to meet former Democrats who were in the process of returning and were bringing me books to sign.
I was exhausted and collapsed into bed.
“Day after tomorrow,” I said, “and it’s all over.”
“And we turn to our usual lifestyle,” she said as we hugged each other.