My appointment to the Senate in 1980 and my election to a full Senate term in 1982 represented peaks of success, but there was a long and very deep valley between them. It was a time of testing and near despair. My problems burst into full public view almost exactly a year after I was appointed. In early May 1981 most of Maine’s newspapers ran prominent articles on a public opinion poll commissioned by Congressman David Emery, which showed that in an election to the Senate he would defeat me by 36 percentage points (61 to 25). One not very subtle headline said of me, “He has no chance to win.” Emery had been elected to the House of Representatives in 1974, when he was in his twenties, following two terms in the Maine Legislature. He had never lost an election. Maine’s other representative in Congress, Olympia Snowe, also had served in the Maine Legislature before her election in 1978 to the House. She too had never lost an election. She immediately responded to Emery by announcing her interest in the Republican nomination for the Senate, and she released a poll she had commissioned: it showed her defeating me by 31 percentage points. In the matchup with me, Snowe’s poll was as disturbing as Emery’s. But her poll went further; to emphasize the extent of my political weakness it included a matchup of Curtis and me. While the margin was less, the result was even more negative: among Democrats in a primary election Curtis would beat me by 22 points (57 to 35). In what the press labeled the battle of the polls, Emery fired back two days later with more information from his poll. Not surprisingly it affirmed that he would be a very strong candidate, heavily favored to trounce me in the general election. The battle of the polls triggered a series of newspaper articles and other political commentaries about me and my political prospects, almost all of which were heavily negative.1
The other members of Maine’s delegation to Congress—Emery, Snowe, and Senator Bill Cohen—were Republicans, but in our work there were few partisan differences. We were a small delegation from a small state, so we knew we had to concentrate on Maine issues of common interest and work together. As a result, on a personal level, I developed a good relationship with each of them. There were of course some disagreements and misunderstandings, but none was significant enough, individually or collectively, to adversely affect our overall relationships. Obviously, because we served in the Senate, I saw and worked with Cohen more often; we got along so well that a few years later we wrote a book together.2 But my relationship with Emery and Snowe was good enough that I knew it would complicate the upcoming campaign.
In June I got a slight reprieve when Snowe announced that she would not seek the Republication nomination to the Senate. Emery had argued successfully that it was “his turn” because he had entered the House before Snowe. The view that either Snowe or Emery would easily defeat me gained wide acceptance. One reporter who covered Washington for Maine newspapers asked to see me for personal reasons. He was somber but kind as he expressed what amounted to his condolences. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was speaking about me in the past tense: “You have nothing to be ashamed of, you’ve done your best, and I’m sure there’s still a good future for you somewhere in Maine.” I tried to lift the gloom by saying, “In a sense I feel privileged because not many people get to hear the eulogies at their funeral.” We both laughed, but after he left the gloom stayed with me.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time I hit rock bottom in September, when Ken Curtis announced that he had established an exploratory committee for his candidacy for the Senate. His argument was simple and direct: I was such a weak candidate, certain to lose, that Democrats needed to replace me with a candidate who had a chance to win. He had twice been elected governor; I had run for governor and lost. To emphasize his point he released yet another poll; it confirmed Snowe’s poll that in a Democratic primary election he would beat me easily.
I had been discouraged by the Emery and Snowe polls, but I was devastated by Curtis’s announcement. A fellow Democrat, a truly close friend I liked and admired and with whom I had worked for twenty years, he gave public expression to the doubts and fears of many Maine Democrats, and his poll was itself more evidence of my political weakness. The doubts and fears increased. But so did my determination. On September 30, Curtis’s committee distributed to all Democratic members of the legislature and all members of the Democratic State Committee a memorandum making the case for his candidacy. It cited the poll numbers that had previously been made public, then added other supportive information. I braced for a rush away from me and toward Curtis. To my surprise it didn’t happen. A few expressed their support for him, but most held their fire, at least publicly. It may have been faint, but I still had a political pulse.
I had been working hard, but to deal with my many problems I could think of nothing other than to work harder. When the Senate was in session I attended and participated in every committee meeting, studied every bill, met every constituent. My time in Maine, on weekends and during congressional recesses, became a whirlwind of school and factory visits, service club luncheons, church bean suppers, and private and political meetings of every kind.
I had been shocked by the findings of the polls, and several newspaper reports, that a large number of voters didn’t know who I was. They weren’t unfavorable; they simply had no impression or opinion of me. In desperation I tried to connect favorably with as many as I could. I announced that I would meet personally with any Maine citizen who requested a meeting. I began the process of traveling to my field offices around the state on weekends and during congressional recesses. There I spent hours meeting one-on-one (with one staffer present to take notes) with anyone who asked. A few were cranky, a few came just for the pleasure of telling me what a jerk I was (there were other even more unfavorable and unprintable phrases). A few brought up pending legislation. But the overwhelming majority were serious and sincere, intensely personal, often hurting and aggrieved by some adversity. Many had lost their jobs. As I listened to their stories, my mind returned to my father’s year of unemployment; my heart ached for him, and for them. It was a sobering experience for me. After every round of meetings I thought, “And I think I’ve got problems!” I was forced to stop thinking about myself, to stop feeling sorry for myself. My resolve and determination to win increased, in part to be able to do what I could for the people who poured out their problems and their hearts to me.
When I started this process it was not especially demanding because not that many people were interested in meeting with me. But, as time passed and I got better known, the number of requests steadily increased. Then, after I was elected majority leader, they shot up exponentially. As a result, those seeking a meeting had longer waits, as the list grew ever longer and the number of days on which I could hold meetings declined. Despite the difficulties, I was determined to maintain the effort, and did so, to the very end of my tenure in the Senate.
Another practice I adopted was to have my staff select each day several of the most negative letters I’d received from Maine. I read each letter carefully, then from my office in the evening I telephoned each of the letter writers. Almost everyone I reached was surprised and many doubted that it really was their senator calling. Once I was able to convince them that the call was genuine, I told them that I had read their letter, that while we disagreed I welcomed their views and appreciated that they had taken the time to write to me. With a few exceptions the conversations were polite and civil. Later, while travelling in Maine, I was approached by many people who had received such calls and wanted to meet me in person. Unfortunately, I was not able to continue this practice after I became majority leader. The burden of managing the Senate, which then met often in the evening, was too great. I still tried to read the negative letters from Maine but couldn’t make the calls. To my surprise, I missed them.
My father had told me that hard work could solve any problem. I was now putting his words to the test. All of that activity came at the expense of time with my family, of course, and created for Sally an inner tension. She resented the description of me as a loser and very much wanted me to win. But she despised politics and what I had to do if I were to have any chance to win. We did our best to accommodate each other, but there was no mistaking the increase in stress.
Working hard was not a problem for me, but fundraising was. I found it difficult and demeaning and, as a result, was not very good at it. As the cascade of bad news continued, even accelerated, fundraising became even more difficult. Two events forced me to change my approach; they were far apart in geography and context but similar in result. One was a modest event, held on a Sunday afternoon at a farm in rural northern Maine. I didn’t expect a large crowd at the farm of the friendly, supportive young couple, and my expectations were met. Fewer than ten people attended, and the only contributors were the hosts. I shrugged it off. In campaigns some things work and some don’t. The other event was to be a Sunday brunch in Beverly Hills. Soon I would be in sunny California, the land of big bucks.
When Senator Muskie ran for president in 1972 one of his strong supporters was Paul Ziffren, a prominent and politically active lawyer in Los Angeles. I did not have a close relationship with Ziffren but hoped that the Muskie connection would help. However, when I called and asked him to host a fundraising event for me, he declined, pointing out, quite logically, that he didn’t know me well and that there already were too many events scheduled that fall. In desperation I asked Muskie to call Ziffren and urge him to reconsider. With obvious reluctance, Ziffren agreed, and a Sunday brunch in October was scheduled. I flew to Los Angeles on Saturday evening. The brunch was scheduled for eleven in the morning, and Paul was to pick me up at my hotel at quarter to eleven. The phone rang a few minutes before then. He was calling from the lobby. I said I’d be right down. No, he said, stay in your room and I’ll be right up, I want to talk to you. I knew something was wrong. He came in, we sat down, and there was no small talk. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that there won’t be a brunch today.”
I said nothing and tried to hide my growing anxiety as he continued. “I sent out one hundred forty-five invitations and no one accepted. Not one.” I felt very bad, for him and for me. He was obviously embarrassed and tried to be positive. “Scoop is having a brunch in Beverly Hills at noon. That’s one of the reasons we got no response. But I talked to him this morning and he’s willing to let you come to his function and introduce him. That way you can meet a few contributors and maybe, if you’re lucky, you can come back next year and try again.”
“Scoop” was Senator Henry Jackson of Washington state, a well-known and highly regarded member of the Senate. He had run unsuccessfully for president in 1972. He and Muskie had fought a committee turf battle earlier and were not close. Jackson was relieved when Muskie left the Senate, and he treated me very well, in part, I assumed, because I wasn’t Muskie. Although Ziffren was trying to be helpful in a difficult situation I didn’t see the offer as significant. To spend two days flying to the West Coast and back just to speak at another senator’s fundraiser, at a time when I was desperate for campaign funds, didn’t strike me as good use of my time. As I looked at Ziffren I saw the face of my high school basketball coach telling me that I didn’t make the tournament team. I choked back my hurt, my anger, my welling feeling of despair and said simply, “Thanks, Paul. I appreciate your effort.” I did appreciate it, even though I knew that very few political fundraising events succeed if all that’s done is to mail invitations. The reality of course was that Paul hardly knew me and had agreed to host the event only to accommodate the senator he genuinely and strongly cared about.
Ziffren got up and walked across the room. Just as he reached the door he turned and said to me, slowly and sadly, “I do have two checks, from me and my wife. They’ll pay for your airfare.” I smiled weakly, took the checks, shook his hand, and thanked him again. It really wasn’t his fault. I had put him in this awkward position. I would still need others to help me, but I had to do more, lots more, on my own.
It was another in a series of painful lessons. If I really wanted to be elected to the Senate I had to shed my reluctance about fundraising. Right or wrong, it was how the system worked. I had wanted the honor of the Senate without having to do all of the unpleasant but necessary work to get there. I now knew I could not have the one without the other. If I was going to raise enough money to make this a competitive race I would have to ask others, including complete strangers, for money, directly and aggressively. That’s what I did. And gradually the money started coming in.
Larry Benoit turned the campaign around. He had earlier worked for a member of the House of Representatives, then for Senator Muskie. When I replaced Muskie I inherited Larry and the rest of Muskie’s staff. Now he was on leave from my staff and running my campaign. Larry had run several campaigns and knew Maine politics well. I liked and trusted him. Alarmed by the parlous state of affairs he proposed a simple but striking strategy: we would have to start a television advertising campaign one year before the election. In the round-the-calendar campaigns of the twenty-first century, early advertising is not new or daring, but in 1981 it was not widespread. The conventional wisdom then was that voters didn’t focus on political campaigns until after Labor Day of the election year; any advertising before that was wasted. Besides the conventional wisdom was the harsh reality that we hadn’t raised much money, so even if we went ahead with a television buy it wouldn’t be large, and when it ended, our campaign coffers would be empty. Larry argued, insistently and persuasively, that these objections were irrelevant when measured against the near certainty of defeat if we continued the course we were on. “We can’t make up thirty-six points between Labor Day and the election. We need a year for that.” The hope was that a brief, early television campaign would attract enough attention and money to repeat and expand it in January or February, and so on, to victory in the election.
The first ad was broadcast more than a year before the election. The effect was instantaneous. It may be a sad commentary, but it is a fact that many people equate political campaigns with television advertising. If you’re on the air, you’re campaigning; if you’re not on the air, you’re nowhere. Just days after the first ad appeared, several people I encountered commented on it. Especially to active Democrats it was a statement that I was going to put up a fight, no matter how slim my chances appeared to be. Then several events occurred that collectively reversed the trajectory of the campaign. Fundraising picked up, just as Larry had predicted, the result of the appearance of a real campaign and a more personal and aggressive effort by me. In November Curtis suffered a mild heart attack and a month later quietly abandoned his effort. He had been disappointed, and I had been heartened, by the absence of a rush to his side. I regretted his health problem but was delighted by his decision. The prospect of running against him in a primary was extremely unpleasant. He had been an effective and courageous governor. We were close friends and had worked together for many years. The differences between us on the issues were minor, which meant that a campaign would have turned on personal matters. Fortunately our friendship endured and continues to this day.
As 1981 came to a close, I felt surprisingly good for a candidate who was still far behind in the polls. I had survived a half year of setbacks and bad news. The field on both sides had been cleared. The general election campaign would begin several months earlier than anyone had anticipated. The press and public now had nearly a year to focus on two men: David Emery and me.
In January we ran another round of television ads. Although it was a modest buy, it produced another good result. I didn’t want to delude myself, but I sensed and believed that we were starting to close the gap. Once it became clear that Emery and I would be the candidates, we were deluged with invitations to appear jointly before groups and organizations in Maine. I accepted every one I could, consistent with the Senate schedule. They weren’t exactly the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but we offered our contrasting views and answered questions. Many of these joint appearances went well for me. Even before heavily Republican audiences I held my own. With each successful event my confidence grew, so I wasn’t surprised when Emery began to decline more and more of the invitations for joint appearances, opting to campaign on his own. Much earlier he had challenged me to several formal broadcast debates. The first, held in June, went well for me, as did the rest of them.
But there were surprises. One came in late June, when I had a good feeling about the way the campaign was going. I had just finished speaking to a small crowd in a coastal town when a gray-haired man stood up and asked, in a loud and belligerent voice, “Why are you against veterans?” I was startled by the question. “What are you talking about?” I asked back. “I’m not against veterans.” “Yes you are,” he shouted. “I’ve got proof right here,” and he waved a document in the air. He walked to the front of the room and handed it to me. It was titled “Special Report to Maine Veterans,” mailed by Emery’s Senate campaign to every Maine veteran of military service. Right at the top of the front page, just below his name and directly across from his photograph, a box enclosed the message “DAVE EMERY/GEORGE MITCHELL check the ratings, there is a difference! Veterans of Foreign Wars EMERY 92% MITCHELL 0%.”
“It just can’t be,” I protested. I was a veteran; Emery was not. I served on the Veterans Affairs Committee; Emery did not. I had spent my two years in the Senate working diligently on measures to improve health care for veterans (a cause I continued to work on through my entire tenure in the Senate). I was baffled, angry, fearful. I couldn’t understand how it could be true. But what if it was? Surely Emery would not have said it if it weren’t true. I had no idea how the VFW rated members of Congress. I took a few more questions but ended the meeting as soon as I could. I called Larry Benoit, told him what had happened, and asked him to look into it immediately. He was as surprised as I was. “That can’t be right,” he said, as he pledged to get an answer as soon as possible.
I’ve always had trouble getting to sleep. I still do. On that night I couldn’t get to sleep at all. My mind was a jumble of conflicting thoughts as I tried to remember votes I had cast on issues important to veterans. Try as I might I couldn’t recall a single vote, a single statement, a single action of any kind that would be condemned by any veterans organization. And yet there it was, in black and white: 92 percent for Emery, zero for me.
It was early the next afternoon when Larry called me back. I was somewhat relieved by the fact that he began by saying, with a chuckle, “You’re not going to believe this.” The Political Action Committee of the VFW had published a pamphlet evaluating the voting record of every member in the 95th and 96th Congress. The votes they selected occurred between January 1977 and June 1980: before I entered the Senate! As the report itself made clear, I wasn’t even in the Senate when the votes were cast.
There are lots of exaggerations and misrepresentations in political campaigns. But this was different. This was a serious allegation that was totally false. I liked Emery and found it hard to believe that he knew about it, although it also was hard to believe that a candidate would not have seen a document that his campaign had mailed to tens of thousands of households all over the state. Whatever the case was with Emery, I knew that for my own sake I had to reach everyone who had received and read the document. If his allegation went unchallenged, I really would have no chance to win.
I did not have a mailing list of veterans, so Larry and my staff drafted a statement, which was released publicly, pointing out and criticizing the error and asking Emery to correct it in another mailing. Although almost all of Maine’s daily newspapers then leaned Republican, they were for the most part fair and reasonable, and they quickly published editorials critical of Emery, which we in turn distributed widely. Emery blamed the error on his staff, and they at first tried to minimize it, calling it an honest mistake. But after much criticism from the press and public he said he would make a correction in another mailing. As it turned out he didn’t produce another mailing until just before the election, and in it he didn’t correct the earlier false statement. But by then it didn’t make any difference. Although there were many more charges and countercharges, dueling TV ads, and some uneasy moments, the tide turned decisively in my favor. On election day I received 61 percent of the vote.
I was in a car with Sally, being driven to Lewiston for an election eve party, when the polls closed at eight o’clock. On the car radio we listened to the audio of the local NBC television affiliate and heard Tom Brokaw proclaim me the winner. I was happy for Sally as well as for myself. Despite her genuine and often stated distaste for politics, she badly wanted me to win and had even participated in a few campaign events. I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I made a brief appearance in Lewiston, then we returned to Portland to attend a similar event there. The crowd was large and boisterous and there were so many people on the stage I had a hard time climbing up and squeezing in behind the lectern, which was packed with microphones. Just as I got there my brother Johnny grabbed and hugged me. He was one of the greatest and best-known athletes in Maine history; famous for his high-arcing shots that dropped through the net with a swishing sound, he was universally known as the Swisher. The cameras clicked and whirred. The next day the Portland Evening Express carried the picture of me and my “unidentified supporter.” Since then, whenever I’m asked to describe the most enjoyable event of my political life, I refer to that picture: I’m in the spotlight, and the Swisher is an unidentified supporter. Gone were my high school basketball coach, those Portland law firms that wouldn’t even talk to me, the pollster who said I had no chance to win, the Beverly Hills noncrowd. Now, in a role reversal I could never have imagined, the Swisher was cheering me on. On the many occasions on which I remind Johnny of that evening we both laugh with pleasure.