Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked (20 page)

Once the brainstorming session was over, anyone watching would have seen me race down the corridor to my desk next to the Speaker’s ceremonial office. Once there, I’d knock out the daily statement we’d decided on as if a stopwatch were ticking off the seconds. What a kick it was to each day prove myself fast enough to knock out the Speaker’s statement so that it would be sitting there, neatly ready for him to pick up and read to open his meeting with the press.

Once the Speaker had gone in at noon to “open the House,” the afternoons were mine to wander the floor. Such access to “the floor” of the House of Representatives was a grand perk, and before long I was familiar with its landmarks and its people.

Just off the back row was a door leading to the Democratic cloakroom. There are four cloakrooms in the Capitol—one for each party off both the House and Senate chambers. Legendary multipurpose rooms, they’re where the serving pols go to snack, answer phone calls, or relax. In a corner was a fellow named Raymond,
selling boiled hot dogs, tuna sandwiches, chips, soda, and coffee, allowing members to dash in and grab a bite. In those days before cell phones, “Chez Raymond,” as we liked to call it in a mock French accent, stood off from the double row of old-fashioned telephone booths that were another of the room’s classic features.

Entering from the House floor, the first person you encountered was the “Master of Phones.” The presider in the cloakroom, his job was facilitating communications between the leadership and the rank and file. It’s always his business to know as much as anyone ever could, especially with regard to what time the House was going to adjourn each week. He also somehow managed to keep track of the departure schedules for those Democratic members who left town on the weekends to head home to their families and districts. The Master of Phones looked out for them, ensuring they’d make whatever train or plane they were expecting to catch.

Also there in the cloakroom were a few tables and a cluster of worn-in leather chairs, a pair of overstuffed couches, and a television. In the old days, some of the senior members would settle in comfortably to enjoy the classic black-and-white movies that came on at 4 p.m., eventually falling asleep for all to see. For his part, Tip O’Neill liked to claim one of those trusty armchairs and, cigar in hand, wait for members to come up and tell him what was on their minds. By making sure to stay tuned in like this, he was better able to “read” the House. The Speaker loved being there and available to listen.

I was fascinated by the floor and its human geography, and soon familiarized myself with the different members, where they sat and with whom—and what these choices meant. It was easy to spot the cliques. Up in the back and hugging the center aisle, and therefore closest to the Republicans, was “Redneck Row.” That was home to the southern Democrats, the members who were the
Speaker’s biggest worry; they were the conservatives who were now voting heavily for the Reagan program. Tip understood what their reasons were—backing of stronger defense and opposition to “big government”—but he was playing a waiting game, hoping they’d see the light and come home to the Democrats, to him.

Down on the far left side of the chamber, looking toward the Speaker’s chair, was the “Pennsylvania Corner.” Party stalwarts one and all, the guys sitting there represented the blue-collar citizens of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and the machine Democrats from Philadelphia. Their leader was Jack Murtha, a combat veteran from Vietnam who’d run a car wash before getting elected. Jack was a pal of the Speaker’s and soon turned into my great booster, the friend most openly appreciative of all my contributions to Tip’s public standing and approval ratings. He was strong on defense, and his vote could always be counted on when there were military issues at hand. Jack was also well versed enough when it came to House rules to know when and how to slip a congressional pay raise through, despite the watchful eyes of a fellow Pennsylvanian, Bob Walker, a Republican from Lancaster. Murtha’s skill in this regard would have made him an extremely popular guy even had he not been one already.

Still, it wasn’t so easy to identify the loyalties of every Democrat by his location on the floor. While the conservative southern members were easy to peg, there was another faction in the caucus who were harder to locate and label. These “Watergate babies”—so called because they’d been elected in 1974 and 1976, following the Nixon White House scandals—often came from politically moderate suburbia, taking seats held previously by Republicans. They’d won as a result of deep-seated voter reaction to crimes uncovered in Washington—abuses of power reaching all the way to the top and shocking the country. These members tended to be much more
independent than the Democrats from big-city party organizations; they were also more reform-minded. Arriving on Capitol Hill from all over America and aggressively wielding new brooms, they were intent on limiting the clout claimed by senior House members while simultaneously strengthening their own.

The Speaker held a mixed view of these Young Turks. While recognizing the excellence of their educational backgrounds, their overall sophistication, and the undeniable commitment they brought to the job, he was less able to accept how so many strangers had appeared suddenly on the landscape and secured congressional seats for themselves. Their arrival on the scene, as he saw it, showed no understanding of or respect for the old ways. What Tip and his cohorts had done was “rise through the chairs,” progressing from seats in the state legislatures to seats in the U.S. House, in a time-honored fashion. The post-Watergate representatives were making a point of doing it differently.

“
The interesting factor was that people were elected to Congress who under normal circumstances never would have been elected,” he said. Because of this, Tip believed, the new members were able to have a sense of independence from traditional Democratic Party allegiances. Their justifications for this, he saw, were several. “They didn’t help me,” the new legislators would say—“they” being the Democratic establishment. Or: “They didn’t finance my campaign.” Or else: “They didn’t help me along the line.” Finally, you’d hear this one: “I won
despite
the Democratic Party.”

One group of younger members was actually bipartisan. This was the “Gym Caucus.” Late in the afternoon, they’d arrive on the floor, their hair wet from playing basketball over in the Rayburn House Office Building subbasement. There, behind unmarked steel doors, was where you’d find the House gym. Claiming medical necessity for the fierce contests they waged on the court, the Gym
Caucus liked to refer to their pickup games as “heart attack prevention.” Since it first opened in 1965, the facility has always been restricted to House members, and this exclusivity has only added to its mystique. Former members have lifetime privileges, with the sole nonmembers permitted to use it being the House officers—doorkeeper, clerk, sergeant-at-arms—who were nominated by the Democratic leadership and elected finally to their positions by the members.

The Speaker, certainly no jock at his age, had his own habits when it came to gym-going. Whenever I’d hear him say to his secretary, Eleanor Kelley, “I’m going over for a rub, Ella-nah,” I knew he’d be clutching a handful of cigars he planned to share on arrival. The steam room camaraderie provided him with yet another opportunity to keep his ears to the ground, yet another way to read the House.

• • •

The annual Gym Dinner is one of Congress’s great rituals. I was eligible to attend, and despite the unexciting setting—the staff cafeteria in the Longworth House Office Building—and the basic American comfort food—New York steaks, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, apple pie á la mode—knew it to be a coveted ticket. Turning down events and sending regrets are regular features of Washington life, especially for a busy legislator, but the Gym Dinner is an occasion none of them ever wants to miss.

There was no program, no entertainment, no toasts or speeches, nothing except the meal, which was served buffet-style, with members—past and present, from both parties—joining each other at long tables. Each guest waited in line, helped himself to his meal and a bottle of beer, and then surveyed the room to grab whatever seat was open. No one stayed long, only hung around for just enough time to feel joined to a greater whole, this venerable
political body that had seen so much history and yet would always be the sum of its diverse parts.

My own first Gym Dinner took place a mere two weeks after I’d been named administrative assistant to the Speaker. It turned out I wasn’t the only newcomer that evening: Ronald Reagan was another. Vice President George Bush, a Texas congressman in the late 1960s—back when the Rayburn Office Building was just completed and the gym newly open—had brought along the president for what seemed to me a very clear reason, the indisputable potential for goodwill. As I saw the lines of Democratic members, as well as Republicans, patiently waiting their chance to pose for a picture with Reagan, affable as always and sporty in his glen plaid suit, it didn’t surprise me. Anyone who’s ever spent more than a couple of hours on Capitol Hill knows only too well that the working politician loves photos of himself with the powerful. Not only are these mementoes the standard decoration of every office but they also serve as highly effective eye-catchers in constituent newsletters. Seeing the Democrats’ eagerness, still, was sobering, simply because at the same time it was business-as-usual, it was also a perfect symbol of the party’s current dilemma.

The Gym Dinner, purely an insider evening, is off-limits to the media. At that particular one the other attendees were, in fact, flattered that the president would take the time to join them on their own turf. It presented no photo ops beneficial to him—except, as I said before, in the individual goodwill sense. If it had been George Bush’s idea to bring Reagan, it was a shrewd one, and Reagan knew it. His diary entry that night read:
“Six-thirty a drop by at the annual ‘Gym Dinner’ of the House—Carter never went.” A week later the House was to vote on the third section of the White House program—the 25 percent cut in the federal income tax.

When it came time for this third jousting match over the Reagan
economic program, the Democrats were a bit more prepared. This time, not just Tip O’Neill but Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski went on national television to respond to Reagan’s latest prime-time appeal.

In a maneuver to hold the middle class, the Speaker declared the vote on the Reagan tax bill a question of whom you support. If you’re looking out for the better-off, you vote for the Reagan program; if not, you vote the Democratic tax cut proposal. Our analysts isolated the pivot point at $50,000. If you made more, you benefited from the Reagan plan; if less, you’d be wise to vote the Democratic option. We christened it “the $50,000 Question” after the TV quiz show of the 1950s. The flaw in our case—I was the one who concocted it—should have been obvious. Congressman Tom Downey of Long Island voiced the belief that many voters making less than that figure could well imagine themselves rising past it. Our attempt at ripsnorting populism wasn’t going to be much use.

In the end, the result was 238–195 for the historic Reagan tax cuts. Forty-eight Democrats sided with him on the key vote; nearly a hundred joined the Republicans on the bill’s final passage. Jotting these numbers into his diary, Reagan added:
“This on top of the budget victory is the greatest pol. win in half a century. Tip O’Neill & his leadership called me and with complete graciousness congratulated us on our win. Now we must make it work—and we will.”

But what Tip recalled saying to him in that congratulatory phone conversation, and what Reagan could have therefore neglected to record, was, “These are just the innings. The ball game will be up in 1982.” Was this merely bravado or something more? For the Speaker could well see worse trouble ahead when the next freshman class—many of them bound to sail in as supporters of a popular president’s mandate for change—arrived on the House
floor. The current coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats, as long as every one of them was on board, already was sufficient to crack the magic number—218 votes—that made for the majority in the House necessary to pass a bill.

Over the past six months, Tip had had to face not just Ronald Reagan’s enormous crowd appeal—which translated as widespread public support—but also the admiration and well-wishing the president had gained after the assassination attempt. Therefore, the Speaker had proceeded carefully. He’d trusted his natural tendencies to caution. Moreover, Reagan had had the Speaker’s goodwill; they’d connected in genuine, if not deep, ways. Still, in Washington terms, that counted.

Owing to these factors, Tip had held back, wanting to fight but not wanting to obstruct. He’d intended that the Democrats should present smart and convincing alternatives to Reagan’s program yet, at the same time, no roadblocks, which he felt could easily backfire. It was Kirk O’Donnell who’d offered the basics of this summertime strategy. “The key was, don’t get caught being a defender of the status quo. Don’t get caught obstructing the political process. Give Reagan his chance.” It was more important for Tip to save his troops than to logjam Reagan—meaning that if the Speaker had delayed the earliest budget votes well into the summer, preventing the tax cut from being passed in early August as scheduled, he and the Democrats could find themselves blamed for any negative consequences.

The only problem was, in following this scenario, Tip O’Neill looked like a leader spinning his wheels or even in retreat. It certainly gave the crepehangers their opening, and so a
New York Times Magazine
cover story in August portrayed the Speaker as on his last legs.
“Is Tip O’Neill ready to join his old cronies in retirement?” the piece asked with cruel frankness. “The Speaker is a proud man who will not easily be driven from office. But he knows that he is
considered a burden by many Democrats, too large a target in the legislative battles and on Election Day.”

Just as I came into my new position, it seemed that Tip remained stuck in a public relations black hole. He’d been judged by popular opinion and found wanting.
“What I had to get used to in 1981,” he’d later describe it, “was being criticized not only by the press but by the man on the street—or, to be more precise, the man in the airport. . . . Some of them shouted insults like ‘Leave the president alone, you fat bastard!’ Now and then one would be supportive, but friendly voices were all too few.”