Free Primary Colors by Joe Klein Page A

on his lap. Birnbaum was a little guy with curly blond hair; he had worked on Stanton campaigns for a decade and was absolutely crucial. Leon visited the Mansion from time to time and would sit with the governor late into the night, going through the cross-tabs, road-testing phrases (rather than ideas), showing him what worked and what didn't. Everything Leon said in these late-night sessions seemed insidious, conspiratorial. He spoke soft, barely audible deep Bronx: "See--`responsibility' is great when you're talkin' about welfare. 'Fair share'--awesome. Great for fat cats, too. Works both ways: Rich-and-poor! 'Do their fair share.' 'Give their fair share.' Same difference, y'know? You match 'em up: righteous us against piggy them. Rich-and-poor! See? You don't need to get too specific. The folks will extrapolate--`responsibility' sound s b oth tough and moral, without being primitive, y'know? Y'see?" He'd giggle: heh-heh, heh-heh. "You want to use value words. You connect midbrain, subcortical--you want to hit them down under, in their lizard brains, access their personal reptiles . . . heh-heh . . . where they don't think--where they just, y'know, react--with value words." Stanton loved that stuff. Leon was another one who was a lot more talkative one-on-one with the governor than in groups. In fact, this was the first time I'd seen him in a group and he hadn't said anything yet.
    "What say you, pollster?" Richard asked.
    "'Bout what?"
    "We are where in New Hampshire?"
    "Four." Leon smiled devilishly. He sensed where Richard was going.
    "And Governor Ozio?"
    "Twenty-eight, heh-heh, heh-heh."
    "And Governor Ozio is willing to acknowledge our presence in this race? He has to be the stupidest fucking Eye-talian since Richard Burton fell for Cleopatra." Richard crossed his arms behind his head again and closed his eyes.
    "Meaning what, Richard?" Susan asked.
    "Meaning you take him on," Kopp said. "You define this thing right now."
    "But you have to do it carefully," Sporken said, folding his hand. "Hold the fucking mayo, Arlen," Richard said.
    "Well, how would you do it, Richard?" Susan asked.
    "Drop something into a speech. Make sure Rosen and a few others--that slug at the Post, what'shername--know it's cumin'. Doesn't have to be huge. Just get Ozio's attention, let him know we came to play. Let the scorps know the governor'i got some hide on him, too." Richard called reporters scorpions--scorps for short. "Let's see where Ozio wants to take this. I'm kinds gettin' bored waitin' for that sadassed old dog to make his intentions known."
    "And if he escalates?" Sporken asked.
    "He's even stupider than I think he is," Richard said. "He tells America he's more concerned about a governor no one ever heard of than he is about the flicking president of the United States." "Henry?" It was the governor. "You have any thoughts about where and when?"
    So it was done.
    We tried to make it as classy as possible. The University of New Hampshire. A student forum on the future of the welfare state. We'd stick in the knife between points five and six, go straight at Ozio's New American Community. The governor would say, "There are those, including some who contemplate entering this race [We gave Stanton the option of adding, "and contemplate, and contemplate . . .1 who believe you can have a new American spirit of community but have it without an equal sense of responsibility, without asking the same standard of moral behavior from the less fortunate that we demand of each other--and which we should demand of the wealthiest Americans as well, I might add. It is simply misguided not to demand that each of us do our fair share. It is as patronizing as our opponents who say--well, usually they don't have the courage to say it, they merely imply--that it's useless to help the poor, there's nothing we can do for them."
    Kopp was furious. His reptile brain was apparently less subtle than the ones Leon connected with in focus groups. "That's all