Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: The agony and the ecstasy Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 16:16:30 EST Message-ID: \SE D;LIFE \HD The agony and the ecstasy \SH Presidency slips away in a Houston ballroom \BY Elisabeth Hickey \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES \DT HOUSTON HOUSTON - It went like a blur: the president racing through his concession speech, slurring several words, behind him his shell-shocked family trying to smile. Doro Bush turned her head and wept as her father spoke. At 9:50 p.m. CST, when the television called the election for Bill Clinton, the Republican faithful inside the Westin Galleria Hotel ballroom reacted with tears and bitterness. The resentment toward the media, whom many Republicans believe were hankering for a Clinton victory, became palpable. Before the president arrived, the guests huddled in small groups, many holding onto friends or family for comfort. Refusing to talk to the press, they could be overheard mumbling among themselves: "The American people don't understand what just happened to this country. . . . He cheated on his wife, he dodged the draft, and now he's going to be president of the United States!" As soon as Mr. Bush finished his speech, people began streaming from the ballroom. There was nothing left to say. Bush press secretary Torie Clarke, in a leopard print dress, said that earlier that evening someone asked her how the president was and she burst into tears. * * * A presidential advance man's No. 1 rule is to find a room that will make it look as if you've got a crowd. And so the modest, low-ceiling ballroom the Bush campaign booked at the Westin Galleria here to watch election returns gave it away from the start. Reporters remarked how close the television cameras were to the stage where the president was to speak. On television, it would look like a huge crowd. But it wasn't. Last night was a marked contrast from four years ago in this Texas city, the president's adopted home, when Republicans crammed into a cavernous convention center on the other side of town to watch their man cream Michael Dukakis. "It's like day and night," sighed Houston Republican Pat Krischke. "Four years ago, we just knew we had it early on, no contest." It was 8 p.m. CST and she was glued to a television monitor in the ballroom lobby, holding a map of the country in her hand. It displayed two victory checks for George Bush - in Oklahoma and South Carolina. When CNN anchor Bernard Shaw came on to say Texas was still undecided, a gasp went through the room. Texas! "No way!" said Mrs. Krischke. "No way!" It was becoming a wash. Clinton 165, Bush 28? Their worst nightmare was beginning, and it was early in the night. * * * A little after 9 p.m. CST when the returns showed Mr. Clinton at 254 electoral votes to Mr. Bush's 55, they started crying. They huddled in groups and talked of betrayal and their fear of a Clinton administration. Holding onto one another, they could feel it slipping away. For the Republican faithful who showed up, it was beginning to feel like a casting call for a bad movie. Guests were hopelessly outnumbered by the media asking them "How do you feel?" and shining painfully bright camera lights in their faces, while their political lives flashed before them on the two towering TV screens above their heads. An MTV "Choose or Lose" camera crew wandered about, looking very out of place. Popular anchor Tabitha Soren was, of course, in Little Rock, probably dancing. The band in the corner tried to pep up the crowd. It played the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" and Marvin Gaye tunes. No one danced. For the people who had been with President Bush from the beginning, losing was something they could not accept. It had been 28 years since he lost his first race for the Senate in 1964, they said. It was so awful: The Chicken Man and Mr. Ozone in the White House. The failed governor of a small state, Mr. Slippery When Wet, blowing that taxophone. They couldn't believe it. * * * Marjorie Arsht, co-chairman of Bush-Quayle for Harris County, has known Mr. Bush since he first got into politics. She couldn't face a Bush loss. "I don't want to think about it," she said. The recriminations rumbled through the room. "Four years ago we had [Lee] Atwater," said Mrs. Arsht. "This time he had trouble focusing." There was plenty of venom about the press. Don Rhodes, one of Mr. Bush's closest assistants who is considered almost a part of the Bush family, theorized a media "conspiracy" against Mr. Bush. He scoffed at Bill Clinton. "I can't imagine America voting for a draft dodger. If they do, the country is going to hell." Rita Solon, 40, a staff assistant in the campaign, said she recently viewed film footage of President Gerald Ford conceding defeat, his people crying. "Someone's going to be crying tonight," she said. She had grudging respect for the Clinton campaign. They ran like Ronald Reagan did in 1980, she said, as the underdogs. "They have the same dedication. I think the Republican Party has gotten a little complacent. When you're a winner, you don't work as hard." That afternoon, deputy campaign manager Mary Matalin was bopping around the ballroom from one television camera to the next, being spunky and tough, dressed in slim black jeans and tan cowboy boots, a white shirt and a man's tie, red with white polka dots, chiding Mr. Gore on "Larry King Live." "He will forever after be known as Ozone Man," Miss Matalin said. She didn't look frazzled. Her hair looked freshly out of curlers. A friend asked how she was doing. "Well," she said, snapping her fingers and doing a little dance, "I ran today. I got a massage. I got my nails done [a bright red]." Seeing ABC correspondent Brit Hume in the hallway, she gave him a big hug, as if it were the last day of summer camp. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM