February 27, 2000
LIBERTIES / By MAUREEN DOWD
Hey, Big Spender...
WASHINGTON -- The Lear jets are parked wing-to-wing at the
Austin airport.
The Pioneers descended on the governor's mansion this weekend for an
emergency top-secret meeting to go over the books of the cash-starved
Bush campaign.
The Pioneers, the very wealthy and usually jovial Bush bagmen, are
dyspeptic over the Prodigal Son. They don't understand how their Boy
could have gone through $60 million of the nest egg they built. It was
supposed to buy the White House, not one measly caucus and one lousy
primary. How on earth did Junior hemorrhage more than a million dollars
per delegate? Did he think it was a trust fund?
The Pioneers are worried that they will join John Connally in the record
books. In 1980, he spent $12 million for a single delegate.
W. is in his room, curled up with his feather pillow and video golf game.
All the acting he's been doing, trying to seem insouciant while his
campaign is careening, has been exhausting. His finance chairman, Don
Evans, tries to lure him downstairs to charm the fuming Pioneers.
No way is he going. He doesn't have a dang notion where that $60
million got off to. "Donnie," he groans, "you go."
Evans, an affable Texas oilman, heads down to face the music.
"Campaigns are like the oil bidness," he tells his mutinous team. "You
have to drill a lot of dry holes. You don't hit a gusher every time."
The Pioneers look hostile.
Evans tries another tack: "It's like a prizefighter using a lot of energy to
knock out an opponent in round one or two, so he doesn't have to fight
in round three, four or five."
The Pioneers look more hostile.
Evans drops the metaphors and calls for the martinis.
The Money Guys and Dollar Dolls are in pain. The record-breaking kitty
they raised for Junior was supposed to last to the convention and pay to
put big dents in Al Gore.
Now they are supposed to raise more to keep W. afloat after New York
and California and to trash John McCain.
Before they will scare up another red cent, they demand a reckoning.
Reluctantly, Evans fishes some receipts out of his pocket:
$500,000 to endow the Lee Atwater Chair in Compassionate
Conservatism at Bob Jones University.
$500,000 for Catholic bishops' hospitality suite in Detroit.
$2 million to develop a media strategy on how to attract free media like
McCain.
$2 million to get creamed in Arizona.
$1.2 million for doughnuts with sprinkles to bribe press.
$1 million to switch the yard signs from Compassionate Conservative to
Reformer With Results.
$1 million to trade balloons for confetti like McCain has.
$25 million for ad campaign to create impression W. has the knowledge
and experience to be president.
$25 million for ad campaign to create the impression that the spendthrift
is a fiscal conservative.
$800,000 for private detectives to hunt for McCain bimbo eruptions and
to stake out casinos to catch him shooting craps.
$89.99 for foreign-country flash cards.
$20,000 for de-smirking.
$500,000 donation to 700 Club to get Pat Robertson to record message
knocking McCain.
$1 million donation to get him to stop.
$200,000 for little Confederate flags to hand out in Pickens County.
$500 for line of leggy showgirls from Myrtle Beach Crazy Horse
nightclub as a thank-you gift to Strom.
The appalled Pioneers realize that no amount of money can make up for
what a candidate is missing. They are angry that Junior will not come
down to talk about the future terms of his allowance. They resent that he
assumes the Pioneers will bail him out, as previous business partners did.
Knocking back martinis, they agree to hang in until March 7.
Evans is relieved, but he knows the Pioneer networks of $1,000
check-writers are almost tapped out. He has secretly drawn up a plan for
a new group of fund-raisers: the Wagoneers.
He is also dispatching a testy Bar and a stressed-out Poppy for double
shifts on the free-range rubber chicken circuit.
As the Pioneers try to drown their sorrows, soft moans drift down from a
corner room upstairs. |
