BOO!
Posted on 04/27/2002 8:28:28 AM PDT by Pokey78
The Democrats roll out their last president to refight the last election.
HARLEM
With 6 months left until the midterm elections, and 31 months to go before the big dance in 2004, Democrat-watchers can be forgiven their campaign fatigue. It's not that election season has started prematurely, but rather that the 2000 presidential race never ended.
So it appears on April 24, as the Democratic National Committee comes to New York to launch its voter registration drive. In scores of individually tailored efforts, the DNC is targeting everyone from Irish Americans to Pacific Islanders to transgenderists (the coveted she-male vote). But the DNC's marquee events are a rally at New York University and a celebrity concert at Harlem's Apollo Theater, which will feature everyone from Bill Clinton to Michael Jackson. The entire campaign's slug line is "Every Vote Counts," which was, along with its many permutations (Count Every Vote, Every Vote Should Count, Every Count Should Vote), also the war cry of 2000's Florida recount wars.
Students of history may recall that Florida recounts were conducted, a president was sworn in, then more comprehensive recounts were completed by private organizations, whose new recounts largely reaffirmed the original recounts. But who's counting? Certainly not DNC chairman and fund-raising dynamo Terry McAuliffe. Thousands of NYU students have gathered just off Washington Square Park, and McAuliffe personally registers them, as an a cappella group rips through a Michael Jackson medley and the crowd anticipates celebrity arrivals.
The C-list shows first: low-level local functionaries and losing New York mayoral candidate Mark Green. The B-list arrives next: actor/comedian Chris Tucker, star of Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, and future star of Rush Hours 3-thru-10. The A-list arrives simultaneously: Al Sharpton is introduced, but doesn't immediately show. "Tell him to leave the hotdog cart and come up to the stage," yells one female student, wearing a "Black is Beautiful" button. We are lucky Sharpton is gracing the event with his presence at all, since he was rumored to be boycotting the day for unspecified reasons (one suspects because it has nothing to do with him).
But he finally decides to play team ball, mounting the stage, and even shaking the hand of his b te noire, Mark Green. Before Sharpton can reach the dais, however, he is upstaged by the former president, who sneaks in on Sharpton's intro. Clinton looks much tanner and richer than he did in office, but in typical fashion, he has arrived 30 minutes late for a one-hour rally. No matter, the crowd is packed with homers.
They'll forgive just about anything. They forgive comedian Tucker for plugging his new movie instead of saying anything remotely funny. They forgive Clinton for giving full vent to his midlife crisis, as he jokes that upon first meeting Tucker in the Oval Office when the latter was researching an upcoming role (Tucker will be playing the first black president, Clinton was the first black president), he stood behind Tucker like a dutiful aide. "And now that I'm not president anymore," says a wistful Clinton, "that's what I've been reduced to--a dutiful aide."
The crowd further forgives: the clumsy pandering ("We cannot have a system where wearing a black robe gives you a greater voice in the election than living in the black community," says McAuliffe); the non sequiturs ("If you want to stand up against terrorism, register and vote," says Sharpton); and the insults to their intelligence ("This is not rocket science," says Clinton).
Actually, according to the DNC's voter education materials, it's pretty hard to insult prospective voters' intelligence, since they're not assumed to have much. In one helpful hint, the DNC informs registrants that "You may register and vote even if you cannot read or write" (how an illiterate would read this DNC release to learn that it's all right to remain illiterate is not entirely clear). DNC materials also help prospects with answers to the questions every good citizen should ask, such as, "What is a political party?"
As Clinton works the rope line of admirers, reporters, and admiring reporters, I decide to rough him up a bit, just for old time's sake. Alluding to the recent tabloid stories that have Clinton trysting with Lisa Belzberg, who subsequently split from Matthew Bronfman, the Seagram liquor heir, I ask Clinton as politely as possible how he feels about being credited as a factor in her divorce. He doesn't answer, but instead forces a smile, while fixing me with a gunslinger's glare. Up close, all the clich s are true. He's taller than I expected. When he talks to me, I feel as if I'm the only one in the room. "Who do you work for?" he rasps, before repeating it a few more times. Not wishing to botch my access to that night's Apollo gala, I do what I believe Clinton would do in an identically tight spot. I lie. "The Howard Stern Show," I reply.
That night, we all meet up again at the storied Apollo, just a few blocks away from Clinton's new Harlem office. On the stage and throughout the theater, black celebrities are thick on the ground. There's Joe Frazier and Johnnie Cochran. Diana Ross stands alongside Michael Jackson, proving once and for all that they're not the same person. In a far corner, anti-obscenity maven C. DeLores Tucker treats a reporter by rapping the lyrics to Lil' Kim's latest fellatio-themed outrage. The rest of the crowd is packed with deep-pocketed, mostly Caucasian Democratic donors. Unless the Van Patten family has performed here, there've probably never been this many white people at the Apollo.
With seats going for $1,000 a throw, McAuliffe, the "Every Vote Counts" concert's architect, wisely decides to keep the theater's bar open. The bartender and I discuss the pedophilia theme that has unintentionally emerged. Not only is Michael Jackson, who's been accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, headlining. But the Harlem Boys Choir, which has just seen its counseling director charged with fondling a 13-year-old boy, is also on the bill. If McAuliffe added a film tribute to Roman Polanski (who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl), he could turn this into the "Leave Your 13-year-olds At Home" revue.
Say this for the DNC chair, however, his entertainment is top-shelf. ("Republicans can't even have concerts because who would they have perform?" he gloats. "I mean no offense if Lawrence Welk is still alive.") There's no Oak Ridge Boys or Ricky Martin here. Only Grade A quality: the salsa stylings of Ruben Blades, the old-world swing of Tony Bennett, the Dance Theater of Harlem, whose lithe, nubile dancers, during a jiggly performance to James Brown's "Mother Popcorn," seem to be attempting eye-sex with Bill Clinton in the second row.
The King of Pop, or as the Brits call him, "Wacko Jacko," also doesn't disappoint. Though his latest album has tanked and he's now resorting to playing political fund-raisers, Jackson remains unaffected by fickle tastes and rhinoplasty setbacks: His showmanship is intact. Even when lip-synching several of his more lackluster songs, he provides a visual feast of fire-shooting, glitter-raining, crotch-grabbing fun. Always mindful to leave them wanting more, Jackson signs off with a lachrymose we-are-the-world style number in which he is surrounded by a rainbow coalition of children (which he briskly shepherds backstage). The audience expects more Michael than it's gotten, and chants to that effect. But my seatmate, Salon's Jake Tapper, seems to have it right: "He just walked off with 30 children. He's not coming back--for him, that's a backstage Baskin-Robbins."
Back in the press tent, McAuliffe spins reporters with the fevered intensity of an infomercial pitchman. Republicans, it seems, are responsible for causing everything from the recession to lower back pain. One expects paid party hacks to speak this way, but even by those dismal standards, McAuliffe demonstrates his willingness to say anything. "We won the last three presidential elections," he proffers. The Bush administration is rife with polluters, and whether they're "putting more arsenic in our water or more salmonella in our hamburgers, people have had enough of it." Sure, Bush is commander in chief and has done a decent job in the war on terrorism (though Gore would've done better). But, warns McAuliffe, "people fought and died for the right to vote in this country, and I'll be damned if I let one Republican take that vote away."
There's something terribly November 2000 about his whole line. Even Gore's old campaign manager William Daley (whose father was a fan of counting every vote, often two or three times) has said, "Do people care anymore? I don't think they do." But with Republicans largely forsaking a domestic agenda to coast on war-on-terrorism fumes, and with Democrats casting about for a new message to get on-message about (so desperately that their leadership recently sent letters to cable executives begging for more television coverage), the most forceful voice at the moment seems to be McAuliffe's. It's not every day that 300 media organizations flock to Harlem to cover a voter-registration-themed fund-raiser.
And as retro as his message is, there are signs that it's regaining traction. At the media-tent buffet, a full-bodied cameraman sinks his teeth into a tortilla wrap. Chewing thoughtfully, he offers a verdict: "This is Democratic food. If it was Republican, it would be rat poison."
BOO!
INDEED, EVERY VOTE COUNTS. REMEMBER?
This is how I'll always remember clinton. Trying to upstage EVERYONE! Can picture him waiting in the wings & as Al Baby makes his entrance clinton cannot stand it... he has to steal the moment from his brother. LOL!
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