A Fighting Chance

I had another reason to be worried. Every time I went out on the trail, I met people who looked me in the eye, shook my hand, and then whispered that they had given me money. People told me about cutting out doughnut runs and digging a little deeper so they could pitch some money into the kitty for my campaign. People said a hundred variations of “We contributed it to your campaign because we believe in what you are doing.” If some outside group ran an ad against Scott Brown and this deal forced me to divert contributions away from my campaign, would I be betraying the people who had donated their hard-earned money? Did I have any right to gamble with their contributions?

We were in uncharted territory, but Scott Brown and I were both willing to give it a try. The deal had at least a chance of working, and the alternative of allowing the race to be swamped by outside ads seemed truly awful—for Brown, for me, for every voter in the Commonwealth. Besides, maybe this new approach could make campaigns more accountable and help pull the electoral process back in the right direction—even just a little.

On January 23, 2012, Scott Brown and I signed the People’s Pledge.

The reaction from the press was positive but skeptical. Politico called it a “first-of-its-kind pact.” The Washington Post hailed it as a “groundbreaking attempt,” then quickly added, “It’s unclear how effective the agreement will be.” The American Prospect predicted that the agreement wouldn’t have any impact on the Super PACs, but “bless their hearts for trying.”

Who could blame the skeptics? I wasn’t confident this would work, either. The proof would be in the results.

As for the Super PACs and other outside groups, the reaction was also mixed. The League of Conservation Voters—the group that had gone after Brown—announced: “We are inclined to respect the People’s Pledge.” The response from Karl Rove’s Super PAC, however, was more ominous:

[The agreement has] loopholes the Teamsters could drive a truck through, the longshoremen could steer a ship through, the machinists could fit a plane through, and government unions could drive forklifts of paperwork through.



And then it all went quiet.





Dodging Poison Darts

By January, life had taken on a new rhythm. I had taught my last class at Harvard—maybe my last class ever—and now my long days were scheduled to the gills, with every ten-minute block accounted for. Meeting-meeting-meeting, call-call-call. It was exhausting, but exhilarating, too.

What really threw me, though, were the constant attacks from the other side. I would almost persuade myself that I was starting to get the hang of full-throttle campaigning and then—bam! Out of left field, the state Republican Party, or the Brown campaign, or some blogger, would launch a rocket at me.

Some of the stingers were silly, some were nasty, and some were downright nuts. They accused me of plagiarizing my own book. They said I hated people who drank beer. Whatever the particulars, I’d get home from a long day of meeting with people and giving speeches, then end up in the basement late at night, digging out old calendars or pulling up old book manuscripts so I could rebut some ridiculous claim. I half expected someone to declare that I had given birth to space aliens, but at least that one passed me by.

The attacks were a big distraction and at times nerve-racking. And they were unrelenting. It seemed as though a new missile would sail in every day—except for the days when it was two or three missiles.

One morning, I stepped out of the shower just as the radio blared some accusation from a Republican Party official. I was dripping wet, and before I could think, I yelled, “Could you please wait until I get some clothes on?”

Bruce started picking up the papers off the front porch each morning and going through them, page by page, before he put them out on the kitchen table. On good days, he’d shout, “Clear!” and ask if I wanted oatmeal for breakfast.

But a lot of mornings there was no “Clear!” and no breakfast. It felt as if I were running through a forest at full speed while a band of hooligans threw poisoned darts at me. I needed to watch where I was headed and go as fast as possible, but I also needed to duck.





Bad News

One Monday afternoon in late January, Otis started vomiting. We mopped up and took him out for a walk, but every few hours he got sick again. We felt sorry for him, but not too alarmed. For a big, hunky dog, he had a delicate constitution. We’d seen this before, and we figured he’d picked up something yucky off the sidewalk and eaten it while we weren’t looking.

In the morning I hit the campaign trail, and Bruce took Otis to the vet. The vet said it was some kind of gastric thing, but he wanted to keep Otis overnight for some tests.

That was the first little ping of warning. Otis had never stayed overnight for a tummy problem.

The next afternoon I was riding in the car, headed to Worcester for some meetings, when Bruce called.