Over the course of the next decade, from 1988 to 1998, I tried to navigate the ups and downs of my career, but speaking on behalf of The Creative Coalition and PFAW and attending countless events, both issue-oriented and on behalf of individual candidates, became like a second job. I crisscrossed the country incessantly. On a few occasions, I landed in LA, forgetting that I had an event in New York within the coming forty-eight hours, and hopped on a plane to turn right around (something I could only do in my thirties!). The one thing I maintain about that period of intense political advocacy, and beyond, is that I never appeared on behalf of any cause in order to line my own pockets. The work I did never enriched me in any way. I think that has confused or frustrated some people, like some Republicans and conservatives for whom politics must always involve some form of profit taking. It’s as if my political opposites were saying to me, “You’ve made a little money. Why don’t you play eighteen holes, kick back, have a beer? Relax! The spotted owls and the poor people and hybrid cars, they’re all gonna take care of themselves.” My response to that is, “Convince me. Teach me. Show me how to be like you and not worry about all the things you don’t worry about.” I’m still waiting for a persuasive response.
I fought voter suppression in Florida after the 2000 election. I wanted to secure federal support for the arts in every state in the country, particularly for those communities that are not as culturally abundant as New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I argued for saner gun control laws and protested the death penalty not only as cruel and unusual but also as fiscally impractical. I fought for a woman to have control over her own reproductive choices. But my favorite issue was to urge both federal and state governments to take money out of politics. Burt Neuborne and Josh Rosenkranz lectured our TCC gatherings about Buckley v. Valeo, the case that they believe was rushed into the Supreme Court with the hope that its cleansing effects might impact the 1976 election. But the ruling proved to be porous in many ways. Since then, the systematic assault on campaign finance reform by elitist hacks like John Roberts or originalist fanatics like the late Antonin Scalia has only served to keep the White House, and a great many other offices in this country, in the hands of rich, white, corporate-leaning Christian men or those who will do their bidding. Campaign finance reform is the linchpin of nearly every problem we face as a nation, just as our oil-based economy is the linchpin of our issues abroad. If the first issue is not addressed, we will continue to see the US electoral system gamed by insiders who put forth enormous amounts of money on behalf of any candidate who will read from their script in order to get the role of a lifetime. Even if that candidate is a foppish casino operator who had heretofore shown no interest in national politics.
In 1994, the chance to serve the Kennedys came again. Senator Edward Kennedy was running for reelection in Massachusetts in a tough race with Mitt Romney. I met Michael Kennedy, Ted’s nephew, in Hyannis while we were (what else?) playing football on the front lawn. I knew Michael was full-on Kennedy when he climbed up onto the hood of a car to catch a touchdown pass, claiming the front end of the car was in bounds. We spoke about how I might help Ted. In the critical month of October, I traveled to western Massachusetts (as it was assumed Teddy had Boston sewn up) for four consecutive four-day weekends, most of them with Michael. We went to VFW halls, community colleges, and Democratic clubs, where I spoke in front of groups as big as a thousand people and as small as twenty. We made around seventy stops during that month, fueling ourselves with pretzels and Snapple. On October 25, Ted was set to debate Romney. Michael told me that in spite of the polls, Ted needed a good showing, especially in the first and more-watched debate, in order to nullify the issue of his age. Romney was now the fair-haired leading man, but Ted came out prepared, robust, combative. Everyone scored the first, pivotal round for Ted. On October 23, just before that first debate, as I was driving with Michael to Boston to catch my flight home, Ted called his nephew, who then handed me the phone. All of a sudden, I was reminded of driving around western Massachusetts (oddly enough) back in 1992, while shooting Malice, when the news came on the radio that Bill Clinton had defeated Bush. I choked up at that moment, thinking that there really was hope for this country. When I took the phone from Michael, I choked up again as Senator Kennedy thanked me and said, “If I win this thing, I really couldn’t have done it without your help.” And although I knew that was hyperbole, I felt that Ted’s 1994 campaign was one where I really had made a contribution. I thought, “If I can get people to vote for Ted, is there someone else I could get them to vote for? Could it be me?”
In 1997, New York magazine put me on the cover with the title “See Alec Run.” The mostly positive piece teased my aspirations to some state political office, but my allergy to campaign fund-raising told me I wasn’t ready. To run for office meant I would have to give up the work I loved (for the most part) on the stage and screen to play a part I didn’t want to play: a politician raising money. As fast as those rumors came, they went, and stories about me running for the Senate or Congress, for governor or mayor, were treated with a more dismissive tone, as in, “Yeah, we’ve heard all that before.” A year after the New York cover story, Bill Clinton came to East Hampton, the first sitting president to travel to the East End to attend a political event since FDR. My new home had yet to be remodeled, so the DNC stepped in to stage the event. A local builder who was my friend spruced up our house and put together some furniture. Then Kim and I hosted Bill and Hillary at our house with a concert by Hootie and the Blowfish for around a thousand people. That night, the Secret Service wanted a dedicated bathroom in the house for the president, so we had designated a powder room in the hallway and marked it as off-limits. When the president was eventually escorted to it, he found it was locked. The Secret Service men knocked on the door crisply, and a muffled reply came from inside, and after what felt like an eternity, the door opened and revealed my mother standing there. I moaned the most theatrical “Moooooooom” you could imagine. The president of the United States put his arm on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Alec. I understand. I’ve got a mother, too.”
After the event at our home, a group repaired to Turtle Crossing, a ribs joint on the highway in East Hampton, where every celebrity who had a home in the area—including Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate, Kathleen Turner, Roy Scheider, Lauren Bacall, Chevy Chase, Sidney Lumet, and Christie Brinkley, among others—was seated at picnic-style tables, eating chicken, ribs, coleslaw, and corn bread with the president and First Lady. At one point, Clinton sat in a corner with Kim and me, where he spoke intently about the brewing Lewinsky scandal. Eventually, he leveled his eyes at us, his long, thin fingers pressed into his breast in a plaintive pose. “Even if I did do it,” he said, “don’t I deserve to be forgiven?” Just then, someone pulled up next to the president and snatched him away. Kim spun toward me and squealed, “I think he just told us he did it!”