I'm glad this is all being recorded.
for posterity.
Anyway, so when I was 16 years old, I was in
the office.
When I was four was when they determined I was
a genius.
And my IQ was at 207.
It was at that point.
I was five years old when I said,
I want to get into politics.
Right, right.
I started writing speeches when I was six. Yeah.
You already got them, don't worry about putting
any more.
I'll take one of these.
Well, I'm supposed to go...
Right, and that work news movie where the guy's
just sweating.
Yes, broadcast news.
I was just getting one of these trying to look
halfway decent.
Hey, what up?
Oh, hey.
It wasn't working.
Broke up.
Finally said, let's get our coats back on.
Steve, where are you going?
Well, you know, I was in Santa Fe yesterday. Today.
It's so cool at night.
I was there last night.
I was in, like, the low 40s.
Very nice. Crisp.
It's already on the ground up there.
Did you see Mort when you were there?
What's that?
Did you see Mort when you were there? Yeah.
Didn't he have a place?
Yeah, we had dinner last night. Outstanding.
Yeah, nice.
He's got a nice place.
I've seen it.
It was at Architectural Digest. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
He has a place.
Didn't really have a place.
He really has a place.
A place near the end of the Anasazi.
I think it's Mike Morris. Yeah.
Did you look down at the plaza overall?
What's that about a plaza?
Yeah, very close.
Yeah, just one minute please. It's your mic.
Okay, thanks Mike. Okay, he's he's getting him
mic and he's gonna call right back
Yeah, so bro call can we
Can we put him on speakerphone like we did last time?
So we can yell at Mike.
Is he about to speak?
Do you want to do it in here? No.
I think last time I called, he said that first
time he called, he said his last phone call
is what he said because I guess I'll have a
better feel in California. Right.
Or Hawaii.
He wants to be at the top.
So there's Dole. Great.
Where's Proko?
I don't know.
That's usually like 12 hours.
How about Hawaii?
I don't know.
I don't know. I think the Aleutian Islands have
got some serious . . .
Anybody else want some munchies? Yeah.
Welcome, Mike Morris Golley.
Mr. Morris.
From the Perot 96 party.
Excellent. Welcome aboard.
We're shooting for the 20 million, see if we
can beat you. Excellent.
Are we all getting tickets to the inaugural ball?
Yes, indeed.
But plan on being in Washington at the end of January.
Well, you know, I want to be the American
ambassador of Paris, all right?
Right, yeah, that is open, in fact.
I'm glad you picked it early.
Very good.
Wouldn't that be France?
Whatever, I want to live in Paris.
to France and Paris so tell us what's going on
well there's about 1500 people here so far Ross
will speak at 10:00 and he will probably get on
the premises about 30 minutes before that he'll
be with Pat Choate and they have the
opportunity both to talk before the national cameras
probably keep their conversation to about 15
minutes would be my guess well sounds great well
You're missing a wonderful gathering here. Yes.
There's a camera about six inches away from
Russ Monroe right now.
Hi, Mike.
There's a key ingredient at your party that we
do not have at our party.
We just have soda pop.
Yes, it is a key ingredient.
We're enjoying it.
And the median age at our party is about 74. Wow.
Well, that sounds like quite a bash.
We'll come lining it up. Yes.
You know, I was kind of hoping we could have
done a live thing with you,
you know, with a satellite downlink and all
that kind of stuff.
I would have an Al Franken thing where I've got
the dish on my shoulder.
Oh, absolutely.
You know how David Letterman finds people to go around
and go to the World Series and stuff? Right.
Well, that would have been you, but Joe
couldn't pull it off for us.
My trusty Motorola phone that I use everywhere.
That's become a part of your person, I think. Exactly.
But that's the one thing I guess when I get out
of politics I'll miss most is my phone.
Did you guys miss it?
I hope you're not running up big bills. Definitely.
Guys, I'll let you go.
I just wanted to check in and say hi.
Well, we may be giving you a call when you
least expect it.
That sounds good.
We'll be here until at least 11.
See you, buddy.
Take care, Mike.
So who had the biggest phone bill? Liglisi.
What was it?
Steve Liglisi in New York.
$10,000 in one month.
Oh, my God.
He roamed for a whole month.
Yes, in New York, on the phone for 12-15 hours
a day, long distance.
Let me tell you a funny story.
This is a great story.
Do you remember this when we were driving, when
you and me and Steve had first begun?
And we are driving up to see the Secretary of
State in Maine,
and we didn't realize how valuable these
rechargeable batteries were
until we had to spend, what, eight hours in a
car driving?
and we're negotiating the colors of the sticker
on these batteries.
Those black batteries were like gold, you know.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you three blues
for a black.
No way, man!
All the while, we're racking up 50 bucks a minute.
Oh, yeah, there are three people on cellular
phones simultaneously
as we're driving along through the backwaters
of Maine.
We still have a black battery, and Russ won't
let me get rid of it.
So was this one of the perks of being involved?
It's been dead for four years.
I know, but he won't let me get rid of it.
The Press Well, absolutely, the cellular phones
were critical.
You know, when we had the two-way radios and
all that
stuff, it was the cellular phones that worked
better than
anything else.
We should have just kept calling each other
instead of using the
two-way radios.
The Press It's amazing that people were still
thinking and breathing and
eating and sleeping pro at 2 in the morning.
Mr. Yeah.
The Press Back in the 90s.
Mr. We even get calls.
The Press Oh, they sure were.
The Press In all hours of the night.
The Press I'll never forget.
one time on the vibrate mode, and I got home,
put on the dresser about 2:00 in the morning,
the pager started going off. Kay didn't know
what it was. I didn't know what it was.
God, I've been walking around. What the heck is
that noise?
Oh, I think I just got one. He still has one.
Same one. Battery's been dead for three years.
That's sentimental, you can't take it away from me.
I even take a shower with it.
I remember the four guys in the car.
Yeah, I'd probably still have that one
if Mr. Liglisi hadn't abused that whole deal.
I think they were all trying to call me
and settle their problems with the law.
Thank God you took care of all those, Dan.
No question about it.
What have you been up to lately?
Still resolving those problems.
And how's it moving along?
Any coordinators coming in?
No. Not all my coordinators. Did you?
I'm still hoping for a summary judgment.
Absolutely. Six for six.
Were there a lot of lawsuits?
Mr. You and I will talk later.
Ms. Is that a yes? Yeah.
Mr. No, they were small claims.
Just have a lot of, you know, just FEC
complaints that had no merit.
The Press What are your feelings on the current
non-filing of the Democratic's?
Mr. Blatant violation of law.
The Press Of FEC law?
I mean, FEC law, I mean, they've said that it's
not, the Democrats have said that it's not a
technical violation of the law, and I don't
know the legal answer, but everyone's always
done it, and they ended up doing it. They just
did it late.
But how many Buddhist nuns have $5,000 cash?
Well, the idea is disclosure so that people
know in the last few days of the campaign where
money is coming from to swing the vote or whatever.
And they were saying we're not going to
disclose that, which is wrong.
From what I've read and basically what I've
read, Haley Barber came up with a good point.
He said it's like giving the IRS a box full of
receipts and saying here's my tax return.
Well, that's what they ended up filing.
I think that's what they ended up filing was
just, here's the information we have, we
haven't put it in any order for you or anything
like that, so basically it was useless.
What are the penalties for not doing that?
You know, monetary fines for FEC violations and
they're, you know, the treasurer of the
campaign can end up, you know, going to jail,
like become criminal violations, but I think
that's rare.
How do they become criminal?
I've never had to worry about that.
It's mainly monetary fines for violations.
So it rarely gets criminal.
I mean, where someone actually goes, the
treasurer goes to jail.
Yeah, they can.
So as long as the campaign or the Democratic
Party is well-funded, they really don't care
because they can pay the fines or the
Republican Party.
And actually that's happened a lot, especially
like where candidates knowingly exceed spending
limits in primary states like New Hampshire in
order to try to win.
They'll knowingly exceed the spending limit.
knowing they'll get a fine if they get caught,
and they'll pay the fine.
But they feel the benefit of getting that
additional exposure is worth the cost of the fine.
Because they have no choice. I mean, if they
want to win the election, they need that exposure.
That's just the way the system is set up.
I'm ready to get a look at the returns. Stop.
You're kidding.
This time it's the real deal.
I heard that call today.
You got any tape?
You use those metal tapes? Yeah.
There you go, man.
Peter, I've been talking to some of the
president's aides.
Tell them I do it for free. Yeah.
Wait, you told me you were going to pay me.
For the broadcast.
Oh, yeah, that'll be big.
Last time I saw you on the media, by the way,
my wife and I were sitting there watching the news,
and I was looking pretty good, wasn't I?
You were looking pretty good.
You were not the most popular man in the room.
That group was in the palm of my hand.
I had them right where I wanted them.
Where was it?
Was this the United We Stand convention or
something in Dallas?
This is the development out of Circle T Ranch.
I didn't see that.
You were on television with all your background
in media?
We should have handled that.
It was an all-in-one group of volunteers.
I will?
They're always on Darcy and Nate on the day.
Was it January?
The time of the Circle T Ranch?
Oh, yeah.
Out at Westlake or whatever it is.
We thought that.
We're like, I wonder if we're supposed to do that.
Hey, there he is.
Man, that doesn't look too good.
Do you remember the elation that we had four
years ago being here just with the closure of
it all?
It's done.
Of course, you don't remember much of that
night, given the kiss that you gave me that night.
Do you want to reenact that?
I would like to see it. It's good pleasure.
I'm a little uncomfortable with that.
How did that happen? How did they end up kissing?
I don't know. I think it was when the two of
you saw each other.
The two of you had seen each other at the
election party right after.
It's like when you came up to the room together
and you went for an embrace.
Brace. Darcy was so excited.
Fortunately, I turned my head at just the right moment.
Or he would have got it right on the lips.
I don't think so.
That was
an interesting night.
What's about your experience
of being a driver during the presidential
debates? It was phenomenal.
I'll never ever look back.
You and Brokaw.
I know what Darcy's talking about.
My first interview...
Yes, and I still to this day say that's not
entirely my fault.
But you know you got blamed for it.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
That's something that you really feel is
getting your career off on the right foot
is when you do something like that.
And then...
Tell the story.
Well, I've got to tell the story.
The story is basically I was elected to drive
during the St. Louis debate.
The coveted position of being the driver.
Yeah, the first presidential debate, I'm
elected to drive the car for Mr. Perot, because
I grew up there.
Lincoln Town Car.
He did very well.
Although the city had changed since I had last
lived there.
And everything goes very smoothly up until we
go from the debate site to the hotel.
And there, he's out giving his rally at the
hotel, and I decide to pull the car around,
because he's finished giving his speech
and he decides that he's going to spend a few minutes
privately with some volunteers,
goes out, and then says about five, ten minutes,
Darcy and Mark Blanick are with Mr. Perot.
So I go pull the car around.
I've got the Perot family shoveled into the
other two cars.
They pull up. They go off.
I had hopped out of the car, left it running to
go over
to make sure Mr. and Mrs. Perot was okay,
said goodbye, turned around.
Ross' bags out.
rusted bags from the trunk, the car's running,
the media's there, there's probably 50 people
waiting for them to come out.
I turn around and the door is closed.
And our fine engineers in Motor City, Detroit,
Michigan have decided that now when car doors
close, they lock.
And I, within about five seconds, became aware
that this was probably the case.
So I buttoned my coat, decided to walk over and
determine if the door was indeed locked, and it was.
At which I surprisingly rather than scream
profanity, you know, jostled the door, realized
that was the case, didn't draw any attention,
went over and asked the police officer, Mr.
Perot's going to be out in approximately five
minutes and I need to get the car door open.
The engine is running, the doors are locked,
and his bags are in the trunk.
Um, can you get the door open?
The guy got out, and three minutes later,
these guys got the slim jims, and they're all
around the car,
running inside, and been trying to keep this a secret.
And finally, one of the police officers comes
running in.
And I'm telling Darcy and Mark that
everything's under control,
and then the police officer comes in, and he says,
we just can't get it. These electronic locks
just won't budge. Sorry.
And they both looked at me, and they said,
what is he talking about?
It's not that big of a deal.
Darcy quickly lost patience. He just said, what
is he talking about? And I explained it to him.
He said, break the window. Mark just looked at
me and said, break the window.
So I went out, talked to the officer, and I
said, break the window.
Took out a four-cell mag light, put it through
the back window.
Did he get to do the honors? No. Oh, no. No.
The cop took it out, put it through, unlocked it.
I pulled the car away. Darcy pulled up another car.
Someone else pulls up. I'm sweeping up the glass.
No one would see. Of course, the press was
there by that time.
They were wondering what this...
Another car pulls up. Someone literally throws
me the keys.
I get the bags out of the other car, throw them
into the car,
transfer the bags from one car to the other,
drive the other car off,
hide it, glasses, slept away, and by that time,
literally within 90 seconds, Perot comes out.
I buttoned my coat. I'm standing at the car.
How are you? Good to see you.
You ready to go? Absolutely, Sir.
We get in the car. If I had taken my jacket off,
my shirt would have been completely wet.
Kept my jacket on, drove to the hotel, drove to
the airport.
What you didn't realize was you drove up in a
gray one,
and you drove away in a gray.
Yeah. Same car, different color.
Drove away. Same driver.
And have never been more tense in my entire life
than that one 90-minute time frame.
My God.
Now this is...
months after I've graduated from college this
is where you're thinking boy three
months after school my career is down the drain
this is compared to President
Bush Clinton and their yeah their motorcades 43
car I drove out to the
airport to pick up somebody and I was driving
on a rental car with it was the
weirdest sensation I'm driving on the
interstate also I realized there were no
cars driving on the other side and I stopped
and then I stopped but the
thought went through my mind that President
Bush is probably coming
through. Here came his motorcade, you know,
police car after the
limousines, the Suburbans, etc., etc., etc. And
so I had this, you know, vivid picture in my
mind of just having experienced that afternoon.
Then I counter that with the
scene at the airport of us trying to break the
window of the rental car.
sweeping glass under the car, sweating bullets,
he comes out, doesn't, doesn't, you know, and
it was
amazing. There's a credit to everyone for not,
I mean, that, and that was the thing that, the
overriding thing that amazed me about the whole
process is that of all the people who were so
green to this whole political thing, and for
the most part, people like myself who were just green
to the real working world, reacted unbelievably
well, and there were more than, there's more than
one situation like that I mean it to this day
boggles my mind that there was
no major snafu that everybody seemed to kind of
stay collected calm and get the
job. I mean, Russ was hell of a person. He was
our point guy in the presidential debate, so he
was there negotiating. He was negotiating with
people that were 50, 55. It was Russ. He was
there. And I think I was the second or third
person there because I knew how to drive people
around. When Russ first showed up at the first
debate, there were three people. And Pearl
always likes to tell the story how there were
three guys
three cellular phones and then you know the
other two entire entourage hundreds
of people and there were three rental cars one
didn't have a window and Russ
called me at home the worst night because I
think we need more people yeah
Ralph Perkins the J and then I got there and
then then I got there with someone
and I remember how the whole thing worked.
It was interesting.
I've actually got to return a page, so I hate
to disrupt you.
I think we're ready. Okay.
And I think we're going to start over on this side.
So do you want to jump to the headliner? Yeah.
A lot of Republicans.
What part are you in?
What do you do?
I'm head of field operations.
I'm actually head of marketing, and we haven't
really started marketing yet, so I do a lot
of business development and stuff.
First, I want to encourage everybody to go back
for a second.
Very good.
Projected way.
Thank you.
I'm all set, thank you.
How about you, girl?
Hi, I'm doing well.
Thank you.
I love a beer.
Do you know who lives here? Me.
Go ahead. Wow.
There's already one.
They already know it's fixed.
Is that all?
Did you vote for me? Yeah.
Did you vote for Joe?
Everybody really is interested.
Make sure you get this.
That is so bullshit.
So what kind of cars do you guys drive?
How's business going? Family?
I'm not talking about anything else.
You know, he wasn't on the ballot in Texas.
Here we go.
John Hagler.
I voted for Jim Campbell.
He was on my ballot.
Yes, he was.
He was on my ballot.
remember Jim Campbell
no was it no I made 12 bucks an hour was it Jim Campbell
I did yeah
you know what's funny uh dorsey I uh
When was it?
The summer I went to a wedding in Austin
for a real good friend of mine.
His little brother
stays in St. Charles.
They're both from Houston.
They've been dating seriously.
And they've been traveling a lot.
Where have you been?
We went to Montana.
I'm in my pen line.
I know one person
in Montana.
I said, yeah, who's that?
He said, Hayes Kirby.
I said, no way.
And I was just saying this to this woman.
She said, hey, Carrie told you to say that.
I go, no, why?
She said, well, we were at his lodge, and we
met and talked to him for hours.
It's really not Hayes Kirby, do we know?
Talking for hours? Yeah.
Everybody needed to go out to Montana to haze Kirby.
And he was called up, no one's reacted to anyone.
He was called into active duty.
So he's a ground guy.
I mean, he was a pilot, wasn't he?
He was a pilot.
Yeah, well, he was a friend of Mr. Fred.
God, that guy needs to write a book.
He could have written a book before.
He also told me a story about the grizzly bear
in his kitchen.
Did you ever hear that one?
No, but I believe it. Yeah.
He had a grizzly bear in his kitchen, and he
shot him.
Of course, he said, I shot him from outside the
kitchen window.
And it was only a 35mm.
I don't know. I'd like to die.
He was just bizarre, but I liked him.
He was actually saying in the last stage of the campaign
to me, I don't know if he was saying it to
anybody else, but he was telling me that
Perot was
that there were these prisoners of war that
were going to be released in the last days of
the campaign.
Can you send me that? Yeah.
That's what they were working on.
I'm going to forget.
Election day four years ago, I had lunch with Clay.
I said, were you having lunch with us?
We went to a casino.
We kept getting all these phone calls from
across the United States.
People were doing informal exit polls.
And the messages were coming back.
We were always winning.
And it was noontime.
And we were having lunch.
And our reports from the field were...
has been re-elected there.
He could win.
He was going to win.
And it was a weird sensation, because it was
hard to believe,
but yet it was believable.
He wanted to win.
It wasn't until about 3:00 in the afternoon
that we really realized that the first official
results started
to come in.
You know, it's so interesting, because networks
have known since this afternoon who's winning,
because they have this exit calling day that
they're all, it's a consortium, they're all in it.
And I had a friend at ABC who told me this
morning that I could call her this afternoon
and fucking, you know, find out who was winning.
Did you?
Well, I tried, and I couldn't reach her.
She told a hundred of them.
He didn't reach her in your call.
No, I didn't.
The line was busy. No.
I got her voice back.
She loves, she's an early morning person.
She's a morning person.
Why are you defending someone that's shocked again?
Apparently the number you gave me wasn't her
real number.
Hi, this is Carol.
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