Conversation 892-007

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Well, one more unusual inspiration, very delicious.

I told Bill that, uh, you know, that I was, uh, that Tim Hortons used to go to the White House last Wednesday and the White House on Thursday and Sunday.

And I told him to pack the damn room with the Congressmen and Senators.

And by the day, we had just four, four commissions.

And then, of course, they had

A couple from planning and staff, a couple from the shoulders of staff.

I said, no staffers unless they're necessary for briefing.

You know what I mean?

Staffers can be at candidate meetings.

That's the place to take care of that now.

Pack the road with staffers for candidate meetings.

to fill that back row.

They'd love to come.

That's the point.

As long as you have 20, you might as well have 20.

That's right.

And I'm not going to do the little cozy things at 4 in the room.

I'm going to do the speaker, of course, next week sometime.

But I feel very strongly, because they'd love to do it.

And I put up a show for these people.

And I talk.

And they get a chance to see that the president's fighting for his programs.

I'm convinced that's the way to do it.

That's a word to fill their back.

And so that was what I told them.

I said, keep the step on them.

Limit the staff to whatever we need, and then just load that back row back with congressmen.

You see, that thing with the congressmen, the leaders, will not feel that they're discerning with the staff.

They're sometimes bitching about too much stuff.

There's another thing, I would think, not knowing it, but it would seem to be logical.

If you do that, you make the leaders perform better.

Now, if you get the wild cards there, the leaders have got to act like leaders.

I'm sorry.

And not be a person who wants to be a bitch.

They haven't put on a show, I've never gone to them, which I would think would force them into a better position.

No, but this is a good meeting.

It's a good way to present things and so forth.

We have a problem with this sort of thing.

You know, I thank the chairman very much.

I don't believe, I don't believe it has that much, that it's that much of a factor.

But it is true that, you know, we have a presentation by, not only about our people who present things to the cabinet,

and the leaders don't have a hell of a lot of oxygen it's a hell of a real problem that's one thing

It's white box .

You have a friend .

He's great, but he can't be in there and handle himself .

But you come down to it, you see we've got George.

And George is just .

He shouldn't try to sell on his nature.

Huh.

Well, I guess that's what one of the states we made.

I don't know the point of this bunch.

The only rock of the lines.

Lives the only one.

Lives himself.

One is only one for himself.

At times.

He can sell negatively better than positively.

That's right.

He's a good little sailor.

That's right.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, anyway, that's what the job is for us sailors in this house.

I wanted to check with you on my problem with George, and if you were able to get George or David today.

Yes.

I was wondering if there was anything I could follow up with.

No.

David says we should not do anything with Goodlin for a while.

It's his understanding that Goodlin sometime this week is going to contact the White House.

And he said if by the end of the week he has not done so, then David wants to go back and check something.

He says until then, just like I said,

And he's got some other congressmen.

Where?

Goodwin.

And so he says, don't get into that.

You should not .

He says, just be sure when he does call, I've got all the lines laid out here, that when Goodwin or his office does call, that the call is him.

That's the only word.

Don't let the call get lost.

And then I told him.

he ought to talk with george and he said he had not because he felt a little bit embarrassed about it you know as the national chairman they shouldn't be bothering him and i said david that's essentially what his whole mission is is to get good people in congress and uh you're not bothering him at all in the first place it's just flattering to him to be one and he was that guy put it on but i said in fact he was

kind of disappointed because he thought he was going to be able to help you, and he didn't hear back from you, so he figured you didn't want him in on it.

So it was just because I was embarrassed.

He said, let me talk to him.

He said, I'd like to get him back in now anyway because I need some advice.

I've been working with the state chairman, and that's been marvelous, but I need some advice from George on how to position things here now and all that.

Let me talk to him about that.

And I said, the other thing you should understand, and just, you don't need to say anything to anybody, but just when you're working around you on this, just remember that you, Scott, hate Harry N, and that you therefore have to keep that personality conflict in mind as you're working with various people.

Don't put N into a position between you and Scott.

Get yourself in another relationship with Scott.

N probably would find your relationship with Goodwin and try and matter.

And he said, okay, that's very helpful.

I said, now, in the House thing, I know you're concerned.

I understand why you are.

And I raised that with George Bush, because I wanted to get his judgment on the problem.

And he said that he had no problem at all with the cows.

It made all kinds of sense if you were for good.

The only thing that he would have any problem with is if you were taking some other kind of job.

It didn't appear to be showing any interest in the district, but then having a house in Maryland would seem kind of incongruous.

But even then, it wasn't an overriding problem.

It just would be a factor.

If you're working for Goodwin, it's not even a factor.

I said that Bush had met with Dan earlier in the day on some other things, and this had come up.

And he said Dan completely agreed, that Dan had told him that the problem with the house is now resolved, because David's going to be working for Goodwin.

So the house is no problem anymore.

so he said okay this has been very helpful and talked about he is of course it's true that julie of course is concerned that the house will be able to continue

Right.

I said to David, you know, somebody may raise the question of the house, because they've got to raise something.

If they don't raise that, they'll raise the question of how your grandfather got a tax preference on his book, or why does your grandmother still live on the farm, or...

If you live in the White House, they'll see that you're hiding behind your father-in-law's coattails.

And why are you afraid to get out on your own?

And if you live in an apartment, if it's in the Southwest, they'll say you're sucking around the niggers.

In Georgetown, they'll say you're trying to be ugly in the social center.

It's an exclusive area.

It's an exclusive area to be bad, and it's a non-exclusive area to be bad.

And no matter what you do, they're going to find a way to screw it up.

So as you come into political life, you've seen enough of it to know that.

That's one of the things you've got to be prepared for.

You've got to be stronger than any of that kind of stuff and not let it bother you.

Now, obviously, you must make careful decisions and not do anything that unnecessarily creates problems for yourself.

But the house thing, you made the decision on.

It wasn't a bad decision at all.

It was a good decision.

You need a comfortable place to live.

It's not anything more than that.

And it's not more than to what you're entitled to.

If you want to go into public life, it's an appropriate house for you.

So if you are, it's also an appropriate house.

Well, every congressman from Pennsylvania should.

In Washington, it's a two-bedroom house of one acre.

Blah, blah, blah.

Christ sakes.

And you didn't buy it.

It took a lot of money.

This is a friend of the man who bought it and is making it available to you at a reasonable rate.

Not a bargain.

Not an exorbitant thing.

You're paying rent like everybody else and using it as a place to live.

You don't have to

Explain that to people.

What you should do is just say, well, that's ridiculous.

I had to have a place to sleep.

That's where I sleep.

I didn't want to live in the White House.

I didn't want to live in an apartment.

We lived in an apartment all the time we'd been married.

We wanted to get a house where we'd get a yard and a chance to get outside a little bit once in a while.

He can turn that.

That's not a problem.

He really can.

I don't know whether that got through to him or not.

I just seemed to feel pretty good about it.

And I know what he talked to me the other day about his life.

Mm-hmm.

And he turns around and says he loves his life.

He takes his life.

It's his life.

Is that what he had?

The fun?

Yeah.

Couldn't make up his mind.

He couldn't make up his mind, but he did.

And then he was fine.

But he just had a hell of a time, you know.

And didn't want anybody, of course, he's got the problem, I suppose his grandfather did too, didn't want anybody not to like him.

Because everybody would love him, and that ain't going to be the case.

And that would be hard for him, because I'm sure, with regard to that, with regard to that, I was trying to ask you, but I don't know if you or Steve should be able to answer me about this idea of having the Congress, sorry.

I thought that, frankly, that having had the loyalists down,

after the Vietnam thing and so forth, but we let them know where we were, and then having them down after a couple of vetoes for a little Popeye, having rid of them all, why are the Sondra and others, I really wondered if having them down, is this a good idea, you know, for a, for a military condition?

I thought not, because it was, it seems to me to be overkill.

On the other hand, I think it is overkill.

On the Vietnam,

Having done it on Vietnam, maybe it's a good idea to do it once on this side.

And if you're going to, the time to do it is after the first two boats.

I would say if you're going to have them down at all, if you're going to try to do something on this, this is probably the right time to do it after the sewer boat or the water boat.

On the basis that that gives you a chance to get the House and Senate, and that you do it before you have

any losses or any other I would still argue that, on balance, I don't think I'd do it.

I don't know what it accomplishes.

I guess the congressional guys and the Congressman, George Bush, would argue that he should do it.

I'm sure he would say that would be a good question.

Well, I don't know about the congressional leaders or the Morrissey leadership, because I think we should do one every week.

Every goddamn week.

I mean, either the Republicans or the Republicans.

And that is the way for me to get to the Congress, to fill out that goddamn form.

You put in a 10 each time now, in addition to the Lakers, I mean, I think you could put more than that.

I think you could put 20 in there.

Because you don't need, I mean, you need five or six staff, probably.

But they, the staff, I mean, you know, we had a situation in the National Archives where the staff would make a presentation, and they get out young.

They leave the room young.

They don't stay to the balance of the time.

Even after that, you know, we have only the congressional county, whatever it had to be.

Of course, we've got a situation where we've got, we always have Jim Sager, and we always have Jim Irving, and we always have Jim Jones, and we always have Jim Cook, and we always have Jim Porter-Locus, all right?

That's what we're looking for.

You know, really, I mean, you know,

Yeah, and even then, he could get a hell of a lot of people.

That room holds, I forgot how many, but it holds a lot of people on the other side.

It's more than a lot.

But I respect that room.

Let them all see it.

Right?

You ought to be able to get 25 people in there, which means you ought to be able to get darn near 20 congressmen.

Yeah.

In addition, the leaders often are at the table, don't they?

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

See, because for my partners in meetings, for my partners in meetings, when you have a public meeting, the leaders have to pick up the table.

But then, so you have the rest of the staff, you need to give them at least 10.

You talk to Gary about giving even more than 10.

But for my partners in meetings, the leaders are only eight.

You know, we come here now, and the crowd, we just fill our own, fill our own.

The other guys can sit at the table, can't they?

Everybody sits at the table.

We put them all up there.

The wild card?

Sure.

But they don't have to.

Wildcarts could sit around the room.

No, no, no, no.

You just put as many as you can in the table.

Why not?

It's the only way to do it.

But the staff sit behind you, so the others sit on the ends and the cross sides so they can see you.

We can get a bunch of them in there.

Why not fill up all the seats?

The other thing you can do is just take the energy that they want you to put on a breakfast.

Have a hell of a bigger shell, you know.

It's big time.

It might be good idea.

For example, the tax one, Bob, what they're thinking about there, since I've asked a few ways to reach the finance and you couldn't have other committees, but they can go down the line and the tax can be seen.

If the lower ranking guys are there, they'd never get up there.

That would be great.

Well, if you want to run by this, whether or not it's, it'd be good to have them down.

I don't want to do it tomorrow.

I think I just want to do it this day.

Yeah, don't do it tomorrow.

I think I just, just waited.

Have it Wednesday.

I don't, I don't think it's hard to even have it so fast anyway.

I mean, that thing of trying to, you get in a boat and slap it down instantly.

But you have a Thursday.

If you don't mind doing it, it's probably not a bad idea.

It's probably a way of, of, uh,

Well, a reception of this search should be held at what time? 530?

5.30.

I think it's a little better to have a, what do you think, they have to go to, 5.30, 6.30 is plenty of time to get them to go to 5.30, you said.

I'm almost inclined to think that he gets them out of there.

He said, all of a sudden, thank you for this vote.

I know it kicks a lot of guts.

I'm afraid to give it.

He's knocking on me.

He gets in a few Democrats.

He gets in some Republicans.

That's another class like the Vietnam thing.

It's probably not bad.

It establishes sort of a presidential concern in the domestic side, as you already showed on the Vietnam side in the same way, which is to thank the guys that were with you Friday at 5.30.

Friday at 5.30.

Yeah, that was jackasses while we were doing the conference.

Wow.

It's...

It's overkill, but it's probably beneficial overkill.

Maybe just overkill at all.

It'll be... Get around down there.

Get around.

It'll be some of the same people.

So that's not bad either.

So some of the guys that are with you all the time, let them show up.

Okay.

Oh, that's right.