{"id":1380,"date":"2012-09-25T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T13:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2012-09-25T09:30:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T13:30:01","slug":"the-oops-diaries-hugs-and-tears-in-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/09\/25\/the-oops-diaries-hugs-and-tears-in-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oops Diaries: Hugs and Tears in Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jay Root<\/a><\/p>\n

“I walked with [CBS reporter] Rebecca Kaplan back to our floor, and we both decided this was the most disastrous and yet most entertaining campaign we would probably ever cover. It would never be this good again. From treasonous Ben Bernanke to all those heartless immigrant haters, through the oops moment, the voting-age gaffe, Sonia Monteyamor and Joe Arapahoe, we had been there to chronicle it. We killed it, man!”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Exceprted from Oops! A Diary from the 2012 Campaign Trail<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

From Chapter 11: “Caucus Time.”<\/p>\n

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Part 1<\/p>\n

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa \u00e2\u20ac\u201d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3:46 a.m., and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in my room at the Sheraton West Des Moines. I would probably be hammered if we hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run out of booze, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the kind of night it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been.<\/p>\n

The governor<\/a> announced a few hours ago that he is canceling his upcoming South Carolina trip and going home to Texas for some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prayer and reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to see if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153path forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after his ass-kicking tonight in the Iowa caucuses. Everybody knows what that means. No more debates! Oh please, God.<\/p>\n

Iowans don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start voting until evening at these caucuses, which are like hundreds of little popularity contests held at gyms and churches across the state. So we first had to endure an exhausting five public events, beginning with Perry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address to the Texas Strike Force, otherwise known as the special interest lobby of Austin.<\/p>\n

I got started at the Sheraton restaurant, where I caught a rare glimpse of Joe Allbaugh\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtable hopping, talking to various Texans and Friends of Rick. I always thought the former FEMA director, despite his gruff exterior and large build, was a big ol\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 teddy bear inside. But most of the Texans who work for him at Perry HQ seem to hate his guts. I passed by one of the tables where he was seated and said hello in passing. I went through the buffet line, sat down, and swilled a bunch of coffee with my lumpy and mostly dry scrambled eggs. Allbaugh, still making his rounds, came and sat down for a while with me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be sitting alone,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n

He grabbed the USA Today<\/em> sitting at the table and glanced at a story by national political writer Susan Page. It largely concluded that Perry was on his last leg. Joe told me to tell her he was mad at her for that. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure she hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been out on the road, and certainly not anywhere near the moribund Perry campaign, but I promised him I would tell her if I saw her. National attention has dropped off, which is both good and bad. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to wade through a bunch of competitors to get access. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad because nobody cares about the story anymore.<\/p>\n

By late afternoon all the reporters had set up shop in a relatively small ballroom, with press risers in the back and a podium and microphone in front. Ben Philpott [of Austin public radio station KUT] had a dedicated high-speed Internet line, which was key because wireless sucks in Iowa and there was obviously a big draw on it here. I let [ABC reporter] Arlette Saenz glom onto my Verizon wireless signal but I was hanging on to the password Philpott gave me as if it were the nuclear launch code. Behind the podium was a large TV screen on the wall where we would watch the returns come in. Perry hit two caucuses himself, and supposedly 1,500 surrogates\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Texas Strike Force plus a bunch of other volunteers\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfanned out across the state to advocate for him at the 1,700-plus voting sites.<\/p>\n

They had a 15-passenger bus ferrying reporters to the two events but I only went to one of Perry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appearances. Ann Romney was there, too, speaking for Mitt. Perry spoke first and then hugged her before she went onstage. I skipped Perry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second caucus appearance and went to the filing room. The results from CNN entrance polls were already coming in. It looked like a very bad night for Rick Perry. There weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t many people in the dingy ballroom. With hundreds of Texans around I figured there would be more crammed in. I guess the strike force was all out at those far-flung caucuses.<\/p>\n

Perry surfaced at around nine o\u00e2\u20ac\u2122clock, stood in the middle of the ballroom, and did a live shot with Fox, with all the reporters jammed in around him to record what he said. Arlette typed up a transcript of it and e-mailed it to me. It seemed a little delusional to me. He said it was still early in the evening and there was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a lot of hope and excitement.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He said he would \u00e2\u20ac\u0153wait to see in the morning what it looks like.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wait till the friggin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 morning? Would it take that long to count? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He looks sad\/tired,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Arlette texted me. Then Wolf Blitzer started spilling the awful truth. Perry would come in fifth, at barely 10 percent\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbehind Romney, Santorum, Paul, and Gingrich.<\/p>\n

What a collapse. The guy who had raised $17 million in forty-nine days\u00e2\u20ac\u201da bigger third-quarter haul than even Mitt Romney\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand who had spent way more on TV here than all the other candidates. The former front-runner who once seemed like the inevitable conservative alternative. Fifth place? Given the damn-the-torpedoes attitude of late, I fully expected Perry to step onstage and give a defiant speech, to proclaim that this was a minor setback. Onward to South Carolina. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been saying that repeatedly. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what happened. Instead he got pretty emotional, started talking about how it was all worth it, how there is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no greater joy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d than his experience out there on the trail.<\/p>\n

And then: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided to return to Texas to assess the results of tonight\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s caucuses, and determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He spent a few minutes working the rope line, and I saw his Iowa director, Bob Haus, wiping away tears and hugging him. Everybody seemed to be feeling the catharsis of nearly five months going up in smoke\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe last three of them really god-awful. I saw one of Perry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top aides milling around and I practically leaped at him. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So this is over, right? I mean, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s saying reassess, but \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get to finish my sentence.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the adviser said. A couple of seconds passed as we just stared at each other, and he felt like he had to throw in a little caveat: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But you know Rick Perry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crazy. You never know what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to do. He might wake up tomorrow and decide he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I sent off a Tweet: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hugs and Tears at Perry HQ in Iowa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I was dying to get to the bar, where people were starting to gather. Arlette and Ben Philpott had been busily typing away, too, but when I looked up after filing my story I was the only one left in the Sheraton ballroom. I heard a loud cheer rise up from the bar. Damn. Had Perry gone out there to the bar? I stuffed my charger and audio cable into my backpack. Then I heard another loud cheer. My God, what was I missing? I ran into the bar area, which was overflowing, and asked around: What the fuck is happening?<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They were doing shots,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d someone said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For Rob.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They were toasting Rob Johnson, the campaign manager who had been busted down to a lowly surrogate and replaced by Bush-era honcho Joe Allbaugh. It was proof that Rob was the one who still had the loyalty of all the campaign staffers. That set the mood for the night. Everybody was toasting everybody else, and hugging and crying. I invited several people to future lunches in Austin. I promised I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d stay in touch. I gave some unsolicited career counseling. I ran into one senior aide who was very happy to be moving on.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dude, no matter how bad you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard it was, it was ten times worse,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. He told me that at the end there had been two distinct campaigns at the end: the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153zombie campaign,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d composed of Texas loyalists walking around in a funk, waiting for it all to end; and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shadow campaign,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the one with all the power, composed of D.C. consultants running the show from the Stephen F. Austin Hotel across the street from Perry campaign HQ in Austin. Grim. By then, it was practically impossible to get a drink at the bar because the bartenders were so busy. When they closed it down, the party spilled over into Perry policy analyst Sean Davis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s room.<\/p>\n

I brought what was left of Arlette\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Grey Goose, which made me a very popular guy. I have this vision of a mildly incoherent Perry spokeswoman, Katherine Cesinger, laughing uncontrollably on the bed, and wondering what new fate might await her back home. Luckily, we ran out of booze about an hour ago. I walked with [CBS reporter] Rebecca Kaplan back to our floor, and we both decided this was the most disastrous and yet most entertaining campaign we would probably ever cover. It would never be this good again. From treasonous Ben Bernanke to all those heartless immigrant haters, through the oops moment, the voting-age gaffe, Sonia Monteyamor and Joe Arapahoe, we had been there to chronicle it. We killed it, man!<\/p>\n

via The Texas Tribune: Main Feed http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-people\/rick-perry\/oops-diaries-blowout-iowa\/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Tribune%20Feed:%20Main%20Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jay Root “I walked with [CBS reporter] Rebecca Kaplan back to our floor, and we both decided this was the most disastrous and yet most entertaining campaign we would probably ever cover. It would never be this good again. From treasonous Ben Bernanke to all those heartless immigrant haters, through the oops moment, the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Oops Diaries: Hugs and Tears in Iowa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[6,626,295],"class_list":["post-1380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-reader","tag-ifttt","tag-jay-root","tag-the-texas-tribune-main-feed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-mg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}