If you look closely, you can find at least three Republicans in this picture.
Los Angeles, CA -- September 27
By now, unless you've spent the last few days on the Moon, you've seen/heard/read about the Kitty Walker wedding dress campaign gaffe. So today's post has a dual purpose: to claim credit, and to give you a little behind-the-scenes.
The background was this. Since I started following Senator McCallister around, trying to dig up dirt on him, I'd often wondered if Karen, my boss over at the Adamson campaign, had her head up her proverbial keister. When I got my latest assignment -- follow Kitty Walker back to LA and keep tabs on her while she's there -- I let my wondering cease.
Truth be told, Karen is a bottom-feeding hack.
Please don't misunderstand. I get that politics is dirty, that if I don't like the sandbox I can go climb a tree somewhere, blah blah blah. But... still. You want me to stalk McCallister's fiancée while she visits with her family? Really?
Do voters respond to this sub-tabloid mud-bathing? I guess the smart money would take one look at me and my job and say, yes they do.
So these were the thoughts running through my head as I touched down at LAX. I was, I admit, perhaps a little insulted that I wasn't even coming here to follow the Senator. (That vote of confidence went to my colleague Margaret, AKA The Lesbian Who Wasted An Afternoon Outside A Strip Club Because McCallister's Limo Was Parked There...Only To Find Out It Was His Driver.)
But for my smarting vanity, I had a salve named Kitty Walker. Kitty's no lightweight and she's way more than Senator Too-Pretty-For-Words future wife. She works on his campaign as a highly placed message maven. Her old satellite radio show, the brilliant Right Idea, was the most significant reason I gave up on the Left. She's a household name because of her great work on Red White & Blue, where she proved a smart and sexy counterweight to that idiot, Warren Salter.
Did I say sexy? I meant "smoking hot."
Plus, with her family full of liberals, there's all the chance in the world I'll connect McCallister to some embarrassment or other that will mortify the Republican base.
Consoling myself with this internal monologue, I brightened. Things weren't so bad. I'd get to see LA, where I'd never been. Sure, it was a sprawling sea of weak-kneed liberalism, but hey -- fish tacos, right? I already knew to order two at a time in case I ran into George Clooney and needed to throw one at him. Maybe I could get a star map and drop in on Bruce Willis.
McCallister's RW&B appearance marked Kitty's first step toward the Dark Side.
As it turned out, a star map would have been handy. Any map
would have been handy, actually, as I got lost no less than fourteen
times in the three days I was in LA. (This could have been avoided if
Karen hadn't been too cheap to rent me a car with GPS.) After much
zigzaggery, I arrived at Kitty Walker's preferred B&B, which
happens to be the Walker family home in Pasadena.
I parked on the manicured, tree-lined street and settled in for a stakeout. I had an In 'N Out burger handy and an 834-disc audiobook edition of Don Quixote, read by Raul Julia, which I won in a poker game last month. I'm on disc 23.
The reason for Ms. Walker's homecoming was unclear. Was she just visiting... or was there something more? And who was the beautiful and mysterious girl living with Kitty's mother, making tea and talking to the computer? I wish I could stalk her. I mean, in a non-criminal way.
The day went on. I nearly snarfed my delicious burger from laughing at Quixote. I love Sancho Panza, and it occurred to me that Karen resembled the knight-errant DQ in a real and frightening way. I wished I could persuade her that all the ludicrous missions she sent me on were just windmills. (BTW, this is what I have to show for my Yale degree: an enhanced identification with epic Spanish farce.)
The Walker home is like a family filling station. Over the course of the morning, five different brothers and sisters stopped by, and they all left with full thermoses of coffee. Kitty used to talk about her dad all the time on The Right Idea, and I guess he put a premium on the face-to-face. Still, was Pasadena not wired for telecommunication?
By the time Kitty and her mom pulled the Prius out of its enormous driveway (so classic, btw -- the Walkers are my parents exactly), I was napping in a pool of saliva. I yawned and grudgingly shifted into Hot Pursuit. Here we go, I thought. A trip to the supermarket. Who knew politics could be such a wild adventure? At least I could buy a tangerine to ward off the scurvy that had me in its sights.
Instead of a market, though, I found myself at... a bridal shop.
I followed at a distance as Kitty and her mom entered the boutique. Nora was texting away on her Blackberry. Karen didn't give me much in the way of a dossier, so I don't have squat on Nora Walker. I think she might be a motion picture agent.
Kitty went into the changing room. Playing it cool, I strolled through the shop, perusing the wedding fashions on display, keeping an eye on the proceedings in case she popped out and I got the first shot of her in her future bridal gown. (Mental note: make a contact at the Enquirer.)
A cute salesgirl approached and asked if I needed any help. I responded with a well-worn flirtation, causing her to pretend to remember something else she needed to do.
Bored to tears and cursing my lot, I began composing the speech I would make to Gov. Adamson upon my return, calling Karen out on her boneheaded dirt-digging tactics. "Is this how you think the money you've raised should be spent? Staking out bridal shops? Is it?" Then I'd insinuate an affair between Karen and Margaret...
Suddenly I heard raised voices. Perking up my ears, I listened as carefully as I could over the hum of the central air... yes. Recognition. The sweet, yet tough and pragmatic voice that used to pour from the speakers in my car during my daily commute. The right voice. The Right Idea.
Kitty Walker.
I hurried back over to the dressing room. Here it was -- my big break! Could Kitty really be exposing herself to scandal? With all her punditry experience could she possibly be so naïve to lash out at a low-level retail employee, and think no one would catch her?
It amazed me that a woman involved in a presidential campaign would even go out in public. What if she decided she wanted a donut? In minutes there would be photos all over the internet.
One day, if I'm lucky, I'll be one of these people.
This superior train of thought ended rudely with a cold realization: I had left my DV camera in the rental car.
!#$%#%$@#! Was
it really possible I'd blown my one chance to turn this lemon of an
assignment into lemonade for Adamson? The GOP gods had thrown me a
softball and I'd come up to the plate without a bat!
I patted myself down frantically. I was in a real bind now and knew it. Four years in New Haven and a degree from the Kennedy School might have made my parents proud, but they wouldn't be my salvation today. Desperate and defeated, I whipped out my cell to call Karen and tender my resignation. It was clear to me that this Sancho Panza wasn't cut out for La Mancha. Then I paused. The solution was staring right at me from the palm of my hand.
A battle-tested, gleaming, hard-bodied piece of 21st Century technology, fully equipped with 2 whopping megapixels of camera-phone prowess. My Treo.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Thank you, thank you -- you've been a lovely audience. I think when this campaign is over I'll go work at a think tank.
'Til next post,
Leonard
