blogger interrupted

Part 1 here.

I was paid to work for Tim Ryan’s 2002 congressional campaign through a back channel called Two Ticks and a Dog Productions, a little company one of Tim’s high school buddies in Warren had started for his own dreams of film school redemption. 

Jim Fogarty, the dog with the two ticks, was a partier with some video editing skills.  We spent a lot of time at his house in Warren getting baked and making Tim’s ads.  I liked Fogarty.  Something about a weed brother made it all good, and after what I’d just been through, it was like being on vacation.

By spring 2002, I was dead to the political world.  Dead.  But associates kept calling for gossip.  One of them was a consultant for Tom Sawyer, Tim’s chief Democratic primary opponent.   Jeff Rusnak of Burges & Burges wanted a window into his client’s upstart opponent, he knew we were friends, and he kept calling, assuming I was out of it.  Assuming that no one in their right mind would ever employ me, let alone a friend like Tim Ryan.

One day I took a call from Jeff.  “What’s the deal with your buddy Ryan?” the consultant for Tom Sawyer said.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said.  

“This loan…it’s completely out of line,” Jeff said.  Tim, penniless kid running for Congress, had just taken a loan from a friend to finance his campaign.  It kind of, sort of, walked all over the FEC regulations with bumbling incompetence.  Don’t ask.

“Really?  What loan?”

“Just go to the FEC website, it’s all there,” said Jeff.

“I’ve been a bit out of it lately,” I said.  ”Not exactly hanging out at the FEC website.”

“I know,” Sawyer consultant said in mock sympathy.  “The loan’s illegal.”

“Is it?”  I said.

“Yeah, and he’s gonna get hit on it.”  Getting “hit on it” meant that Jeff was about to shop this around to reporters to get someone to write a story about how Tim Ryan was a lawless thug or whatever.

“Well…,” I lied, “I don’t talk to those guys much, so I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Well, if you hear anything let me know,” Jeff finished.  I hung up the phone and called Tim.

I never figured out why Jeff called me to tell me about his big find.  Maybe it was to prove what a smart guy he was.  Maybe he thought I’d spill some beans, had some info that I’d share, or inadvertently let something slip.  Whatever the reason, I spent the next month preparing for the attack I knew was coming.  I just didn’t know when.  

While Jeff shopped his story around, taking weeks to get anyone to bite (largely because it was a lame, nit picky story), I had connected the dots between Sawyer’s consulting firm Burges & Burges, and hated former Traficant opponent Randy Walter, who had used Burges & Burges two years earlier.  Lots of money had changed hands, all documented.  My press pack was ready.  All I needed was for them to make a stupid mistake, and I had my angle. 

Since no newspaper would pick up the story, Sawyer had to force their hand by filing an FEC complaint, the last refuge of the truly desperate.  When they had Randy Walter himself file the FEC complaint as a “concerned citizen”, I had my hook.  

Two weeks out from election day, the attack came from the front page of the local papers, and I was ready with my press pack.  And every day from then on, it was front page news.  I would wake up every morning at 5 a.m. at Tim’s mom’s house, where we both stayed, go get the paper, see what the headline was, and spend the entire day on counterattack.  

Lather, rinse, repeat.  

I did all of this while hiding in the shadows, avoiding cameras at the office, having people do the phone calls and faxing and emailing for me.  The stress was intense, but I stayed on it like a dog on red meat.  I started to feel alive again.  Like I was doing something good with my shattered life.  TV news started to put our angle on the evening broadcast, complete with Tim live at 11pm, waving documents in the air calling Sawyer’s consultants “hatchet men”.

The narrative never became “Tim Ryan, election law violator”, but, “Traficant haters attack local boy Tim Ryan for bullshit reasons.”  Zing.  Even AM talk radio was on the bandwagon, bashing Burges & Burges almost daily.

Every grandmother in the district was now magically on our side.  Literally overnight.  Tim and I were at a bingo game the night after his document waving appearance, and an old lady took him aside to say quietly, “I think it’s horrible what they are doing to you.” 

The backlash grew.  Fast.  Holding signs on the street corners in the final weekend was like hearing on oncoming thunderstorm.  More car horns beeped at us by the hour.  By the Monday before the election, we had seen the electorate shift with our own eyes, and heard it with our own ears so loudly we couldn’t hear ourselves talk.  Sawyer had internal polling that showed him up by 14 points a week out.  We had no polling, but we knew that number was shrinking fast.

We won the primary in 2002 by 17 points.  Tim Ryan would be congressman.  And we won because I was there. 

Because I was there.

The media took some pride in pontificating that it was anti-NAFTA labor TV ads against Sawyer that swayed the electorate.  But I knew better, and so did the new congressman.  It was the secret of my involvement in the campaign that worked for Tim.

A secret I had written myself.  And one that now suddenly had to be kept.

Popularity: 12% [?]