Bill Clinton: The Long Road

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Jackson this time would not be allowed to turn one night of the convention into a rally overshadowing in enthusiasm any demonstration for the candidate. Blacks did put on a "Don't Mess with Jesse" rally, but it was held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, safely out of view of national TV. Jackson was further informed that he could not, as in earlier conventions, withhold his endorsement to bargain over a campaign role. Politely and without making any threats, party chairman Ron Brown, who had been Jackson's 1988 convention chief, and Clinton aide (and Jackson friend) Harold Ickes told Jackson that he would have to obey the same rule as all other would-be convention orators: endorse Clinton formally and in advance. No endorsement, no speech. Grudgingly, Jackson complied and has hardly been heard from since.

Mandy Grunwald, Clinton's advertising consultant, had long been pushing unconventional media appearances for the candidate, with Clinton's ready approval. In June, Grunwald scored her greatest success by convincing skeptics in the campaign that the candidate should appear on the Arsenio Hall Show -- not only to talk but to play the saxophone. Hillary Clinton, who had been impressed with Hall ever since she saw him handle an audience of inner-city kids in the aftermath of the L.A. riots, strongly backed the idea; her husband went along and began rehearsing in secret. He slipped away from the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, his headquarters during the campaign for the California primary, to the beachfront Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, where he tootled away on a balcony. A controversy broke out in his entourage over whether he should or should not wear wraparound dark glasses on the show. The final decision was not made until Clinton was actually striding onto the stage. Paul Begala handed Clinton his own glasses then and the candidate put them on. The act got Clinton badly needed front-page coverage around the country and allowed him to show the friendly, relaxed and engaging side of his personality, which had not been much in evidence since the early primaries.

Whatever the exact combination of causes, Clinton was again on a roll as the July convention approached. Having squelched any possible controversy well in advance (with the minor exception of some showboating by Jerry Brown and his delegates), the candidate turned the meeting, in New York City's Madison Square Garden, into a display of a reformed party that had healed its incessant factional splits. It was an even better display of the Clinton camp's to-the-last-detail planning and iron control. Some examples: "loser's night" was scrapped. At previous conventions this had been one more moment of glory on prime-time TV for past Presidents, failed nominees and those defeated in the primary campaigns, but Clinton and his team considered it an unwanted reminder of factionalism and failure. This year all such speakers, and any others who might have been embarrassing, were put on outside prime time or when much of the nation was watching baseball's All-Star Game rather than the convention. Delegates, as they arrived on the floor Monday, were given cue cards listing "talking points" to be made in radio, TV or newspaper interviews, so that all Democrats would be putting out the same message.