Dirty Laundry: An Alternate 1980s
- Thread starter Andrew T
- Start date
I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Honestly, the Beatles and their estates each made and continue to make ungodly amounts of money. At least if you weren't Pete Best. It wouldn't break my heart if Michael Jackson still buys the publishing rights.
***
BTW, Andrew T, I recommend looking into Harvey Pekar. He is a very interesting figure. Also I recommend looking into Robert Crumb. They're people that come to mind for the 80s and are interesting as characters and could be of some use.
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This may be an impossible fantasy, but my money is on Kaufman beating the odds and managing to avoid contracting cancer ITTL.
It's up to Andrew T. Generally, the going assumption for anything this close to the POD would be that if it's not specifically mentioned, it's the same as it actually happened.
Obviously, we know what happens to GN'R and Motley Crue... what happens to Skid Row (and more specifically, Baz) in this timeline?
Does Menudo still have their hit "Hold Me" ITTL? The music video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHRjWauwpvE.
BTW, Ricky Martin is wearing the pink shirt, which is...interesting, given that he came out as gay a few years ago.
BTW, Ricky Martin is wearing the pink shirt, which is...interesting, given that he came out as gay a few years ago.
And speaking of music: since Prince's career is derailed because of Purple Rain's failure, are Morris Day & The Time screwed, too?
On a lighter note, Andrew's going to have a boatload of questions to answer when he finally gets back.
On a lighter note, Andrew's going to have a boatload of questions to answer when he finally gets back.
Heavy
Banned
One might argue that Skid Row's fortunes are tied up with those of Bon Jovi; Jon Bon Jovi and Don McGhee actually helped them to buy their name from Gary Moore. Andrew's hinted at a Bon Jovi update in the future, so we'll just have to wait and see.
I'm curious about Emilio Estevez. He was big and then just went away overnight. Not to say you have to make him have a glorious utopian life here: I don't wanna say that. But I'm curious what happens to Dirty Laundry Emilio.
I'm also curious about Tom Hanks. Bosom Buddies launched him to stardom, and he had a weird career transition of going from comedies and being a funny actor to drama and straight drama, and he's one of those award winning drama guys. Peter Scolari, on the other hand, didn't go nowhere except "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" the TV series.
And, finally, I've been meaning to ask about the Filmation animated Ghostbusters series.
I'm also curious about Tom Hanks. Bosom Buddies launched him to stardom, and he had a weird career transition of going from comedies and being a funny actor to drama and straight drama, and he's one of those award winning drama guys. Peter Scolari, on the other hand, didn't go nowhere except "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" the TV series.
And, finally, I've been meaning to ask about the Filmation animated Ghostbusters series.
Indeed.On a lighter note, Andrew's going to have a boatload of questions to answer when he finally gets back.
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I'm curious about John Cusack and Rodney Dangerfield. And the Brat Pack?
Man, Andrew's got some questions when he gets back x)
Man, Andrew's got some questions when he gets back x)
"Johnny Can't Read". I win.[4] Yes, despite (or is it because of?) the fact that TTL’s “We Built This City” is a significantly better song throughout, it enjoys less commercial success and more critical appreciation. You’ll have to find something else to crown as “The Worst Song of the 1980s” in the Dirty Laundryverse.
The music video really is douche chill theatre.
" 'Oh nooooooo!'. See, he kicked over the cradle! It's society keeping our generation down. He's sticking it to the man, bro!"
"See, he nodded at the president's fault. That means it is the presidents fault. Get the net, Reagan. Chyeaaaaah!"
Yuck.
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First of all, very interesting timeline. After a rather extensive Wiki Walk through TV Tropes that led me onto the subject of alternate history, I ended up reading this timeline almost by accident. The work that's gone into this is impressive. While I was born in 1988 and am therefore not too familiar about the musical or American-specific politics of this timeline, and I am an Irishman and therefore not too familiar with American sports, I can't really say that much about these subjects. However, I do regard myself as somewhat of an amateur computer historian, to the extent where I've used at least one operating system from every decade since the 1960s, and emulated or simulated computer systems dating as far back as the EDSAC, I do find this alternate history of personal computer systems to be very intriguing.
As such, I have a few questions relating to some effects of the changes on TTL compared to OTL. Firstly, without the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 occurring in TTL, would the physical form of the Atari-distributed Nintendo Entertainment System really be similar to that of OTL? As far as I've heard, the front-loading nature of the OTL NES in the North American and PAL/SECAM markets was an obfuscatory design feature intended to make the NES look less like a traditional games console, and therefore had some flaws that weren't present in previous or future consoles. Top-loading of cartridges seems to have been a near-universal design constant in games consoles, so therefore, would it be a fair consideration that the TTL Atari Nintendo might more closely resemble the Famicom than the OTL NA/European NES (well, apart from the colour, because the NES just looks cooler than the Famicom)?
You've established that the Amiga doesn't get made in this timeline, with much of its powerful chipset being used in the Atari PC-2 instead. I'm interested in the details of the Atari OS that the PC-2 is meant to use. As somebody who is too young to remember what the Amiga's multimedia capabilities were like versus contemporary IBM-compatible PCs - although I've gathered that they were well beyond much of the competition - the most impressive part of the OTL Amiga to me is the preemptive multitasking AmigaOS. Note that Mac OS was single-tasking until System 5, and then only adopted cooperative multitasking; IBM's PC-DOS and MS-DOS had limited multitasking, if any, and then only through TSRs; Atari TOS didn't support true multitasking until MiNT and the later RISC OS used (and still uses) cooperative multitasking.
While the preemptive multitasking of AmigaOS doesn't seem to have been fully exploited in OTL, unless preemptive multitasking was present in the Atari PC-2's OS, you'd be left with a situation where the only way to get preemptive multitasking on a microcomputer is to pay through the nose for a Unix workstation, or wait until somebody decided to port a version of Unix (which would necessarily come only as a command-line based version) to your microcomputer of choice, as seen with Microsoft's Xenix and other OTL Unix ports to the likes of the Amiga and Macintosh environments. This leaves three likely scenarios for the progression of operating systems, as far as I can see, although I won't discuss them unless you're interested.
Next, what would the effects of this timeline be on the European microcomputers, especially those developed in Britain (e.g. by Sinclair Research, Amstrad, Acorn Computers). In OTL, there was a strong market for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum that wasn't reciprocated in America with the Timex Sinclair range. How does the ZX Spectrum do in TTL? As it was already sold at a low price in OTL, undercutting even Commodore's price cuts, I wouldn't expect there to be much difference there, but how would the greater strength of Atari affect the British market?
Probably a more vulnerable computer to the Atari 800XLP in the British market is the BBC Micro. You stated that the 6502 platform would be a "long-term loser" for any company other than Commodore; does this refer to the OTL phenomenon where only Commodore achieved staggering success with the 6502, or does it refer to TTL, where Apple is given a hiding by the stronger performance of the Atari 8-bit family? If it refers to the latter, I'd hardly consider the OTL performance of the BBC Micro to be indicative of a "long-term loser"; it might have only sold 1.5 million units, compared to the 5 million ZX Spectrums (not including clone systems) and 17 million Commodore 64s sold in OTL, but it was an expensive, sophisticated computer that did better than Acorn ever expected, and had the backing of the BBC behind it.
However, I'm not discounting that the presence of the Atari 800XLP might destabilise the position of the BBC Micro. While the BBC Micro would still have the same sort of exposure through the BBC and through education, while Atari might suffer from a slight lack of exposure - Europe notably did not suffer from the Great Video Game Crash of 1983, as the home computer had already taken root, meaning that there was less potential for the Commodore 64 to destabilise the console market; I'm pretty sure that video game consoles didn't have much exposure in Britain until the OTL fourth generation with the SNES and the Mega Drive - Atari would be competitive on price against the BBC Micro, which couldn't really compete on price due to its internal sophistication and its myriad of external ports.
There are reasons why I'm particularly interested in the fate of the BBC Micro. As the Sinclair QL was a flop in OTL, and I'd expect it to be even more so in TTL, and because Amstrad were interested mainly in the business market, this left and probably would leave Acorn as the single torch-bearer for the British computer industry in the mid-to-late 1980s generation of top-of-the-line personal computers. Acorn's follow-up to the BBC Micro was the Acorn Archimedes, a computer most notable for the processor it used, an early example of the ARM architecture.
In OTL, the ARM architecture is everywhere. Within my arm's reach, there are at least four devices which have an ARM processor as their primary processor, and that's not even counting the possible dozen or so other devices that might have an ARM processor in them somewhere. However, with problems for Apple in TTL, there will likely be no Apple Newton, the first device which really showcased where the ARM architecture's strength was, as a low-power, low-heat processor for embedded devices. Without that, the Acorn Archimedes would have to do significantly better in TTL than it did in OTL (while there were derivatives of the Acorn Archimedes design on sale right up until 2006, it remained very much a cult computer even during its release period), and I don't reasonably think that there's much of a market there with Atari and IBM set to go all out in a heavyweight competition for the computer market.
There are potential replacements for the ARM architecture as a 32-bit embedded processor; MIPS is the most likely competitor, as it's had a fair amount of OTL embedded success. Of course, this has knock-on effects in its own right, one being that the British computer industry would probably end up even weaker than it became in OTL, another being that there might well be more missteps in trying to choose a suitable processor for mobile devices than in OTL - note that it took until the early 2000s for the ARM architecture to corner the OTL mobile market; there could still be challenges from different companies today, with all of the requisite compatibility problems, so a much more disparate smartphone market would result.
On a more obscure note, with more success for Honeywell in the computer industry in the mid-1980s onwards in TTL, what happens to Groupe Bull? It's a little-known fact that somehow becomes more significant in TTL that Honeywell and Groupe Bull in France had a very strong connection, which, when France was trying to make an indigenous computer hardware market in the 1960s or so, didn't endear Groupe Bull to the French government. In OTL, Bull bought up Honeywell's computer department in 1989; I'm guessing that with a stronger Honeywell in TTL, there's a different course of events regarding this situation. Would Honeywell buy up Groupe Bull? Would it sell part of its computer developments (e.g. mainframes or minicomputers) to Groupe Bull and focus on the microcomputer market? Or would Honeywell continue to work with Groupe Bull as partners?
But I digress now. There are clearly a lot of potential consequences lying in store for the computer market. So far, it's been a very interesting, imaginative and well-researched set of events. Keep up the good work!
As such, I have a few questions relating to some effects of the changes on TTL compared to OTL. Firstly, without the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 occurring in TTL, would the physical form of the Atari-distributed Nintendo Entertainment System really be similar to that of OTL? As far as I've heard, the front-loading nature of the OTL NES in the North American and PAL/SECAM markets was an obfuscatory design feature intended to make the NES look less like a traditional games console, and therefore had some flaws that weren't present in previous or future consoles. Top-loading of cartridges seems to have been a near-universal design constant in games consoles, so therefore, would it be a fair consideration that the TTL Atari Nintendo might more closely resemble the Famicom than the OTL NA/European NES (well, apart from the colour, because the NES just looks cooler than the Famicom)?
You've established that the Amiga doesn't get made in this timeline, with much of its powerful chipset being used in the Atari PC-2 instead. I'm interested in the details of the Atari OS that the PC-2 is meant to use. As somebody who is too young to remember what the Amiga's multimedia capabilities were like versus contemporary IBM-compatible PCs - although I've gathered that they were well beyond much of the competition - the most impressive part of the OTL Amiga to me is the preemptive multitasking AmigaOS. Note that Mac OS was single-tasking until System 5, and then only adopted cooperative multitasking; IBM's PC-DOS and MS-DOS had limited multitasking, if any, and then only through TSRs; Atari TOS didn't support true multitasking until MiNT and the later RISC OS used (and still uses) cooperative multitasking.
While the preemptive multitasking of AmigaOS doesn't seem to have been fully exploited in OTL, unless preemptive multitasking was present in the Atari PC-2's OS, you'd be left with a situation where the only way to get preemptive multitasking on a microcomputer is to pay through the nose for a Unix workstation, or wait until somebody decided to port a version of Unix (which would necessarily come only as a command-line based version) to your microcomputer of choice, as seen with Microsoft's Xenix and other OTL Unix ports to the likes of the Amiga and Macintosh environments. This leaves three likely scenarios for the progression of operating systems, as far as I can see, although I won't discuss them unless you're interested.
Next, what would the effects of this timeline be on the European microcomputers, especially those developed in Britain (e.g. by Sinclair Research, Amstrad, Acorn Computers). In OTL, there was a strong market for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum that wasn't reciprocated in America with the Timex Sinclair range. How does the ZX Spectrum do in TTL? As it was already sold at a low price in OTL, undercutting even Commodore's price cuts, I wouldn't expect there to be much difference there, but how would the greater strength of Atari affect the British market?
Probably a more vulnerable computer to the Atari 800XLP in the British market is the BBC Micro. You stated that the 6502 platform would be a "long-term loser" for any company other than Commodore; does this refer to the OTL phenomenon where only Commodore achieved staggering success with the 6502, or does it refer to TTL, where Apple is given a hiding by the stronger performance of the Atari 8-bit family? If it refers to the latter, I'd hardly consider the OTL performance of the BBC Micro to be indicative of a "long-term loser"; it might have only sold 1.5 million units, compared to the 5 million ZX Spectrums (not including clone systems) and 17 million Commodore 64s sold in OTL, but it was an expensive, sophisticated computer that did better than Acorn ever expected, and had the backing of the BBC behind it.
However, I'm not discounting that the presence of the Atari 800XLP might destabilise the position of the BBC Micro. While the BBC Micro would still have the same sort of exposure through the BBC and through education, while Atari might suffer from a slight lack of exposure - Europe notably did not suffer from the Great Video Game Crash of 1983, as the home computer had already taken root, meaning that there was less potential for the Commodore 64 to destabilise the console market; I'm pretty sure that video game consoles didn't have much exposure in Britain until the OTL fourth generation with the SNES and the Mega Drive - Atari would be competitive on price against the BBC Micro, which couldn't really compete on price due to its internal sophistication and its myriad of external ports.
There are reasons why I'm particularly interested in the fate of the BBC Micro. As the Sinclair QL was a flop in OTL, and I'd expect it to be even more so in TTL, and because Amstrad were interested mainly in the business market, this left and probably would leave Acorn as the single torch-bearer for the British computer industry in the mid-to-late 1980s generation of top-of-the-line personal computers. Acorn's follow-up to the BBC Micro was the Acorn Archimedes, a computer most notable for the processor it used, an early example of the ARM architecture.
In OTL, the ARM architecture is everywhere. Within my arm's reach, there are at least four devices which have an ARM processor as their primary processor, and that's not even counting the possible dozen or so other devices that might have an ARM processor in them somewhere. However, with problems for Apple in TTL, there will likely be no Apple Newton, the first device which really showcased where the ARM architecture's strength was, as a low-power, low-heat processor for embedded devices. Without that, the Acorn Archimedes would have to do significantly better in TTL than it did in OTL (while there were derivatives of the Acorn Archimedes design on sale right up until 2006, it remained very much a cult computer even during its release period), and I don't reasonably think that there's much of a market there with Atari and IBM set to go all out in a heavyweight competition for the computer market.
There are potential replacements for the ARM architecture as a 32-bit embedded processor; MIPS is the most likely competitor, as it's had a fair amount of OTL embedded success. Of course, this has knock-on effects in its own right, one being that the British computer industry would probably end up even weaker than it became in OTL, another being that there might well be more missteps in trying to choose a suitable processor for mobile devices than in OTL - note that it took until the early 2000s for the ARM architecture to corner the OTL mobile market; there could still be challenges from different companies today, with all of the requisite compatibility problems, so a much more disparate smartphone market would result.
On a more obscure note, with more success for Honeywell in the computer industry in the mid-1980s onwards in TTL, what happens to Groupe Bull? It's a little-known fact that somehow becomes more significant in TTL that Honeywell and Groupe Bull in France had a very strong connection, which, when France was trying to make an indigenous computer hardware market in the 1960s or so, didn't endear Groupe Bull to the French government. In OTL, Bull bought up Honeywell's computer department in 1989; I'm guessing that with a stronger Honeywell in TTL, there's a different course of events regarding this situation. Would Honeywell buy up Groupe Bull? Would it sell part of its computer developments (e.g. mainframes or minicomputers) to Groupe Bull and focus on the microcomputer market? Or would Honeywell continue to work with Groupe Bull as partners?
But I digress now. There are clearly a lot of potential consequences lying in store for the computer market. So far, it's been a very interesting, imaginative and well-researched set of events. Keep up the good work!
That was something who i've ignored but the main reason of the front loader was other...the use of the special game-pak as antipiracy and anti unlicensed games control, those measure will stll being made? and who will control it? Nintendo sucess was this control in both first and third party software and the cheap hardware.
plus using the old famicom system allow third parties to use their own Memory Manage Controller, that allow more dinamic and bigger gamea(Castlevania III was made using a Konami VRC6 in japan but loss thing in the conversion to nintendo own mmc3)
Well, I think he's okay, he's just hard at work on... something; he responded to a message I sent him today...
Hadn't considered that, to be fair, although unlicensed NES games would eventually be produced - Wisdom Tree's Bible Adventures comes to mind.
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July 5, 1985
Don Henley was relaxing with Maren in his living room, taking a rare evening off from the campaign trail to enjoy the holiday. Yesterday he’d been at the Marion County Fair, where he’d evaded a sea of Hargett supporters. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Henley greeted his unexpected visitor, who identified himself as “Les Francis, with the dee-triple-cee.” That was how he said it. Dee-triple-cee. At Henley’s puzzled expression, Francis clarified, “The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. D, C, C, C. It’s my job to coordinate races like yours at the national level, get more Democrats elected.” Francis looked stern. “You might know that we lost sixteen seats last year. I can’t afford a seventeenth.” [1]
Henley nodded. Additional help from Washington was just what he needed. “I understand, Mr. Francis. Are you here to help with the get-out-the-vote drive, or—”
Francis’s face hardened. “I’m not here to lick envelopes, Don. I’m here so that I can meet the asshole who’s managed to blow a thirty-five-point lead in five weeks.”
Henley was stunned into silence. Francis produced a sheaf of papers torn at both ends and shiny, almost slick to the touch – the telltale sign they’d been sent via facsimile. “I asked Joe Belden to run your numbers,” he said, referring to the venerable North Texas pollster, “and here they are. You announce on May 21,” He pointed to the high point on the graph, “at sixty-five percent. Hargett is this red line here, starting at thirty-one.” [2]
Les then slid his finger to right, tracing over the steeply declining black line. “It’s all downhill from there. As of July 1, you’re at forty-six percent, and Hargett’s here at fifty-two. That means you’ve lost forty points in forty days. And the cross-tabs are even worse. You’re probably down another two or three points just in the time it’s taken me to fly out here.”
Henley pored over the Belden data, shuffling between graphical and numerical illustrations of his plummeting campaign. He cleared his throat, swallowed his tongue. It was over. There was nothing more Don Henley could say; he’d taken his second prospective career and screwed it up as badly as his first.
Despite Henley’s sad epiphany, Les Francis wasn’t done with his harangue. If anything, he was just getting started. “So congratulations. You’re on the cusp of doing something that hasn’t been done in a hundred and fifteen years. We could have run a fucking chimpanzee in this district, and so long as he had a ‘D’ after his name, and he’d be at fifty-five percent. But you,” he growled, “you’re in the forties. So either you’re dumber than a chimp, or you’re a Republican operative trying to destroy the Democratic Party from the inside.” Francis was now red-faced with anger. “Which is it, Henley? Are you evil, or just stupid?”
Henley continued to sit mute. After twenty seconds or so, he answered Francis in low, clipped tones. “Mr. Francis, I’ve let you come into my house and insult me. I’ve watched, and I’ve listened while you’ve shattered my hopes and dreams. So maybe I am stupid,” Henley said, his voice almost trailing off to a whisper, “but I still believe I can make a difference in this world. I’ve met the people of this district, and I know many of them agree with me. And I’m going keep going out there until August the third and see if I can’t prove you and your polling data wrong.”
Francis said nothing for a minute, and then brightened. “That, my boy, is the first sensible thing you’ve said since we’ve met. Look, I didn’t come down all the way down here to… where the hell are we?”
“Gilmer,” Henley replied. “Texas,” he added.
Francis ignored the wisecrack. “To Gilmer just to insult you. I came down here to show you that what you’ve been doing isn’t working, and that if you ever want to be a Congressman, you’re going to have to let me help you.”
“Okay?”
Francis pulled out another thick folder of paper. “The way I figure it, you’ve got to make up about eight points, and we’ve got just over three weeks in which to do it. That’s not impossible, but it is very, very difficult. It can be done, if you’ll do exactly what I say.”
Don was stunned. Perhaps there was a light at the end of the tunnel, after all. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“Get a pencil and some paper. Write this down. First, you’re going to have to fire your campaign manager. I’ve got a whiz kid, Orlovsky, he gets here tomorrow. He’s not only your new campaign manager, but if you win,” Francis interrupted himself. “I mean, when you win, you also agree to hire him as your congressional Chief of Staff.”
“Fire Kootch? I—I can’t do that.”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours.” Francis looked down at his watch, theatrically. “Actually, it’s more like seventeen. Item number two. We need to raise money, and you don’t have much of a donor base. Do you have a vacation home, something like that?”
Henley was still distraught over the instruction to fire his closest friend. “A vacation home? Um, well, I’ve got the house in Aspen.”
“Okay, you’ll have to sell it.” Francis interrupted his spiel for a second to address Don’s stunned expression. “Don’t give me that look. You’ll loan the money to your campaign, and once you win, you can pay yourself back. Orlovsky can explain it to you. But I can’t get you any dee-triple-cee money unless it’s on a one-for-two basis, that’s one dollar we raise for every two you raise. And it’s too late for you to get it any other way. Item number three. Endorsements. What politicians do you know?”
Henley began to tick off a list of local politicians he’d met through the Caddo Lake Project and the Doggett campaign, and Les Francis took diligent notes. In the middle of his train of thought, Henley joked, “Oh, and there’s Gary Hart, of course.”
For the first time in the trip, Les Francis was struck dumb. “You know Gary Hart?” he asked, incredulously. Francis had been one of Walter Mondale’s chief strategists in 1984, and he had spent many sleepless nights worrying about Hart. In the end, Mondale had managed to squeak past the insurgent upstart, but not before the Colorado Senator had taken the Democratic Presidential nomination fight all the way to the convention in San Francisco. With the possible exception of Mario Cuomo, Gary Hart was the closest thing the Democratic Party had to a rock star. Francis smiled inwardly. Of course, he was in the living room of an actual rock star. Well, a former rock star, anyway.
“Sure,” Don answered cheerfully. “He’s been to the vacation house in Aspen you just instructed me to sell.” [3]
“Does he owe you a favor?”
Henley paused for a second. At his last New Year’s party, he’d let the Senator play his drum kit and even complimented Hart on his play. Don somehow doubted that would count for much in Francis’s world. “No.”
“Well, then you’re going to owe him.” Francis began murmuring to himself while furiously taking notes. “The sonofabitch knows Gary Hart.” Turning his attention back to Henley. “Okay, item number four. What religion are you?”
“Well, Mr. Francis, I’m really more of a spiritual person—”
“Okay, we’re going to put ‘Congregationalist.’”
“What’s a Congregationalist?” Don asked.
“Hell if I know. I think it’s some sort of Protestant sect that’s popular up in Yankee country. But in political campaign-speak, it means you’re an ‘agnostic,’ and it should shut up any unwelcome press stories.” Francis added, “Thank God you’re not an atheist. We’d have to call you a ‘Unitarian Universalist,’ and I’m not sure that would satisfy the crazies down here. Okay, item number five. When are you going to marry that girlfriend of yours?”
In a day filled with stunning announcements, Francis had managed to out-do himself yet again. Marry Maren?
Francis didn’t wait for an answer. “Okay, we’ll say that you’re engaged. Take care of that, by the way. Voters don’t want their Congressman out playing the field. Item number six….”
Henley and Francis worked late into the night revamping the campaign, while Henley’s thoughts were dominated by the two major bombshells Francis had dropped: he had to fire Kootch, and he had to marry Maren? Henley was willing to do everything else Les Francis wanted – sell the house in Aspen, buy radio and TV ads, campaign with Gary Hart, go into literal and figurative debt – but he wasn’t willing to sell his friend down the river to do it. And he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to get married to anybody.
Finally, at two in the morning – with Francis sacked out on the guest sofa – Henley had his epiphany. He’d make the Call, and he’d make everything right with Kootch. And then, well, he’d go crawl into bed next to Maren. That would probably work itself out, too. [4]
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I apologize for the delay; obviously, this has been a big update in terms of driving the story forwards, and I've been busy with work. But I will be on to answer your very good questions very soon!
[1] As OTL. I met Francis in the early '90s, and he's very much as presented here. I liked him immensely.
[2] Belden is indeed a venerable Texas pollster.
[3] Also very much as per OTL.
[4] Don Henley once vowed that hell would freeze over before he would make The Call, if that's any hint.
Don Henley was relaxing with Maren in his living room, taking a rare evening off from the campaign trail to enjoy the holiday. Yesterday he’d been at the Marion County Fair, where he’d evaded a sea of Hargett supporters. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Henley greeted his unexpected visitor, who identified himself as “Les Francis, with the dee-triple-cee.” That was how he said it. Dee-triple-cee. At Henley’s puzzled expression, Francis clarified, “The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. D, C, C, C. It’s my job to coordinate races like yours at the national level, get more Democrats elected.” Francis looked stern. “You might know that we lost sixteen seats last year. I can’t afford a seventeenth.” [1]
Henley nodded. Additional help from Washington was just what he needed. “I understand, Mr. Francis. Are you here to help with the get-out-the-vote drive, or—”
Francis’s face hardened. “I’m not here to lick envelopes, Don. I’m here so that I can meet the asshole who’s managed to blow a thirty-five-point lead in five weeks.”
Henley was stunned into silence. Francis produced a sheaf of papers torn at both ends and shiny, almost slick to the touch – the telltale sign they’d been sent via facsimile. “I asked Joe Belden to run your numbers,” he said, referring to the venerable North Texas pollster, “and here they are. You announce on May 21,” He pointed to the high point on the graph, “at sixty-five percent. Hargett is this red line here, starting at thirty-one.” [2]
Les then slid his finger to right, tracing over the steeply declining black line. “It’s all downhill from there. As of July 1, you’re at forty-six percent, and Hargett’s here at fifty-two. That means you’ve lost forty points in forty days. And the cross-tabs are even worse. You’re probably down another two or three points just in the time it’s taken me to fly out here.”
Henley pored over the Belden data, shuffling between graphical and numerical illustrations of his plummeting campaign. He cleared his throat, swallowed his tongue. It was over. There was nothing more Don Henley could say; he’d taken his second prospective career and screwed it up as badly as his first.
Despite Henley’s sad epiphany, Les Francis wasn’t done with his harangue. If anything, he was just getting started. “So congratulations. You’re on the cusp of doing something that hasn’t been done in a hundred and fifteen years. We could have run a fucking chimpanzee in this district, and so long as he had a ‘D’ after his name, and he’d be at fifty-five percent. But you,” he growled, “you’re in the forties. So either you’re dumber than a chimp, or you’re a Republican operative trying to destroy the Democratic Party from the inside.” Francis was now red-faced with anger. “Which is it, Henley? Are you evil, or just stupid?”
Henley continued to sit mute. After twenty seconds or so, he answered Francis in low, clipped tones. “Mr. Francis, I’ve let you come into my house and insult me. I’ve watched, and I’ve listened while you’ve shattered my hopes and dreams. So maybe I am stupid,” Henley said, his voice almost trailing off to a whisper, “but I still believe I can make a difference in this world. I’ve met the people of this district, and I know many of them agree with me. And I’m going keep going out there until August the third and see if I can’t prove you and your polling data wrong.”
Francis said nothing for a minute, and then brightened. “That, my boy, is the first sensible thing you’ve said since we’ve met. Look, I didn’t come down all the way down here to… where the hell are we?”
“Gilmer,” Henley replied. “Texas,” he added.
Francis ignored the wisecrack. “To Gilmer just to insult you. I came down here to show you that what you’ve been doing isn’t working, and that if you ever want to be a Congressman, you’re going to have to let me help you.”
“Okay?”
Francis pulled out another thick folder of paper. “The way I figure it, you’ve got to make up about eight points, and we’ve got just over three weeks in which to do it. That’s not impossible, but it is very, very difficult. It can be done, if you’ll do exactly what I say.”
Don was stunned. Perhaps there was a light at the end of the tunnel, after all. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“Get a pencil and some paper. Write this down. First, you’re going to have to fire your campaign manager. I’ve got a whiz kid, Orlovsky, he gets here tomorrow. He’s not only your new campaign manager, but if you win,” Francis interrupted himself. “I mean, when you win, you also agree to hire him as your congressional Chief of Staff.”
“Fire Kootch? I—I can’t do that.”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours.” Francis looked down at his watch, theatrically. “Actually, it’s more like seventeen. Item number two. We need to raise money, and you don’t have much of a donor base. Do you have a vacation home, something like that?”
Henley was still distraught over the instruction to fire his closest friend. “A vacation home? Um, well, I’ve got the house in Aspen.”
“Okay, you’ll have to sell it.” Francis interrupted his spiel for a second to address Don’s stunned expression. “Don’t give me that look. You’ll loan the money to your campaign, and once you win, you can pay yourself back. Orlovsky can explain it to you. But I can’t get you any dee-triple-cee money unless it’s on a one-for-two basis, that’s one dollar we raise for every two you raise. And it’s too late for you to get it any other way. Item number three. Endorsements. What politicians do you know?”
Henley began to tick off a list of local politicians he’d met through the Caddo Lake Project and the Doggett campaign, and Les Francis took diligent notes. In the middle of his train of thought, Henley joked, “Oh, and there’s Gary Hart, of course.”
For the first time in the trip, Les Francis was struck dumb. “You know Gary Hart?” he asked, incredulously. Francis had been one of Walter Mondale’s chief strategists in 1984, and he had spent many sleepless nights worrying about Hart. In the end, Mondale had managed to squeak past the insurgent upstart, but not before the Colorado Senator had taken the Democratic Presidential nomination fight all the way to the convention in San Francisco. With the possible exception of Mario Cuomo, Gary Hart was the closest thing the Democratic Party had to a rock star. Francis smiled inwardly. Of course, he was in the living room of an actual rock star. Well, a former rock star, anyway.
“Sure,” Don answered cheerfully. “He’s been to the vacation house in Aspen you just instructed me to sell.” [3]
“Does he owe you a favor?”
Henley paused for a second. At his last New Year’s party, he’d let the Senator play his drum kit and even complimented Hart on his play. Don somehow doubted that would count for much in Francis’s world. “No.”
“Well, then you’re going to owe him.” Francis began murmuring to himself while furiously taking notes. “The sonofabitch knows Gary Hart.” Turning his attention back to Henley. “Okay, item number four. What religion are you?”
“Well, Mr. Francis, I’m really more of a spiritual person—”
“Okay, we’re going to put ‘Congregationalist.’”
“What’s a Congregationalist?” Don asked.
“Hell if I know. I think it’s some sort of Protestant sect that’s popular up in Yankee country. But in political campaign-speak, it means you’re an ‘agnostic,’ and it should shut up any unwelcome press stories.” Francis added, “Thank God you’re not an atheist. We’d have to call you a ‘Unitarian Universalist,’ and I’m not sure that would satisfy the crazies down here. Okay, item number five. When are you going to marry that girlfriend of yours?”
In a day filled with stunning announcements, Francis had managed to out-do himself yet again. Marry Maren?
Francis didn’t wait for an answer. “Okay, we’ll say that you’re engaged. Take care of that, by the way. Voters don’t want their Congressman out playing the field. Item number six….”
Henley and Francis worked late into the night revamping the campaign, while Henley’s thoughts were dominated by the two major bombshells Francis had dropped: he had to fire Kootch, and he had to marry Maren? Henley was willing to do everything else Les Francis wanted – sell the house in Aspen, buy radio and TV ads, campaign with Gary Hart, go into literal and figurative debt – but he wasn’t willing to sell his friend down the river to do it. And he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to get married to anybody.
Finally, at two in the morning – with Francis sacked out on the guest sofa – Henley had his epiphany. He’d make the Call, and he’d make everything right with Kootch. And then, well, he’d go crawl into bed next to Maren. That would probably work itself out, too. [4]
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I apologize for the delay; obviously, this has been a big update in terms of driving the story forwards, and I've been busy with work. But I will be on to answer your very good questions very soon!
[1] As OTL. I met Francis in the early '90s, and he's very much as presented here. I liked him immensely.
[2] Belden is indeed a venerable Texas pollster.
[3] Also very much as per OTL.
[4] Don Henley once vowed that hell would freeze over before he would make The Call, if that's any hint.