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November 15, 2006
No, it’s not about some chimeric cow or genetically modified bovine. It’s about putting your money where your mouth is. Or perhaps more accurately, where your hope is. It’s about a bet.
As the Amendment 2 campaign was in its final throes, we watched as our poll numbers were sinking. While the public face was confident, privately many in the pro-cures camp told me they feared the worst; that the initiative would fail.
Saturday night, three days before the election, my wife and I were at the Claire McCaskill headquarters. I had volunteered to assist in sticking labels on those cards that get hung on doorknobs in the wee hours of an election day. The campaign staffers referred to them as ‘door knockers.’ Each ‘door knocker’ needed a label affixed indicating the location of the polling place for those at the house where it would be left. I started at 2:00 pm, joining others who had been there since 10:00 am. My wife joined me at 6:00 pm.
With the help of a small but committed army working in shifts, we completed the task of affixing our 360,000 labels to ‘door knockers’ - and all of them were organized by voting precinct. We completed the task about 1:00 am Sunday. We stayed late to get the job done partly because of our commitment to Claire’s victory, and partly because we knew that if we stayed and finished the task we could have the day off on Sunday.
I took a break around 10:00. (Or maybe it was 11:00. I’m not sure. Time became a bit blurry.) I moseyed into the office of Brandon Davis, Claire’s political advisor. From Brandon’s perspective, the ground troops were about to perform the last of the duties of the campaign. His job was virtually finished, barring some unforeseen last minute eruption. For him, all that remained was time and the tension that comes with awaiting the Associated Press feeds of the vote counts to the news media until they declare the winners - and the prayer that if there were a last minute gaffe, it would originate from the Talent camp.
He was staring at the notes scribbled on the white board and mentally reviewing the numbers tumbling in his head. He was trying to come to some mathematic conclusion. Would Claire win? And with his most informed prognostication, by how much? He walked over to his white board and wrote a number with a green dry marker: 50,307 “Claire’s going to win by 50,307 votes,” he said as he drew a circle around the number.
I was amazed that he would pinpoint such an odd number: 50,307. Why not just round to 50,000? Or 50,500? Or even 50,300? Did he have a relative with the flu that would otherwise bring the total to 50,308? No, he was firm in his belief that by everything he knew about the campaign the final spread should be 50,307.
He offered to make a bet in the style of ‘The Price is Right.’ The one whose guess comes closest to the actual spread without going over would win. For a moment, I thought about taking the bet. Then I remembered that Brandon makes these calculations for a living. And how would I pick a number? Since for me it would require a stroke of luck of cosmic proportion, I declined.
“And what about Amendment 2?” I asked. Of course, I knew that he had not worked on the Amendment 2 campaign and regardless of his answer it would not be based upon the same degree of expert input data. It would be more of a gut call but it would be a gut call from someone with far more experience than I, someone who could still make such calls with a degree of expertise.
Then he stared right into my eyes and dropped the bomb. “Amendment 2 is going to fail, Jeff. It’ll be close, but it’s going to lose.” The look in his eyes confirmed his sadness. He felt absolutely no joy in this somber prediction.
My heart sank. Here was the professional echoing the sentiment and fear that other amateurs had shared with me privately. After all the time, after all the effort, after all the work, the guru had uttered two sentences that verbalized my greatest dread.
Then my mental data bank kicked in. In a flash I reviewed the campaign in my mind and I asked myself a myriad of questions. In those most private of moments, would voters enter their voting booths thinking of Rick Scarborough or Alan Keyes or Archbishop Burke? Or would they be envisioning a cure for Grandma’s Parkinson’s, their cousin’s diabetes, their Aunt’s cancer?
Would they remember the false claims of the opposition: that if passed, the Amendment would allow for humans to be cloned, women would be exploited for their eggs, and all this would happen at taxpayers’ expense? Or would they have taken the time to compare the endorsement lists and see that we had over a hundred trustworthy medical groups, patient advocacy organizations and disease foundations - while the opponents had none?
And which ads would have left the more memorable impression? The ones with messages of hope from Michael J. Fox and John Danforth and Jeff McCaffrey, or the one with Jeff Suppan and Kurt Warner veiling hope - indeed sniping at it?
“I’ll bet you a prime rib dinner you’re wrong,” I blurted, unsure if I was showing true manhood or just unmasking the ignorance of an amateur. According to Brandon, the scare tactics were succeeding. Reason and hope were about to fail. The spirits of Galileo and Copernicus were about to be resurrected as ideology trumped science.
But something inside me told me to have faith, to believe that this time Brandon’s political compass was amiss, landing him at an errant conclusion.
He gave me another serious look. “Jeff,” he said, “I really I hope I’m wrong on this, but you’re on.” We shook hands, the bet was sealed and I returned to the work of affixing labels.
[I’m going to break here and fast forward beyond Election Day. As I wrote in an earlier piece, I do plan to provide an Election Day summary some time soon, but for now…]
On the morning after the election, Wednesday, November 8th, I was amazed. Here are the actual totals, with provisional ballots yet to be counted:
Votes cast 2,114,825
McCaskill 1,047,397 Talent 1,001,621 Others 65,807
Spread +45,776
Of course, once the provisional ballots are counted, that spread will grow. I must admit that I marvel at Brandon’s accuracy and I wonder how close he’ll actually get to 50,307.
And (drum roll please…) Amendment 2 won with a spread of +48,629, also with provisional ballots yet to be counted.
I called Brandon. I wanted to congratulate him on the successful campaign. I wanted him to know what a pleasure it was working with him and getting to know him. I wanted to share my joy that in Missouri, with Claire’s election we had flipped an anti-HR810 vote. And I wanted to collect on our Amendment 2 bet!
Have you ever had one of those conversations in which you could actually feel someone smiling through the telephone? That was one of those calls. And when the conversation turned to our bet, there was no instance of either gloating or sulking. Clearly, Brandon was elated that Amendment 2 passed and after some mutually enjoyable conversation, we set the date for my prime rib dinner: November 14th at 7:00 pm.
Last night we had that dinner. I can’t express how ecstatic I am to have won that bet. Even more gratifying was Brandon’s reiterating to me how thrilled he was to lose the bet - and what a pleasure it was to pay up on this one. Now, I’ve certainly had more expensive prime rib dinners, but I’ve never had a better one and I wouldn’t trade it for a million bucks.
I must admit I’m not much of a gambler. I don’t pick winners in football office pools and I’ve never been to a horse racing track in my life.
But here’s a tip: Never bet against hope.
- Jeff Eisen
UPDATE 11/29/06: Final certified results as follows…
McCaskill 1,055,255 Talent 1,006,941 Margin 48,314
A-2 YES 1,085,396 A-2 NO 1,034,596 Margin 50,800
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