Among the videos temporarily in stock at the Sheet Metal Hall, a union headquarters two miles from the site of the Republican National Convention, are “McCain Attacks Bush,” “Bush Contradicts Himself,” “Mean Bush/Angry Bush/Cold-Hearted Bush,” and, on the lighter side, “Bush Funny Facials.”
The Democrats who have rented the riverfront hall this week have been stockpiling with a purpose–assembling party-pooping materials of all sorts as part of the now obligatory appearance of a “truth squad” at the opponents’ convention.
Stacks of CD-ROMs contain ready-to-fax files on every aspect of presumptive presidential nominee George W. Bush’s record as governor of Texas and every legislative vote cast by his vice presidential selection, Dick Cheney. A bank of VCRs records every moment of convention coverage on several channels, just in case a Republican slips up and exaggerates. Press releases ripping on the GOP theme of the day lie in neat piles for reporters who drop by the daily midmorning news conferences.
Emceeing these events is the most elegant person on the truth squad, Molly Beth Malcolm, 45, a conservatively attired and crisply coifed former schoolteacher with a voice as Texas as tumbleweeds.
“I just wish they weren’t fibbin’ and makin’ up tall tales about George Bush’s record,” Malcolm told reporters Monday. “You have to look past the rhetoric and research the record.”
In a later interview interrupted frequently by the ringing of her cell phone, Malcolm said she goes way back with the governor, having been introduced to him in the late 1980s when she was an active Republican. But in 1992 she underwent a political conversion, she said, when she came to believe her party had become “scary.”
Her East Texas neighbors were aghast, but the story line, and Malcolm’s tart eloquence, proved irresistible to state Democrats. They elevated her quickly through their ranks and, in 1998, elected her the first female chair of the state party.
She had never been to a national political convention, but when the Democratic National Committee began developing the movie-based theme of this year’s opposition campaign, “I Know What You Did In Texas,” it was natural for them to put front and center someone with a firsthand take on what Bush did and didn’t do in Texas.
Malcolm will spend her days here in the back room of the union hall, where a rotating staff of some 50 volunteers and DNC employees are coordinating the arrivals, departures and media appearances of party dignitaries while also preparing material to refute what the Republicans say, often hours before they say it.
An American flag and tiny bouquet of balloons stand by a blue curtain in the far corner in case a TV crew needs an emergency backdrop. Outside, a spokesman-equipped bus named “The Rolling Donkey” waits to shuttle reporters the two miles back and forth to their tent compound outside the First Union Center.
Opposition efforts like this at conventions have grown increasingly elaborate, even necessary, as debate within the conventions themselves has all but disappeared. Technology–including streaming video on the Internet to make maximum use of “funny facials” and other opportunities–have made them more compelling.
The Democrats said that their Sunday launch of iknowwhatyoudidintexas.com, a party-sponsored Web site devoted purely to criticism of an opponent, was a first.
And though the Republican National Committee wouldn’t tell me its plans, you might try pointing your browser to iknowwhatyoudidatthosewhitehousecoffees.com in about two weeks when the Democrats convene in Los Angeles.
But it’s this operation here that will remain the most urgent. The Democrats are sharply aware that if the fall race comes down to a personality contest, an oratory contest or even a platitude contest, their likely nominee, Al Gore, will have the stuffing pounded out of him, as it were.
“George Bush is a nice guy, a likable guy,” said Molly Beth Malcolm. “He’s like the guy you knew in college who was your first choice to go on a date or to a party with, but when the time came, he wasn’t the guy you wanted to settle down with.
“Don’t take my word for it. Just look at the difference between what he says and what he does.”
She settled in front of three televisions to watch the afternoon speakers march onto the podium and proclaim the opposite. Her work was just beginning.
