Living History by Unknown (the lemonade war series txt) 📗

coverage. On the campaign trail, I frequently talked about specific incremental reforms that I had helped push through and ways the Senate could address rising health care costs through legislation.

Late in the campaign, on October 12, the USS Cole was attacked by terrorists in Yemen. The powerful explosion killed seventeen American sailors and ripped a hole in the destroyer’s hull. This attack, like the embassy bombings, was later traced to al-Qaeda, the shadowy network of Islamic extremists led by Osama bin Laden that had declared war on the “infidels and crusaders.” That label applied to all Americans and many others across the world, including Muslims who denounced violent tactics and extremism. I cancelled my campaign events to go with Bill and Chelsea to Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia for the memorial service. I had met with the families of the American Embassy bombing victims in August of 1998; now I offered condolences to the families of our murdered sailors, young men and women who were serving their country and providing security in a critical region of the world.

I despise terrorism and the nihilism it represents, and I was incredulous when the New York Republican Party and Lazio campaign insinuated that I was somehow involved with the terrorists who blew up the Cole. They made this despicable charge in a television ad and an automatic telephone message directed to hundreds of thousands of New York voters twelve days before the election. The story they concocted was that I had received a donation from somebody who belonged to a group that they said supported terrorists―“

the same kind of terrorism that killed our sailors on the USS Cole. “The phone script told people to call me and tell me to “stop supporting terrorism.” It was sickening.

This last-minute desperation tactic blew up, however, thanks to a vigorous response by my campaign and with help from former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who cut a television commercial scolding Lazio: “Rick, stop with the sleaze already.”

By the final weeks of the campaign, I began to feel confident that I would win. But we had one last campaign scare the week before the election, when the race suddenly began to tighten. Lazio had been running an ad with two actresses playing suburban women who wondered how I had the nerve to show up in New York and think I deserved to be Senator.

We didn’t know whether voters were responding to Lazio’s ad or were influenced by the terrorism phone calls, or whether the shift in the race was simply a momentary fluke.

I hashed it over with Mark and Mandy until two in the morning and decided to make one last effort to reach out to women who might still be ambivalent about my candidacy.

Lazio was particularly vulnerable, I thought, on breast cancer research, an issue that I had worked on for eight years. After he entered the Senate race, the House leadership allowed him to hijack an important breast cancer funding bill that had been the brainchild of California Rep. Anna Eshoo and enjoyed broad bipartisan support. House leaders listed him as the lone sponsor of that bill, so that he could point to it in the campaign as a sign of his commitment to women’s issues. That was bad enough. Worse, when the bill finally passed, he supported cutting funding for the program. I cared passionately about breast cancer treatment and research and was disgusted when I learned that Lazio had played politics with such an important and emotional issue.

Marie Kaplan, a breast cancer survivor and advocate from Lazio’s own district on Long Island, had become one of my most faithful campaign volunteers. “Why not ask Marie to make an ad?” I suggested. And we did. In many ways, it was the best ad of the campaign. Marie explained what Lazio had done to the breast cancer funding bill and then said: “I have friends with questions about Hillary. I tell them, ‘Get over it. I know her.’ On breast cancer and health care and education and a woman’s right to choose, Hillary would never walk away. She’ll be there for us.’” She summed up everything I wanted people to think about as they cast their ballots.

I worked up until the last minute, campaigning in Westchester County with Representative Nita Lowey early on Election Day, November 7. Bill and Chelsea voted with me at our local polling station, Douglas Grafflin Elementary School in Chappaqua. After seeing Bill’s name on ballots for years, I was thrilled and honored to see my own.

As the results came in during the evening, it was clear that I was going to win by a much bigger margin than expected. I was getting dressed in my hotel room when Chelsea burst in to deliver the news: The final tally was 55 percent to 43 percent. Hard work had paid off, and I was grateful for the chance to represent New York and to contribute to our nation in a new role.

The presidential race, meanwhile, was a roller coaster. Little did we know at the time that thirty-six days would elapse before the country learned who the new President would be. Nor could we imagine the demonstrations, lawsuits, appeals and challenges that would arise over the disputed votes in Florida or the addition to our political lexicon of terms like “butterfly ballot” and “dimpled chad.”

The uncertainty in the presidential race tempered my elation on election night, but it did nothing to subdue the joyful victory party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The ballroom was packed with campaign staffers, friends, supporters and loyal Hillaryland aides who had taken leaves of absence from the White House during the last week of the campaign to help with “GOT” (get-out-the-vote) activities. I was overwhelmed by the generosity and openness of New Yorkers, who listened to what I had to say, got to know me and took a chance on me. I was determined not to let them down.