“Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics”, by Anonymous (Joe Klein)

 

366 pages, Random House, ISBN-13: 978-0679448594

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics was ostensibly written by “Anonymous” – who turned out to be Joe Klein in one of the worst-kept secrets ever in the history of secrets. It is a roman à clef (how’s THAT for a 5¢ phrase) about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992 and, as such, is full of fictional stand-ins for real-life people:

• Jack Stanton is Bill Clinton
• Susan Stanton is Hillary Clinton
• Henry Burton is George Stephanopoulos
• Richard Jemmons is James Carville
• Daisy Green is Mandy Grunwald & Dee Myers
• Howard Ferguson, III is Harold Ickes, Jr.
• Orlando Ozio is Mario Cuomo
• Jimmy Ozio is Andrew Cuomo
• Charlie Martin is Bob Kerrey
• Lawrence Harris is Paul Tsongas
• Bart Nilson is Tom Harkin
• Freddy Picker is a combo of Jerry Brown, Reubin Askew, Harold Hughes & Ross Perot
• Richmond Rucker is David Dinkins
• Luther Charles is Jesse Jackson
• Cashmere McLeod is Gennifer Flowers
• Lucille Kauffman is Susan Thomases
• Libby Holden is Betsey Wright & Vince Foster

Don’t fret none if you don’t recognize all of those names as they have since left the public eye after being so damn important and powerful in the 90s. The book begins as an idealistic former congressional worker, Henry Burton, joins the presidential campaign of southern governor Jack Stanton, before following the Democratic primary election calendar, beginning in New Hampshire, where Stanton’s affair with his wife’s hairdresser, Cashmere McLeod, and his participation in a Vietnam War era protest come to light and threaten to derail his presidential prospects.

In Florida, Stanton revives his campaign by disingenuously portraying his Democratic opponent as insufficiently pro-Israel and as a weak supporter of Social Security. Burton becomes increasingly disillusioned with Stanton, who is a policy wonk who talks too long, eats too much and is overly flirtatious toward women. Stanton is also revealed to be insincere in his beliefs, saying whatever will help him to win. Matters finally come to a head, and Burton is forced to choose between idealism and realism.

One wonders as to Joe Klein’s motivation in writing this book. Was it a friendly critique of a president he admired? Or wanted to admire? A hit piece on a president he despised? Or at least should have been better? There can be no doubt that he comes at his subject, Jack Stanton (Bill Clinton) from a realistic, though sympathetic, angle, showing the man for who and what he is, warts and all. Just like his real-world stand-in, Jack Stanton is a born politician with a gift for gab and a will to power. But politics is the Art of the Possible and, inevitably, that means compromise.

Although the book shows that Stanton has compromised so much that he has forgotten where he started, his core impulse is to help people through an ever-expanding government (well, he is a Democrat, after all). The real Bill Clinton is a far less noble creature than the fake Jack Stanton, for Clinton wanted power above all else and to be loved by the multitude; in most ways the character of Jack Stanton in Primary Colors more attractive than the Bill Clinton in real life, which should come as no surprise; he is, after all, fictitious.

But getting back to Klein’s motivation for writing Primary Colors in the first place: I think he was trying to will the Clinton he knew and covered into becoming the Jack Stanton he invented; a flawed and, in some ways, despicable character who still, underneath it all, had a Heart of Gold and an honest desire to help The People through an ever-expanding government. At one point in the book, when his campaign is in deep trouble, Stanton speaks at a unionized shipyard; with little to lose, he reaches out to his audience:

Well, I’m here now, and I’m lookin’ at you, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what you wanted to hear in any case, right? So let me tell you this: No politician can bring these shipyard jobs back. Or make your union strong again. No politician can make it be the way it used to be. Because we’re living in a new world now, a world without borders – economically, that is. Guy can push a button in New York and move a billion dollars to Tokyo before you blink an eye. We’ve got a world market now. And that’s good for some. In the end, you’ve gotta believe it’s good for America. We come from everywhere in the world, so we’re gonna have a leg up selling to everywhere in the world. Makes sense, right? But muscle jobs are gonna go where muscle labor is cheap – and that’s not here. So if you want to compete and do better, you’re gonna have to exercise a different set of muscles, the ones between your ears. And anyone who gets up here and says he can do it for you isn’t leveling with you. So I’m not gonna insult you by doing that. I’m going to tell you this: This whole country is gonna have to go back to school. We’re gonna have to get smarter, learn new skills. And I will work overtime figuring out ways to help you get the skills you need. I’ll make you this deal: I will work for you. I’ll wake up every morning thinking about you. I’ll fight and worry and sweat and bleed to get the money to make education a lifetime thing in this country, to give you the support you need to move on up.

Officially, that’s Jack Stanton talking, but really, it’s Joe Klein – and it’s what he wanted Bill Clinton to say and how he wanted Bill Clinton to say it. And how many other members of the Drive-by Media could say the same? After writing a realistic though ultimately sympathetic portrayal of a president he was supposed to report on in a non-partisan fashion, could anything Klein said about Clinton be taken at face-value? Of course not. And it can only make one wonder how much “reporting” the MSM does is, in fact, fiction.