On Monday, while President Clinton drew wild applause from Democrats at their convention in Los Angeles, Marla Hawkins worked late in her West Loop insurance office.
On Tuesday, while Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg rekindled the passion of her father’s Camelot, Hawkins read files on her Metra train to Woodstock. On Wednesday night, she worked late again.
But on Thursday, Hawkins, who considers herself a loyal Democrat, suddenly found reason to take notice.
After reading online that the Monica Lewinsky matter had been resuscitated by Independent Counsel Robert Ray, Hawkins grabbed an early train home.
No way was she going to miss seeing how the news might play out on the Democrats’ biggest night of the year.
“The whole [Lewinsky] affair sickens me,” Hawkins said.
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“But now it’s Gore’s chance to hit it head-on and get rid of the scandal for good.”
The first three days of the Democratic convention blitzed the public with Hollywood stars, tear-jerking clips and TV reporters with exotic headsets scrounging for stories inside Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
Yet, from Oak Park to Arlington Heights, voters had largely yawned. Television ratings peaked on Monday and then slid as many people stayed late on the job, went out for dinner or tuned in “Survivor.”
But when the pageant’s final night brought something no Democrat could have predicted, what seemed to many Americans to be a convention in search of a spark suddenly offered a reason to tune in.
Whatever their opinions on the Lewinsky news or its potential impact on the campaign, viewers from both sides of the political fence suddenly found something of interest–if only out of morbid curiosity.
“This new wrench in the works I think is a real opportunity for Al Gore,” said Brian Flippinger, 41, an executive with an Internet start-up from Algonquin and a steadfastly moderate voter who said he was drawn to Republican nominee George W. Bush after the GOP convention two weeks ago.
“How [Gore] handles this is going to tell me more than anything else about who he is as a man,” Flippinger said. “He has to stand up and address it. He has to say Clinton was wrong and become his own man. Maybe then I might change my mind about him.”
With no clear allegiance, Flippinger is precisely the kind of voter on whom Republicans and Democrats have trained their sights for November. He said he has split his ticket every election and voted for Republican and Democratic presidential contenders. Bush-leanings aside, he was eager to see what face the Democrats would present.
Unlike Hawkins, Flippinger tuned in the opening days of the convention and came away unsatisfied. After a tightly scripted Republican showcase of unity, Flippinger found the Democrats discordant, like a party trying to reassure its liberal base while straining to keep hold of the center.
Watching Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and other liberals advocating homosexual rights, abortion protections and large, new federal health insurance programs, Flippinger was unimpressed.
“I know Gore has to pin down the hard-line Democrats first. But if he’s trying to get someone like me, this has hurt him bad,” he said.
“[But] I’m still undecided. He may still win me over with how he handles the [Lewinsky] situation.”
Some Republican voters rejoiced at the prospect of getting to see Gore once again try to finesse the issue of his boss’ extramarital dalliance with a former White House intern.
“This scandal is going to come back to haunt him every month until the election I think,” said Kevin Stuart, 24, a Houston-native-turned-Lincoln Park resident. “It’s always going to work in George Bush’s favor.”
While that remained to be seen, Clinton’s ability to attract attention was hardly in question. According to Nielsen Media Research, more than 1.8 million viewers tuned in to CNN, which provided hours of convention coverage each night, when Clinton spoke Monday. That compares with 1 million viewers who watched the channel on the first night of the Republican convention when retired Gen. Colin Powell was the featured speaker.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, ratings showed signs of slipping after Clinton’s exit. CNN’s viewership declined by 400,000 on Tuesday. Overall, Nielsen estimated that 14.8 million viewers tuned in to the Democrat’s opening night on various channels. That number dropped to 8.3 million on Tuesday, a night NBC skipped entirely.
Myron Brod of Rogers Park was one of many local Democrats who hadn’t paid much attention to the convention but whose interest was peaked Thursday by the revival of the Lewinsky controversy.
Brod, a credit analyst in the Loop, had planned to spend Thursday evening reading but opted to watch Gore’s speech to see how the vice president would handle the problem. Gore said nothing about it, which was fine with Brod.
“I’m sick of it,” said Brod of the Lewinsky scandal. “Gore seems sincere, you see that. I get the feeling he means what he says and he handles himself well,” Brod said. “And really, with this business about the special prosecutor, it just makes you wonder about the amazing coincidence and wonder if it’s grossly inappropriate.”
To Vijay Koduri, a Democrat who lives in Wrigleyville, the new grand jury probe threatens to overshadow the issues of the campaign and turn it into a debate over character rather than substance.
“Al Gore is strongest in the issues that matter, from immigration to health care to social security,” Koduri said.
“He has to use this to get out of Clinton’s shadow, but it’s only threatening to bind him more with Clinton.”
Early on, the 26-year-old watched the convention with unease, finding it boring. And he feared that other voters might agree and turn away from the Democrats.
“There was no passion, not like the passion I saw in Chicago [in 1996],” he said. Koduri’s first dose of politics came on the floor of the United Center that year as part of a delegation of young Indian-Americans. It was one of the most memorable occasions of his life.
But the emotion and energy he witnessed there, all of it marshaled behind Clinton, was largely absent this time.
“I think George W. [Bush] inspired the public, but then our convention has bored and confused them,” he said.
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“I’m pinning my hopes on Gore’s acceptance speech, that he can finally hold his own weight and bring everyone together.”
By the end, though, the theatrics seemed to hit their mark among at least one segment of the electorate in Hirmiz Audisho’s West Rogers Park coffee shop.
Smoking cigarettes and talking politics with friends Thursday in his shop, the 48-year-old Iraqi immigrant said he was touched by Karenna Gore Schiff’s emotional tribute to her father Wednesday night.
That speech, he said, moved him from leaning toward Bush to supporting Gore.
“Being a family person is important to me,” Audisho said. “I know it sounds false, but I’m a sucker for personal stories like that.”