I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

I Ain't Got Time to Bleed

Our final big push came seventy-two hours before the election. We rented some RVs, set up a live Internet feed, and headed out on a thirty-four-stop trip around the state, straight through, no sleep. But I knew from my background that I could do it-it was less than half of Hell Week!

As those all-important last hours ticked down, we stole all the thunder from the other two campaigns. The press jumped on board with us, because we were having all the fun. We invited people, "Come along! Jump in your cars and come with us for as long as you want to go!" We had times when we were going down the highway with twenty-five cars tooting their horns, waving banners and flags. We came into cities in a whirlwind of noise. Later, people rushed home and jumped on the Internet to see if they could see pictures of themselves. There was running commentary, "Jesse's now left for Hutchinson. . . ." We literally stole all the publicity and all the momentum that weekend. That's when I started to believe we had a shot at winning. I always knew we had an outside chance, but that's the first time the possibility really began to seem real to me.

Even Terry started to feel it. She went on the seventy-two-hour blitz with us. It was her first real involvement in the campaign. I had told her from the start that I didn't expect her to be part of it unless she wanted to be. She could be as little or as much involved as she liked.

It was during that blitz that my confrontation with Hillary Clinton took place. It was on Saturday-I think we were in Rochester that morning-that Hillary had come into town to stump for Humphrey. One of the press guys came up to me and said, "Did you hear what Hillary Clinton said about you? She said it's time to end the carnival sideshow act that's going on here and get down to the business of electing Skip Humphrey. How do you feel about Hillary Clinton calling you a carnival sideshow act?"

I said, "It seems to me, rather than being concerned about Minnesota politics, Hillary should be more concerned about leaving Bill home alone. He seems to get into a lot of mischief whenever she leaves him." You wanna start the fight, the Klingon's gonna draw the line in the sand. Strike us, and you make us stronger.