The Washington Spectator

...The Casino Royal, unbeknownst to its proprietors, had been selected by the committee to serve as a symbol of the $8 billiona-year porno industry and "all people—men—who believe that women are commodities to be bought and sold, to be objectified, subordinated, raped and killed in the name of sexual entertainment and male supremacy"—the words of the committee's action leader, who gave a briefing before the action began...

...The man was suddenly a star, the New Republic had scored another coup, and I had no choice but to listen...

...Will the precinct election officials be able to read, write, and cipher well enough to turn in accurate tallies from their polling places...

...Much more, one fears...

...But under his girlfriend's pestering, his unearned confidence withered...

...This sleek civility forms a bond that is broken on the weekends, when the subway is given over to an anarchy of suburbanites and sightseers...

...Will McIntyre sweep all before him because a nice young fellow like that shouldn't be done wrong again...

...Or have the House Republicans so gnashed their teeth, rended their garments, and whined like cuffed hounds that voters are sick and tired of the whole silly spectacle...

...But to what...

...If you ride Metrorail, this city's remarkable subway, as I do all week, you become ever more impressed with the no-nonsense discipline of its rush-hour riders...

...he usually did...

...It's a mortal shame the late Seth Denbo, the GOP's graftiest war-chief, who liked his politics straight as a Crawford County dirt isn't still around for all the fuss ubilation...

...At the corner of 14th and New York a couple of camera crews from the local news shows joined the demonstrators, who rushed into the store waving their signs and chanting, "Pornography is an industry/Making billions, harming me...

...The cameraman simply turned away and panned the store again...

...she cried, and the cameramen panned the store...

...for the source of Ronald Reagan's popularity (he feels the Democrats' message is too nuanced to fit into 30-second spots), and you start to wonder: If Senate Republicans allow this man to beat them this fall, will they have anyone but themselves to blame...

...He probably would have pensioned off McCloskey to the Patoka Reservoir Commission, made McIntyre consul to Paducah, and sent to Congress that nervy state senator from Evansville who wants to take on McInt, re in the Republican primary...

...Old Seth would have fixed everything...

...Indeed, Rep...

...I leaned against the doors, underneath the sign that read, "Please do not lean against doors," folded my arms, and watched them...

...I had been alerted that SPEAC, the Sex and Pornography Education and Action Committee, was planning an "action" against the Casino Royal, the city's largest bookstore cum peep show...

...Speaking to the lunch crowd, he performed familiar variations on these themes: protectionism, more aid to farmers, military cuts...

...I know where our stop is," he said between clenched teeth, and then gaped uncomprehendingly at the wall map...

...Women on meat hooks...

...In the tight shared space of the early morning, nobody—not the pretty women in dress suits and Reeboks, not the tall men in cashmere greatcoats—chatters unwisely...

...Richard D. McIntyre, Republican of Bedford, announced on January 28 that he will once again challenge this unwonted, tremulous incumbency...

...wide but well-defined lines of riders snake from one train to the next, gliding up and down the escalators with quiet assurance...

...At my stop—which happened to be their stop, too, although I didn't tell them that—I exited (they didn't) and rode the escalator up into the grimness of 14th Street, one of Washington's many skid rows, and the heart of its porno district...

...To add to the Senator's mystique, the night before the luncheon he became the center of national attention for heading the Democratic party's televised response to the President's State of the Union address...

...Francis X. McCloskey, Democrat of Bloomington—the bruited move to Heubstadt didn't come off, perhaps because Nick's English Hut, the congressman's frequent haunt, declined to colonize-will run a third time to hold his seat, now the most notorious of congressional fiefs...

...Just to pass the time I picked up a paperback called Teacher Takes It All, and was reading about a woman piano teacher objectifying a young male student on a piano bench when I looked up to see one of the cameramen, about two feet away, pointing his camera straight into my face...

...Be assured, there is more to come of this matter...

...Except, of course, for the enormous issue that didn't figure in the last election: Did the House Democrats steal the seat from McIntyre and hand it to McCloskey by all of four votes in the most brazen infamy in Hoosier politics...

...Small moments like these are not to be despised...

...The chanting grew louder and the action leader, positioning herself for the cameras, gave a speech in front of a glass case filled with some of the largest rubber goods (hand-held) I've ever seen...

...When invited I confessed to know next to nothing about him, but was told his importance stems from his position as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee...

...grimaces...

...GJN 48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1986...

...Since that dithery time nothing much has happened, at least not enough to change the ornery nature of the southwestern haunch of Indiana...

...Of course I didn't have the heart to watch the news on TV that night, much as I've always wanted to see myself on the TV...

...A couple of surprised young customers hustled past the demonstrators and the news cameras and out the store, their faces frozen in "why me...

...On an early Sunday afternoon last month, as I was heading down to the 14th Street porno district, I found myself with a train-load of them...

...In point of fact, he has not stopped running, in one way or another, since his claim to the seat, which he thought he had won in November of '84, was finally denied by the House Democrats last May...

...But it really is that time again:the congressional campaign of 1986, starting with the primaries in May and cresting in the general election in November and ending, at least in Indiana's Eighth District, when or where the mind of Hoosier man knoweth not...

...In the store, the clerks leaned on the counter, laughing...

...Besides, the lighting didn't do me justice, and my hair was a mess...

...Will McCloskey catch hell because he was the tainted victor...

...Speaking to the nation, the Senator revived the standard themes of the 1984 Democratic campaign: warnings of doom, appeals to envy, calls for summits...

...nor in the languid, looser hour after five is there undue garrulousness...

...The cameramen pushed in after them, and I trailed behind, notepad in hand...

...City life offers so few deep, untrammeled pleasures, so few unambiguous instances of superiority...

...It's curious that a man this little-known—his other Senate assignments include the Environment and Public Works and the Veterans' Affairs committees—has been entrusted with the task of regaining majority standing for Senate Democrats in 1986, an election that for some reason already has many Republicans deeply worried...

...One fellow, obviously lost, nevertheless tried to maintain the cool of the stud in a cognac ad...

...From Bloomington, our Indiana editor writes with the news: The Great Congressional Contest is back, and Indiana's got it...

...Balancing their copies of the Washington Times, all sway to the rails or sit in silence...

...Shall we gather at the river...

...Throw in the Senator's professed disdain for the growing role of money in politics (naturally, he wants more public financing of campaigns), for the notion that Republicans have become the party of new ideas (he says these amount to "Cut taxes...

...For those whose attention span suddenly shrinks whenever the names of McCloskey and McIntyre come up, this item may not charm...

...I dropped the book and waved my notepad frantically to show that I was a reporter, for God's sake, not a sleazeball, but I was too late...

...At the transfer stations, all move quickly and purposefully...

...After her pep talk, I followed the committed as they brandished placards and marched furiously up 14th Street, toward the hapless Casino Royal...