A NEW DEMOCRAT
Carlson, Tucker
A NEW DEMOCRAT by Tucker Carlson Mike Forbes likes soup. But he doesn't like corn. So when Forbes, a third-term congressman from New York, found corn in his dehydrated soup-in-a-cup, he had a...
...We paid the price for it," says LaCourse...
...Many had already seen the congressman explode after an aide was slow to wash a dirty cereal bowl Forbes had left in a sink...
...At the same time, explains the Democratic staffer, he was disgusted by Republican grandstanding...
...I think the clinical term is manic-depressive," says Jeff LaCourse...
...A pro-life, pro-gun member of the famously ferocious freshman class of 1994, Forbes voted for all four counts of impeachment against president Clinton...
...You may have to help me convince her...
...Then, two weeks ago, Forbes announced he was leaving the Republican party and becoming a Democrat...
...This spring, he endorsed George W. Bush for president...
...Bullock may or may not run, but some of his points are harder to dismiss...
...Others had heard about the time Forbes lost his temper when a female assistant forgot to drain the water from his canned tuna before serving it to him...
...For months, Tony Bullock, the 42-year-old chief of staff to retiring New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been mulling a run for Forbes's seat...
...Unfortunately for him, Forbes chose to become a Democrat on the same day John Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down...
...Forbes's driver listened, stunned, as the two chatted about Forbes's new party affiliation...
...Forbes originally planned to back sen...
...In it, DeLay seemed to blame day-care programs for producing a generation of violent children...
...Nor, apart from the usual talking points about Republican extremism, has he explained why, exactly, he switched parties...
...Virtually no one in Forbes's office anticipated that...
...Instead, "they may have gone to the Hamptons once for the weekend...
...Tony Bullock has never worked for Forbes, but he sees the same pattern...
...over the course of his first four and a half years in Congress, a total of 53 staffers resigned or were fired from his office, a rate of about one a month...
...Forbes himself called several hours later...
...Late in the afternoon of July 16, Forbes, still a Republican, left the Capitol and drove with a member of his staff to Reagan National Airport outside Washington...
...First was a speech that Rep...
...How, for instance, will the state party run Forbes alongside its presumed Senate candidate, Hillary Clinton...
...Intellectually, he's a lightweight," Bullock says...
...He's a few fries short of a Happy Meal...
...Mike Forbes is pro-life, pro-impeachment, pro-assault weapon, pro-Bush," Bullock says...
...He's very lazy," says LaCourse...
...I'm not going to vote for him.'" Party strategists at the DCCC, Bullock claims, didn't learn anything about the politics of the district before encouraging Forbes to become a Democrat...
...I'm not going to work for this guy...
...Earlier this year, he had discussions with McCain strategists, even floated the possibility of giving stump speeches on McCain's behalf...
...He thought it was out of touch...
...The next day he held a press conference to tell the world...
...The geniuses who thought this up should have done the research," Bullock says...
...Barbara's still not sure about this," Forbes said...
...By switching parties, Forbes has guaranteed himself a tough general-election race...
...But he may also face a primary challenge...
...Forbes has since suggested that his endorsement of Bush was less than wholehearted, and it probably was...
...Picking corn out of soup is a tedious task, even by the standards of Capitol Hill, but members of Forbes's staff were used to such assignments...
...And how will Forbes explain away his long association with Dov Hikind, the hotheaded Brooklyn assemblyman who has repeatedly denounced Mrs...
...He's a person with very little basic decency...
...It's a desperate act of self-immolation," Bullock says...
...All his behavior is weird...
...He's bi-polar," says one...
...My phone has practically melted the past few days from Suffolk County Democrats calling to say, 'My God...
...So when Forbes, a third-term congressman from New York, found corn in his dehydrated soup-in-a-cup, he had a member of his congressional staff remove every kernel...
...He said, 'I'm bumming a ride from someone.'" As Fauls discovered later, the "someone" turned out to be the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which had sent a Learjet to take Forbes home to Long Island...
...I asked him what he was doing," Fauls remembers...
...After this fall, Forbes may never have to come in again...
...This is really going to hurt my press," he told his executive assistant, Jeff LaCourse...
...His district—mostly Suffolk County, at the Hamptons end of Long Island—is largely Republican...
...The driver dropped Forbes at his house and immediately called the staff at the Washington office to pass on what he had heard...
...Bullock held various elected offices in the district for more than a decade, beginning in 1983...
...Tucker Carlson is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Then Al D'Amato called...
...In his statement, Forbes complained, "There's no room in the Republican party in Congress for moderates like myself...
...Forbes landed in New York and was picked up by a member of his district staff...
...But he still hasn't retracted his endorsement of George W. Bush...
...This is just the culmination of it...
...He is smart and well connected, and he loathes Mike Forbes...
...He just hated coming in...
...Like just about everyone else in the House, Forbes voted for the resolution...
...His aide, legislative director Brian Fauls, was confused...
...The second event occurred just four days before Forbes switched parties, when Republicans sponsored a non-binding resolution condemning sexual relations between adults and children...
...It's not clear that Forbes thought about any of this before he took the plunge...
...When he got to the airport, Forbes drove past the terminals and into the private airfield next door...
...They're running a dead animal for this slot...
...The pedophilia vote was held on a Monday, which forced Forbes to return to Washington earlier than usual...
...Every member of his staff immediately quit...
...None of his former staffers seems to have any idea why he switched parties, though many mention that he had been acting odder than usual in recent months...
...The competition for coverage irritated Forbes...
...A high-level Democratic staffer who has spoken extensively with Forbes says two events pushed him over the edge...
...Worse, Bullock claims, Forbes is still a conservative...
...According to LaCourse, "D'Amato told him, 'You're going to endorse Bush, and that's all there is to it.'" Forbes, who by all accounts is afraid of D'Amato, grudgingly agreed...
...I was afraid of him," says Tina Mufford, his former staff assistant, "afraid he'd go off...
...But should we really be talking about this?'" LaCourse remembers Forbes's reaction differently...
...Clinton for her "love affair with Yasser Arafat...
...Tom DeLay gave shortly after the shootings at Columbine High School...
...The only problem is, Forbes was never a moderate...
...That upset Forbes a great deal," says the staffer, "especially since his own kids had been through day care...
...John McCain in the presidential race...
...Forbes and a DCCC operative sat in the back of the car talking...
...Staff at the DCCC, meanwhile, dismiss Bullock as a malcontent who will never find the courage to challenge Forbes...
...Forbes has never been an easy man to work for...
...Each January, he held a reception in his Washington office for anti-abortion protesters commemorating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade...
...He's a screamer," says one...
...Ordinarily, Forbes's switch would have made the evening news...
...Forbes won't have to take calls from Al D'Amato anymore...
...Clinton," Bullock asks, "with his George W. Bush pin and his pro-life record...
...At one point, Forbes fretted about his wife, Barbara, a staunch Republican who once worked at the Bush White House...
...Forbes once worked for D'Amato, and has remained in close contact with the former New York senator...
...He was in a bad mood for a week...
...How can he stand there next to Mrs...
...Forbes was infuriated by the time he got to Washington, yelling at his chief of staff when he arrived...
...He said, 'Of course [pedophilia] is bad...
...Not afraid he'd go off and become a Democrat, though...
...Many say they are happy to be looking for new jobs...
Vol. 4 • August 1999 • No. 43
