Watch Them Spin: Inside the DNC War Room

Seven blocks south of Madison Square Garden, at the Democratic National Committee offices, DNC chair Terry McAuliffe indignantly compared Republican constituents handing out "Purple Heart Band-Aids" to ridicule John Kerry's war record to the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "Both of these things happened because the tone was set at the top," McAuliffe said. "The Republican leadership must have been aware--there were 250 Band-Aids passed out."

McAuliffe later took pains during a question and answer session to strike down the notion Democrats are allowing Republicans to set the tone and subject of the debate. But as quick as the Democratic spinners were to express disgust at the amount of ink spilled on questions about John Kerry's war record, they still spent the first fifteen minutes of their press conference on Tuesday responding to them.

Around 80 staffers and a constant flux of volunteers (about 400-500 went through training) work the Democratic National Committee's Rapid Response office, the headquarters for all things officially Democratic (though not paid for by the Kerry campaign) in the city this week. In the "war room," rows of staffers sit behind laptops, monitoring five TVs tuned to the convention. Staffers schedule TV interviews and spit out press releases. Plan pressers. Get people to pressers. Rangel at noon at Grant's Tomb. Who's driving Terry McAuliffe? The site (www.democrats.org/ mna/) delivers off-the-cuff sounding updates, on such topics as the deployment of volunteers dressed as Republican-themed cartoon characters. "we have once again deployed the Super Zeroes. All five, Enron Ed, Hal E. Burton, Lt. G.W. Bush, Miss Leadership, and the Un-Credible Hulk are roaming the streets, looking for their GOP buddies and ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple!"

On my way out of the office, I passed three of the returning Super Zeroes, looking thirsty and slightly chagrined. They were shooed once by the cops close to the Garden, but by the time the Carson Daly set was getting home from school, they were outside MTV's Times Square studio trying to get on camera.

You get the sense in the war room that the Dems at this moment are more interested in pointing out the things Bush has done wrong than in attempting to offer vastly different alternatives. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe opened the week's series of daily pressers, and then a few speakers, some former Bush supporters, reeled off the DNC positions on key issues. Or things that should not be key issues. Or things that Kerry has a slightly better position on, so we should vote for him. A small panel of speakers blasted Bush (though in no more scathing a manner than that of the foreign press coverage) on Iraq and gay marriage, and distanced themselves from the demonstrators who filled the streets on Sunday. "There's a reason the protesters are here," McAuliffe said. "The Democratic party doesn't have anything to do with the protesters. These protesters are here because of George Bush." (Wouldn't it have been nice if the Democratic Party was cheering the number of demonstrators it had encouraged to march? )

After the press conference, retired firefighter and Vietnam vet Bruce Roemmelt snuck downstairs for a cigarette. Roemmelt, who is from Virginia, was part of an eight swing state bus tour prior to the convention. He served on a flight crew on the USS Intrepid, which sits in the Hudson and was the staging ground for Dick Cheney's unofficial convention kickoff speech on Sunday. Roemmelt downplays the intensity of his experience, but says he lost a good friend in a crash on the deck. "I think he did a disservice to all the men that died on that ship," he says. Roemmelt was flanked at the press conference by President of the International Association of Fire Fighters Harold Schaitburger, another figure in the Dem effort to shame Republicans for trying to run on the theme of September 11. Soldiers, military families, firefighters and policemen--often irreproachable figures in the eyes of voters--have also been enlisted or simply joined in this effort.

Like a politician on the stump, he talks about the people he met on the trip--miners, striking steelworkers, an elderly couple he met in Ohio. But he's not running for anything. "They said: 'Terror is coming into our house and watching us make a decision about what we're going to spend our money on this month, which prescription drugs we need and which we can do without, if we should pay rent or buy food.'"

David Enders

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