September 13, 1986
Dave Orlovsky, the only Congressional staffer in history to wear knee-length bicycle shorts and neon-colored muscle shirts, is standing next to his boss, Congressman Don Henley, who’s busy sweating through his black suit in the early morning North Texas sun. It’s 7 a.m., and the two of them are surveying the landscape in front of them, a long, flat field upon which a ramshackle stage and portable risers capable of seating thousands have been hastily erected.
The space is being dedicated for the construction of the Donald H. Henley Civic Center [1], a state-of-the-art indoor venue in Gilmer, Texas designed to host fine arts programs, banquets, seminars, concerts, stage plays, conventions, weddings, receptions, indoor sports events, and trade show exhibits and meetings. Don had encouraged the city to fund construction of the center, arguing that it would help his hometown grow as a tourist and business destination; construction would begin in three weeks. [2]
Of course, even if the center had been built, the event Orlovsky had planned for later that evening woudn’t have fit within the Civic Center’s maximum seating capacity of 1,100; based on early reservations, the campaign was expecting six or seven thousand attendees for what was being billed as the largest outdoor concert in Upshur County history. And, of course, it would feature one of the hottest pop stars of the day: Don Henley’s old band-mate, Glenn Frey.
The concert wouldn’t start for another six hours, and, as the bleachers began to fill with eager guests, Dave started to suspect that they’d possibly
underestimated the number of attendees. Optics were important; if the campaign had erected too many bleachers and seats were empty, photographs would make a 3,000-person event seem like an underpopulated failure. Dave sent campaign staffers out to roam the stands, armed with paperwork to register new voters and sign up new volunteers. Over the next hour, the volunteers had been scurrying back to Dave with bright-eyed optimism and armsful of paperwork. Their enthusiasm was infectious.
Dave looked over at his boss and chuckled. “Don’t buy into their enthusiasm
too much, Congressman,” he warned Henley. “We’ll follow up with everyone who agrees to volunteer, but I doubt we convert even 1% of these forms into actual donors or volunteers.” [3]
Don Henley smiled back at his Chief of Staff, choosing to ignore Orlovsky’s allusion to the disagreement the two of them had during the event’s planning. Dave wanted to use the concert as a fundraiser as well, to help close the gap between the Henley campaign’s rather lackluster numbers and the robust sums being raised by Hargett. Henley, Dave argued, was falling behind in terms of radio and TV advertisements, and needed to raise more money to get back on the air. “Besides,” Dave argued, “people are used to paying for concerts.”
Henley was strongly opposed. “I’m not going to have bagmen out there with sacks of money, Dave.” Although collecting money from attendees wouldn’t violate any campaign finance rules, Henley knew that there was no way his volunteers would be able to accurately record all of the donations for reporting requirements. The campaign would be left with perhaps a hundred thousand dollars of untraceable, quasi-legal cash. Dave, as usual, had made the pragmatic argument: literally
everybody was doing it, there was no way anyone would get caught, and there would be no punishment even if they were. [4]
Don had nixed the idea anyway. “Even if I wanted to skirt the rules, Dave –
which I don’t! – the FEC is already watching us like a hawk.” [5] “Which would do us more harm: passing up $100,000, or having the
Wall Street Journal publish an article claiming our campaign is being investigated for campaign fraud?” Dave wasn’t actually sure; the
Journal didn’t exactly have a wide circulation in Upshur County or most of Northeast Texas. But he knew when to fold ‘em, and he curtly nodded and got on board. “Yes, Congressman.” His acquiescence didn’t necessarily mean agreement, though.
Henley donned the wide-brimmed Stetson hat that Dave passed to him; a couple of attendees had let their glance linger a bit too long in their direction, and Henley wasn’t (yet) ready to go press the flesh with thousands of eager concert-goers. “Lose the jacket and tie, too, Congressman,” Dave urged. After arching an eyebrow, Henley took off his narrow, bright-blue tie, folded it into his inside jacket pocket, and handed the sportscoat to a staffer who scurried away with it. Don wasn’t sure he looked professional, but the anonymity – and the slight relief from the heat! – was worth it. [6]
As it turns out, they’d underestimated the number of attendees by an order of magnitude. Tens of thosuands of people turned out; the
Tyler Morning Telegraph would estimate that as many as 50,000 people showed up for the event, and that didn’t include the thousands of people who remained stuck in traffic in the miles-long backup on the two-lane highway that was the primary means of getting to Gilmer. Some wit in the Associated Press pool had juxtaposed photographs of the event with some rather colorful quotes Henley had issued in 1980; as a result, the national coverage – including a segment on CNN’s political debate program,
Crossfire, called the event the “Hell Freezes Over” concert. [7] Of course, nobody in the media knew Don had made The Call and mended fences with Frey more than a year previously; still, the experience was humbling for Henley. [8]
The concert itself was a roaring success, with Frey giving the audience the first live performance of his new song, “Don’t Look Back,” which was also the theme song from his just-aired TV show,
South of Sunset. [9] In lieu of an encore, Frey dismissed his bandmates and offered a moving, nearly impromptu endorsement from the stage. “Don Henley didn’t need this job,” Frey argued. “But Washington needed Don Henley.
We needed Don Henley. I think we still do.” The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, and Orlovsky smiled inwardly. Of course, the endorsement wasn’t
entirely unscripted; no one in politics would just let a rock star wing it at a campaign event. “Don, get up here,” Glenn added, following the script Dave had laid out. Henley – still wearing his cowboy hat – climbed up on to the stage, embraced Glenn, and waved to the crowd. Flashbulbs went off; the photo op had gotten its moment. Dave turned and got ready to return to campaign headquarters.
“There’s one more thing I’d like to talk to you about,” Frey added. Orlovsky turned and looked at the stage in sudden alarm. “Shit,” he murmured under his breath. Things were about to go off the rails, and there was nothing he could do. Dave looked around, wondering if he could sprint to the audio table and unplug Frey’s microphone. The standing-room-only crowd blocked his way. Dave inhaled sharply; if he weren’t an atheist, he’d have prayed for divine intervention.
“After a reception like that, I’m not going to leave without giving you an encore.”
“Oh shit,” Dave gasped, audibly. “No. No. Please, no.” All of his hard work was about to be for naught; he could almost taste the impending disaster. Dave started muscling his way through the crowd, unsure of what he would do when he actually
got to the stage, but driven by sheer desperation.
Back on the stage, Frey kept going, oblivious to Orlovsky's panic, with a somewhat-bewildered looking Don Henley at his side. “I know you’ve heard people whispering, sometimes shouting, that the song Don and I wrote, ‘Hotel California,’ that it’s a Satanic song.” Boos from the audience. “I think I can show you that’s not the case. Now, I won’t ask Don to pick up a microphone; he’s got to save his voice to fight for you in Congress.” Frey smiled at Henley. “But I would ask my friend, Don, do you mind if I give it a shot?” Henley nodded, and Frey walked over and produced a twelve-string acoustic guitar. [10] After sliding over one of the amplifiers, Frey sat down, unbuckled the guitar case, took out the guitar and began strumming the opening notes to “Hotel California.” Henley, left somewhat in the lurch, picked up the guitar case, sat on the closest amp, and used it as an impromptu drum; Don’s legendary vocals might not have been concert-ready, but he could still drum “Hotel California” in his sleep. [11]
As it turns out, Orlovsky needn’t have worried. From a technical standpoint, Frey was ill-suited to sing “Hotel California;” his country-roots vocals lacked Don’s range, and, in Dave’s view, the song didn’t translate well to acoustic. [12] None of that mattered, of course: the point was made. Nobody in that audience -- and nobody who followed the reports, or watched clips on the news that went nationwide -- could possibly think they were looking at a Satanic ritual, when in fact they were watching a middle-aged TV star and a middle-aged Congressman gently reprise their greatest hit. "Satanic Panic" would rage on elsewhere, but it was as dead as disco in Northeast Texas.
...
After the concert, Orlovsky commissioned another poll of Texas’s First Congressional District to poll Henley’s constituents on various questions related to Satanic messages in “Hotel California;” the cross-tabs of that poll showed that no more than 6% of Democrats, 11% of Independents, and 23% of Republicans “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with any negative poll question related to the song or to Satanic back-masking. That poll predicted a fifteen-point victory for Henley. [13]
That poll, of course, was dead wrong.
On November 4, 1986, Don Henley would win re-election to the House of Representatives by a staggering
thirty-six point margin, defeating Edd Hargett, 68% to 32%. [14] Henley quintupled his vote total from the previous year, and cemented his status as one of the rising stars in the Democratic Party. [15]
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APPENDIX: U.S. Senate electoral results, 1986 [16]
Incumbents are designated in
bold.
Alabama: Richard Shelby (D) def.
Jeremiah Denton (R), 51% - 49%
Alaska:
Frank Murkowski (R) def. Glenn Olds (D), 54% - 44%
Arizona:
Barry Goldwater (R) def. James F. McNulty, Jr. (D), 57% - 42% [17]
Arkansas:
Dale Bumpers (D) def. Asa Hutchinson (R), 63% - 37%
California:
Alan Cranston (D) def. Bruce Herschensohn (R), 55% - 42% [18]
Colorado: Tim Wirth (D) def. Ken Kramer (R), 50% - 48% [19]
Connecticut:
Chris Dodd (D) def. Roger W. Eddy (R), 65% - 35%
Florida: Bob Graham (D) def.
Paula Hawkins (R), 55% - 45%
Georgia: Wyche Fowler (D) def.
Mack Mattingly (R), 51% - 49%
Hawaii:
Daniel Inouye (D) def. Frank Hutchinson (R), 74% - 26%
Idaho: John Evans (D) def.
Steve Symms (R), 50.6% - 49.3% [20]
Illinois:
Alan J. Dixon (D) def. Judy Koehler (R), 65% - 34%
Indiana:
Dan Quayle (R) def. Jill L. Long (D), 61% - 39%
Iowa:
Chuck Grassley (R) def. John P. Roehrick (D), 66% - 34%
Kansas:
Bob Dole (R) def. Guy MacDonald (D), 70% - 30%
Kentucky:
Wendell H. Ford (D) def. Jackson M. Andrews (R), 74% - 26% [21]
Louisiana: John Breaux (D) def. Henson Moore (R), 53% - 47% [22]
Maryland:
Charles “Mac” Mathias (R) def. Michael Barnes (D), 59% - 41% [23]
Missouri: Kit Bond (R) def. Harriett Woods (D), 52% - 48%
Nevada: Harry Reid (D) def. James Santini (R), 50% - 44%
New Hampshire:
Warren Rudman (R) def. Endicott Peabody (D), 62% - 32%
New York:
Al D’Amato (R) def. Mark Green (D), 57% - 40%
North Carolina: Terry Sanford (D) def.
John P. East (R), 54% - 46% [24]
North Dakota: Kent Conrad (D) def.
Mark Andrews (R), 50% - 49%
Ohio
: John Glenn (D) def. Tom Kindness (R), 62% - 38%
Oregon:
Bob Packwood (R) def. Rick Bauman (D), 63% - 36%
Pennsylvania:
Arlen Specter (R) def. Robert W. Edgar (D), 57% - 43%
South Carolina:
Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D) def. Henry McMaster (R), 64% - 36%
South Dakota: Tom Daschle (D) def. Bill Janklow (R), 54% - 46% [25]
Utah:
Jake Garn (R) def. Craig Oliver (D), 72% - 27%
Vermont:
Patrick Leahy (D) def. Richard Snelling (R), 64% - 35%
Washington: Brock Adams (D) def.
Slate Gorton (R), 51% - 49%
Wisconsin: Ed Garvey (D) def.
Bob Kasten (R), 51% - 49% [26]
After the election, Democrats gained nine Senate seats and controlled the Senate, 58-42. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) was elected majority leader; Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) was elected minority leader. [27]
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NOTES:
[1] IOTL, this is simply the “Gilmer Civic Center,” and it is indeed one of the nicest civic centers in Northeast Texas.
[2] OTL’s Gilmer Civic Center
wasn’t built until 1997; here, with a famous resident in Congress and a small line-item in the 1986 budget, it gets built a decade earlier.
[3] Dave’s data-driven operation continues to put him ahead of the curve as compared to most campaigns being waged in 1986, but the notion of understanding the ratio of converting interest to action was well-known even in OTL’s 1980s.
[4] All true.
[5] See, for example, this warning from
post #1216.
[6] Today, of course, we expect our political candidates to dress casually; in 1986, it was virtually unheard-of.
[7] Tracking, of course, OTL’s 1994 album of the same name. As OTL, “Crossfire” began airing on CNN in 1982.
[8] Teased way back in
post #554, in which Henley also fatefully re-introduced Glenn to Danny Kortchmar.
[9]
South of Sunset was announced back in
post #1071; “Don’t Look Back” is TTL’s Glenn Frey-Danny Kortchmar collaboration and is as much as can be salvaged from OTL’s “Boys of Summer.” See note 8.
[10] Don Felder memorably used a 12-string electric guitar in the original “Hotel California.”
[11] I’ve stolen the optics here from the “History of the Eagles” concert, down to Henley playing the “drums” on Glenn’s guitar case. (I
think they were playing “Peaceful Easy Feeling.”) It was moving for me then, and I think it would be moving for anyone in the Dirty Laundryverse who got a chance to see it, too.
[12] Dave Orlovsky will, of course, never get to hear OTL’s acoustic version of “Hotel California" from the Hell Freezes Over album, or, for example, this
pretty damn good concert version. Their loss, but on balance, the Dirty Laundryverse residents are way ahead of us in terms of good music.
[13] In
post #1124, we learned that 30% of Democrats and 70% of independents in Don’s district were concerned about potential Satanic messages in “Hotel California,” showcasing a very vulnerable incumbent.
[14] On face, this seems like an enormous margin, but IOTL, Jim Chapman (D-TX-1)
ran unopposed, garnering 84,445 votes. Remember that this is 1986, and Henley’s district has nearly twice as many Democrats (55%) as registered Republicans (34%).
[15] In his first special election to Congress,
Henley garnered just 20,340 votes amidst poor turnout, winning by 2.5 percentage points (or less than 1,000 actual voters). Here, he wins 100,189 (68%) to 47,148 (32%), with above-average turnout for a congressional race in that year.
[16] I can't do a breakdown of all 435 Congressional races, but I can at least tell you how the Senate shapes up. Individual results are not significantly changed from OTL unless noted otherwise.
[17] Goldwater seeks another term due to what he perceives as the increased influence of the Christian right particularly in light of the ongoing “Satanic Panic” crisis. As a result, up-and-coming Democratic candidate Richard Kimball stays in the Arizona legislature instead of running for the Senate. John McCain -- who won this seat IOTL -- runs for Governor instead, defeating Evan Meacham in the primaries before narrowly defeating Arizona Secretary of State Rose Mofford (D), 52% - 48%. (IOTL, Meacham won 40% against a Democratic challenger, Carolyn Warner and a second Democrat, Bill Schultz, who ran as an independent. Meacham would be impeached for a variety of financial crimes in 1988.)
[18] IOTL, moderate Republican Ed Zschau won the nomination over the more conservative Herschensohn, and came within a few percentage points of defeating Cranston in the general election. Herschensohn would run for the same Senate seat again in 1992, winning the Republican nomination but losing the general election to Barbara Boxer.
[19] This is, of course, the seat vacated by incumbent Gary Hart (D), who declined to seek re-election to prepare for the 1988 Presidential election.
[20] This is a reverse of OTL’s results, in which the incumbent Symms defeated then-outgoing Gov. Evans 51.6% to 48.4%. Symms is a doctrinaire religious Right conservative; Evans is Mormon. Mormons are a significant percentage of the electorate in Idaho, and, ITTL, have mostly sat out the "Satanic Panic" fight to date. As a result, Symms is hurt fractionally by the backlash and loses a race he narrowly won IOTL.
[21] Ford won 74% of the vote and a majority in all 120 Kentucky counties; a record that stands to this day IOTL and ITTL.
[22] This is the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Russell B. Long (D), and although the events leading to Breaux’s victory are rather bizarre, I’m convinced they’re butterfly-proof. Long himself wanted sitting Gov. Edwin Edwards (D) as his hand-picked successor; Edwards was currently under indictment for fraud and would be acquitted in 1986.
[23] IOTL, Mathias – by that time one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate – agonized over whether to seek re-election, ultimately dropping out in late ’85. The seat would be won by then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski (D), who still holds it to this day. ITTL, Mathias runs and wins easily over Barnes, a much less well-known Congressman who attempted (and failed) to make the ’86 campaign about Mathias’ “inability to stand up to Ronald Reagan.”
[24] East, who remains in office ITTL rather than committing suicide, loses to popular Gov. Terry Sanford (D) in a strongly Democratic year. IOTL, Sanford defeated interim Sen. Jim Broyhill (R) 52% - 48%.
[25] IOTL, incumbent Sen. James Abdnor (R) managed to stave off a primary challenge from Janklow, but lost in the general election to Daschle. Here, Abdnor is unseated by Janklow in the primary; either way, Daschle wins in the general election.
[26] This reverses OTL’s outcome, in which Kasten narrowly defeated Garvey, 51-48.
[27] In the Dirty Laundryverse, the Democrats net one additional seat beyond their gains IOTL in the 1986 mid-term elections. It breaks down like this: Evans (D) defeated Symms (R) in Idaho, and Garvey (D) defeated Kasten (R) in Wisconsin, but Mathias (R) held on to his Maryland Senate seat instead of retiring and paving the way for OTL's Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).
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