Interview

Democracy in Action: What is your first political memory, going way back to when you were a kid?

Karger: I have a very clear one.  And I was probably about, I'm guessing eight years old.  My father was the Republican precinct chairman in my small town of Glencoe, Illinois.  He was a precinct captain, not a big job, but just for that particular precinct...  So it's a commuter town where a lot of business people take the train in and out of Chicago.  So campaigning there is very much people oriented, where you would go to the train station and give people a brochure when they leave in the morning or when they come home at night.  So I would meet him when he would come home from the station, we'd meet at the station, and we'd hand out brochures, and I'm guessing it was probably for Eisenhower for president or whatever campaigns were going on then.  It was my very first effort.  He brings his 8-year old son, and people will take a brochure from a child, and I just, I guess I got hooked at that young age.

Democracy in Action: And you grew up in that area. How far is that from Chicago?

Karger: It's 20 miles due North.

Democracy in Action: Did you go to high school and university in that area too?

Karger: Yeah, we lived in the same house, my parents lived in it for I think 27 years or something, so I went starting with pre-school, kindergarten, all through junior high, and then there's a, its called New Trier High School that about four or five of the suburbs all go to, which is a big high school...  I went to the new New Trier.  My first year we were all combined and then with this baby boomer explosion they had to build a new high school.  So they drew the district in half and I went there for three years, and then went off to the University of Denver to college, which was a popular spot with a lot of my friends and...my high school.  And then after that I went back to Chicago and I worked for a United States Senator in his re-election campaign, Chuck Percy.  I'd worked on his previous two campaigns, for governor in '64 and then his first race for Senate in '66, when he won.  And this was his re-election campaign, which was the only easy campaign I've ever worked on in my life.

Democracy in Action: Would the Percy campaign be the first campaign you ever worked on as a staffer, a paid person?

Karger: I was not paid.  My first two ventures--when he ran for governor I was 14 years old.  I used to ride my bicycle, this was in Kenilworth from Glencoe, it was about three towns down, and I worked in the basement.  They had a mail machine, a postage machine rather, and I'd stuff envelopes and sweep up.  And I remember, and in '66 he ran for Senate and I did the same thing; they had the same headquarters very close to his home and then right after I graduated from the University of Denver in 1972 I went back there and I was full time.  I had an apartment in the city and that was kind of my test to see if I was going to stay in Chicago.  But I worked full time as a youth director on his campaign, and we put together a bus tour for three weeks with his family and him going to all the small towns throughout Illinois. We stayed with families and it was a great, great experience, and my first real organizational effort.  In '66 I was 16, I didn't do much, I probably just was around headquarters too, but this was very substantive.  I got to know him.  You know he was my great mentor because he was a very, very progressive Republican, self-made business guy and very moderate on social issues. 

Democracy in Action: So did you learn anything on that first responsible position, that organizing the bus tour?

Karger: ...It was a tremendous learning experience because his god-daughter, the two of us were assigned to this project.  Her name was Caroline Taylor.  She was from Phoenix, and her father was a doctor and very close friends with the Percys.  And so she was cute and a couple years older than I was, and we of course became best friends.  So we split up this trip and we advanced it, and I got a great amount of experience just going out there to set up.  They told us the cities they wanted to go to and then we would go to those.  We each took about, I don't know about 15 cities--towns not cities--and we'd go figure out what would be a good thing for Senator Percy to do or this busload of kind of friends and family to do.  He wasn't on.  He'd kind of come on and off it, but his son was on it, daughter-in-law and a couple of his other kids would come on and off and his niece was on it the whole time.  So it was a great learning experience. 

We had a Greyhound bus that we got donated from some church in Milwaukee.  We decorated it and then I had to get a bus driver's license to drive a Greyhound bus because we had this college student driving it.  He drove us all on this three-week tour but then we kept the bus until Election Day.  And I learned how to drive a bus, and one with the clutch going out.  You need a special license and normally you have to go to school for trucks and bus driving and stuff, but we were in one of these stops and one of the attendees at this reception we had was like the coroner, the clerk and the driving officer so he said "I can give you a licence."  I barely knew how to drive stick shift, and I get in the bus and I think I ran over four lawns and I'm driving this huge Greyhound bus in this small town in southern Illinois.  He goes, "You pass."  So anyway then I had to drive around the city of Chicago and by then I got better at it, but that was my first--it's the classic all around experience, but it's what got me really out there.

I was telling Kevin [Kevin Miniter, travelling aide] we did visit a lot of nursing homes.  And when I was in New Hampshire last week, as I have every time I've been there.  My 97-year old aunt lives in an assisted care facility, and I go to see her...  It's full circle.  That's how I started in 1972 as 22 year old, we called on a tremendous number of nursing homes.  And it was pretty--that was [a] new and very difficult experience for me, but it was very rewarding to see how people reacted, not even to him, just to a bunch of us that were coming in to talk up our candidate.

Democracy in Action: One of the things that interests me in reading your website, what does it say, worked on nine presidential campaigns.  I'm wondering if you could just walk me through those?  What was the first presidential campaign you were involved with?

Karger: Well that was also in 1964.  It was Nelson Rockefeller.  And I why I say worked on, it's because I wasn't actually in a major role on that, but I was what I did, and it was phone banking.  I would take the train into the city of Chicago.  [Lunch arrives].

So my first one was 1964; this was the same year of the Percy thing, but Rockefeller was running and I was very intrigued by him.  And of course [he was] another great moderate Republican and the way I was raised.  So I'd take the train in and do phone banks, and I just loved it.  Actually somebody else asked me why are you doing this at 14.  And it hit me and I even started tearing up.  You know I was not a great athlete, I didn't quite fit in, I'm just dealing with the whole gay thing in my head.  So suddenly I was fully accepted and embraced.  I'd go in these political campaigns and they didn't care...anything, and they just welcomed me.  And it was a wonderful place, and I shined because I'm a people person, back then, so I'd be on the phone with the phone banks or just sweeping up.  I loved it.

And I went from that campaign.  The next one was Nixon, I guess, in '72, and that's when I was working for Percy.  And since I was a full-time volunteer, I was able to take time off, so I went to the Republican National Convention, my very first...

I was on this program called Young Voters for the President, and I met this guy on the plane, sharp, sharp guy, John Korf [sp.?], and we kind of became buddies, and we figured out...  I didn't know him; my parents actually were friends, we're from neighboring suburbs.  But he and I kind of figured out the system.  And they had these Young Voters for the President; they'd herd you in buses and you'd write out signs and you'd sit around airplane hangers all day, so we kind of left the group and started going to a lot of the parties and set up a meeting--  Actually he set it up, because he'd been an intern in DC, but he set up a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, and with a small group, like six of us.  And it was so exciting for me.  He had been my congressman, too and I had met him at the orthodontist office.  So I didn't do much on the Nixon campaign, but I did go to the convention, and I was a part of that.

And then '76.  That was kind of my first senior role.  My old boss' business partner Stu Spencer of Spencer-Roberts was running the Ford campaign.  So Bill Roberts called Stu Spencer--I had met Bill Roberts on a Senate race in '76 right when I got into politics in California, and he said you know, got this sharp young guy, find something for him.  So he put me on the White House staff during the Republican Convention, which was this big, big battle royale between Reagan and Ford in '76.  I was in charge of bringing up the uncommitted delegates to meet with the President of the United States, and I was 26 years old, and it was just this thrill of the lifetime for me.  And so I did a lot then on the campaign back in California when President Ford would come out there, again as a volunteer.  I was working at that point on an Assembly race, but I would take off from that to go do that.

And then we started working for John Connally in '79.  We were the western regional director for him, my boss was, and I was the number two guy to Bill Roberts.  He was the senior strategist; I'd implement everything.  And we worked together, very successful on many campaigns.  And so I had just started working for him in '77 for George Deukmejian, who was running for Attorney General, a state Senator.  And we were very excited to get this Connally campaign, who was the frontrunner.  He had all the endorsements, all the money, celebrities, private jets...  It was, I mean again I was 29 years old and I was travelling on the private plane with him.  I was [inaud.] with Jim Brady, who was his press secretary, and setting up, whenever he'd come to the West, which he did a lot.

Democracy in Action: Was that the Jim Brady?

Karger: Oh, yeah.  The Jim Brady.  That's how Reagan got him.  He had been Connally's press secretary.  And of course a great guy, a Cubs fan and from Chicago and everybody just adored him...

But Connally was a pretty intimidating figure.  Larger than life and a temper and all that, but we really ran things well and so whenever he'd come to the West, we'd have jets and limos and...travelling press, and so that's when I really was at a senior level in a presidential campaign which was super-exciting for me, and of course he just--  He raised $10 million, which was huge in those days, and got one delegate.  They spent all their money on...

Democracy in Action: What was [the problem with that campaign]?

Karger: Oh, they were DC based, and they bought all this antique furniture.  It was crazy....  Wasted all of his money before he even went to Iowa.

Democracy in Action: Was that the fundamental problem?

Karger: There was no money left, yeah.  By the time the actual election--this was '79, and we were flying all over, they had staff and consultants and they had the whole country organized.  You know we were the Western regional director.  Well none of those primaries happened until well into the process, and we were there a year early.  It was, you know we were hired.  Bill Roberts was not managing, although he was trying to, and then we had to go down to Florida and that was exciting, because Bill Roberts had run Florida for Ford and done a huge upset against Reagan just four years earlier.  And so we were hired to go down there, and three of us hopped on a plane and spent the next three or four weeks there until they completely ran out of money.  But it was fun to do that.  He was the frontrunner going against Reagan.  Reagan superceded him.

And then I worked on the Reagan campaign after he was the nominee.  I went to nine consecutive Republican conventions until this last one.  But I went to that convention and started working for Reagan then.  I was still at the Dolphin Group; we did all the California media buying for them, so I worked on that, and we had a couple of other projects, too.

And then '84 was when I did another major role, which was through the RNC for the Reagan re-election, it was kind of the opposition.  That's when I first began that effort and it was for, to kind of point out some of the weaknesses of the Democrat primary opponents--Hart, Mondale.  And we set up what was called the Republican Fact and Information Store.  We would tail them around to the Democratic debates and set up this big, one of those trade show like things.  We got a lot of surrogate speakers to do it, to come in and kind of point out the shortcomings of the nominees [candidates], and when it whittled down to Mondale we focused on him and I got to travel around. 

And I was in charge, I would have to go find these speakers.  And it was tough because it wasn't the re-election campaign, it was the RNC surrogate program, which was really the oppostion, which was very low budget, very small.  But Bill Roberts had this knack for being very aggressive.  That's where I learned it from, and so we did that all the way through the general election, going after Mondale, doing little kind of projects.  We did a poll in his precinct and found out you know Reagan was beating him three to one.  Because they...[had] a 50 state strategy, they wanted to win all 50 states.  They won 49.  So we went to Minnesota, we went to Texas, because there were big rifts between the Bush and Reagan supporters. So we went to meet with all the Bush people and bring them into the fold, because there'd still been a lot of animosity from four years earlier.  So that was very exciting for me too.  Here I am, 34 years old at that point...meeting with all these Texas billionaires.  We met with ?Harold Simmons and Governor Clements, who had just left office...  It was just exciting for me.  And coming u with a strategy to bring in the folks, the Bush folks.

So that was '84, and then '88 we did an independent expenditure committee for Dole, which was short lived.

Democracy in Action: In the primaries, in '87?

Karger: In the primaries.

An then the biggest thing I've ever done was in '88.  And Bill was not in great shape at that point--his health.  We'd done a special election for a congressional candidate, Steve Horn.  It was very tough to see him physically.  He had lost both his legs, diabetes.  And just all kinds of other health problems.

So we decided--he was great at setting up independent committees, just doing it.  He'd get some money people together and raise the money and [inaud.] press, all the columnists back here [in DC].  He was always the go-to guy.  And so we set up this committee to kind of be the opposition to Dukakis.  This was after--it was in June.  When we started this, we put a whole call list together of kind of people we wanted to bring on this.  And again it's not the vice president's campaign for president.  All the people want to really be on that.  This was this little independent committee.  So I started calling them, and Steve Garvey, the baseball star who was just starting to get rumored to run for office, anyway he was just on the list.  I called up and left a message for him, as I left messages for all of these, a lot of wealthy people...  Anyway, he called back.  Most didn't.  And you know the Bush thing.  "Oh I was just with Vice President Bush at the tennis tournament and I told him whatever I could do to help..."  So he [Garvey] kind of thought I was with the White House or something.  Anyway we're independent; we can't even talk to him [Bush].  And so I said we'd be in San Diego and we'd love to meet.  "Oh, sure."  ...  And so [I] met with him with my fundraising guy, signed him up, and he became our honorary chair of this new committee we called Committee for the Presidency.

I scrounged a thousand dollars together to cover my trip to New Orleans to that convention...and got Donald Bren, who's one of our billionaires, to fly him on his G4, 'cause you know he's a celebrity and so I brought him in style.  And I took him around and we met all the press.  And then Bill had just died, he died June 30th, so it was like all of the sudden okay Fred your on your own.  So after everything I went through I just got a hold of this whole effort, it was called Committee for the Presidency.  We had done a Supreme Court confirmation election two years earlier so I had worked with crime victims...  Willie Horton was emerging as a big issue.  My business partner came in one day and said get the Horton victims.  So we called through Reader's Digest, where they had been written up.  We called Donna Cuomo, whose 16-year old brother [ed. 17-year old] had been killed by Horton, the couple from Maryland, Cliff and Angie Barnes, who'd been raped, she was raped and tortured for... hours, and after a lot of discussions they agreed to come help us.

And so we launched this effort--by then we'd raised some money and I put a committee together, not much--but we launched it in San Diego, and we had a press conference there.  A good friend of mine was a county supervisor there, later became mayor, Susan Golding.  So she introduced them and she was the one who raised all the money on this thing.  And then we went up to L.A. and it was just the lead story on the national news that week.  It had been two days after the Quayle and Bentsen debate, when you know "You're no John Kennedy."  And it took that whole subject of Quayle, which was just sinking Bush and it just "pssshhhwt" pushed that right off the front pages and brought Willie Horton back on.  And then we did a lot with them.  We made a commercial that day.  After L.A. and San Diego they went up to Sacramento and my other business partner [inaud. advertising] made these two brilliant commercials with each, and trying to raise money to do that.  And then we went all over the country with the two of them and I went and travelled with them and we had a little staff and we had press conferences.  And we had no money to buy the commercials but we'd give everybody a VHS tape...  This whole thing maybe spent $300,000 on this national campaign. 

So that was '88 and then '92?  Bush's re-election.

Democracy in Action: Worked for the Buchanan campaign?

Karger: Yes, he called me up and...  [kidding] 

No.  I was on the floor of the Convention with the California delegation when Pete Wilson was governor of all of these moderate Republicans and they're all like "aaaaahh" and we were just dumbfounded.  I'll never forget that.

Democracy in Action: That speech.

Karger: That speech.  It was awful.

That was '92 then '96.  Have I got nine yet?  Laxalt was in there.  Actually Paul Laxalt, who was Reagan's best friend, he was the governor [of Nevada].

Democracy in Action: Did he do some kind of exploratory?

Karger: Oh, yeah.  Actually I worked with Bay Buchanan very closely.  Bill Roberts and Paul Laxalt were very close and so we called Bill, and we were on the ground floor of putting together this exploratory committee.  But then he decided--  I think it was '88 maybe.  Early, early. 

[ed. note. Laxalt formed an exploratory committee at the end of April 1987 and did an announcement at the National Press Club but ended his effort on Aug. 27, 1987.]

Is that nine?  It's pretty close.

I guess the most recent, yeah I guess maybe that was the ninth, was George W. Bush, which, you know, not too fond of now, but in 1999, no it was 2000 after he clinched the nomination, he put together it was called the Austin 12, which was Charles Francis, who was a family friend, who was openly gay; his brother was Bush's first campaign chair and they're very close.  They have houses on the same bass lake and everything.  So he asked Charles to put this group together.  And a couple of friends of mine were on it, and Bush had a press conference with them after the meeting, at the governor's mansion and said I'm a better man because of this.  And it looked like he was going to be great on the gay issues, the first Republican ever.  I mean four years earlier Dole had sent back a thousand dollars from Log Cabin [Republicans], sent it back.  Won't take your money.  And here's Bush meeting with--  It doesn't seem like a big deal now but in 2000 it was.

So anyway Charles I met at the Republican Convention there in Philadelphia and he brought me not only into this effort, which was called Public Community? Coalition which was a gay-straight alliance.  But it was kind of my coming out because at this point I'm 50 years old and not married.  And it's like well you're the gay or the straight?  Well you must be the gay.  It was a very emotional thing, but I kind of ran the California thing.  We had a big event, a free event, with Mary Matalin speaking during the Democratic Convention.  I got the house and I got the people there.  It was a great, great event and she's just sensational; she's such a great speaker and funny.  And then I did a lot.  Fundraising out there.  We did another fundraiser which was with Mary Cheney supposedly and then the whole big flap happened and she had to cancel.  I was out of the country or it wouldn't have fallen apart.  But a couple of people were working on it.  Anyway, that was a disaster it turned out.  And then of course Bush started out okay, his appointments and everything, and then to get re-elected he did what Karl Rove told him to do, not what his wife told him to do as we've since found out.

And I think that might have been it.

Democracy in Action: Looking back over all that, who are three or four political figures who you particularly admire?  You mentioned Chuck Percy.  Who are some of the others who really stand out in your estimation?

Karger: Well in my lifetime and that I've worked with, Ronald Reagan.  Just inspirational guy, and I'll never forget standing in Kansas City when he was giving his concession speech.  These intra-party fights sometimes are a lot more emotional than the out-of-party fights.  So here it was Ford-Reagan down to the convention, the last time that's happened.  Very emotional for the direction of the party.  Kind of like where we are now, what I'm hoping to do.  But anyway Reagan gets up there and gives that speech.  And the Ford people--you could just feel the collective thoughts around the convention.  "Hmm, maybe we made a mistake."  Because you know Ford, kind of bumbling and not a great speaker, and Reagan just gave one of his best speeches ever. 

I just loved Reagan.  He was just always upbeat and talked us out of the recession in 1981 when employment was high and we were in terrible shape.  This current president doesn't have that.  He has the ability, but he's not using it.  And so Reagan I just like.  I mean obviously some of his programs and positions and the fact that he didn't even talk about AIDS for so many years when my community and me were just so impacted.  Obviously nothing I can say to defend him on that.

Democracy in Action: Who are a couple of others who stand out?

Karger: Well, we're as different as two people on the planet, probably.  But George Deukmejian, who I spent so much time with.  I drove him all over the state for three years in my little Audi and worked with him on his governor's race.  He was, he's a career politician pretty much, lawyer and everything, but just thoughtful, compassionate.  The thing that really impressed me about him--  I mean so many things, tremendous integrity and very thoughtful.  Hated campaigning, and here I'm the campaign guy so every time I'd show up with a schedule it was just "uggg."  He wanted to go read bills and stuff.  And Bill Roberts used to say wears integrity on his sleeve.  This was 1981.  We're running against this guy Mike Curb who was a "junior Reagan" and had all the Reagan supporters and everything, and so some of the far right, the Christian right,  at that time which were just emerging, this guy ??Hal Azal and some of these people were not comfortable with Curb and they knew Deukmejian, he'd been around a long time, and they wanted to meet with him.  And here I'm the campaign manager, I'm saying let's go out and meet with these people...  So anyway he's out; he wouldn't meet with them.  I'd be in these senior staff meetings and I'd be oh come on...we'll do a five-minute meeting at the hotel, that's all they want, just shake your hand, take a photo.  He said, they make me uncomfortable.  And I'm thinking, here's this guy...he's authored the death penalty, he's Mr. Conservative on law issues, law enforcement--he'd been the attorney general.  But just uncomfortable.  And of course he saw 30 years ago the writing on the wall.  And had there been other Republicans who didn't kowtow--  And Reagan certainly did, I mean he utilized that group and they were effective.  And Bush, 13 million of them.  But it's highjacked the party.  So great respect and admiration for George Deukmejian.

Democracy in Action:How about looking at current politicians, people who are active today, from a distance in Congress, on Capitol Hill, governors, are there any who you think are doing a particularly good job?

Karger: You know I love Arnold Schwarzenegger; there's a great moderate.  Pro-marriage equality, unlike the president and most of the Democrats in the Senate and House.  I just think he's great.  Unfortunately the timing is bad.  The state for most of his second term particularly has been not just broke but so in the red and so he's unable to do the things--  It's very easy to be a popular governor when the state's in the black.  And that's unfortunate, but as far as being a leader in social issues and just a cool guy.  For a guy who's like me, how can you be a Republican?  Finally I get someone who's a great representative of the Republican Party who gets it, who wants to expand the party.  I'm a big supporter of his.