News-Sentinel.com

Thursday, 12/21/2000

SON OF A SON OF A POLITICIAN

CHAPTER 1

It all started with a yard sign



Photo by (Courtesy of Paul Helmke)
Three generations of HelmkesThree generations of Fort Wayne politicians -- Paul Helmke, left; his father, Walther P., second from left; and Paul's grandfather, Walter E., far right -- stand with then-Indiana Gov. Otis R. Bowen on May 1, 1975, at the local Sheraton Hotel. Bowen wrote, "My very best wishes to three generations of Helmke attorneys."

The whole 1987 campaign came as a surprise to me.

I had grown up liking politics and government, and came from a family that had liked politics and government. I had always seen myself being involved in politics, first as president of my senior class at North Side High School, then as student body president at Indiana University in the late 1960s.

One of the reasons I came back to Fort Wayne after law school was to help my father, Walter, run for Congress in 1974, with an eye toward getting into politics myself. After my father lost, I helped Dan Quayle run for Congress in 1976. He also asked me to run his local office, but I turned him down. I didn't see any political future in it. Meanwhile, in 1980, I ran for Quayle's seat and lost in the primary to Dan Coats, the same guy who took the job to run the local office I had turned down.

After losing in 1980, I thought to myself, "I'm no good at this running for office business and if I'm going to do politics, it's going to be more behind-the-scenes stuff." After May 1980, I didn't have too many political ambitions although I still enjoyed being involved, like with the 1983 city election when Charles "Bud" Meeks lost to Win Moses Jr. for mayor. I stayed active in community organizations but I didn't have anything in mind.

Mayoral beginnings

At the start of 1987, I had no plans to run for mayor. I had gone to a number of State of the City addresses over the years, and didn't even bother going to the one in 1987. If I were planning to run, I surely would have attended.

Speculation leading into the 1987 election said Moses could be vulnerable because of his campaign finance violations and legal problems from 1985. But the GOP didn't really have anybody in mind to run and Win still seemed to be keeping his popularity high. I really didn't think about running.

County Commissioner Ed Rousseau, who at the time was onCounty Council, was the name mentioned most. He was thinking about it. I remember going to a meeting in January 1987, where I met with Rousseau and Linda Buskirk, who at that time was working for the county commissioners, to discuss the possibility of Rousseau running for mayor. I came out of the meeting thinking it wasn't clear Rousseau wanted to run and that he was more interested running for commissioner.

I was sort of left thinking Rousseau wasn't going to run and no other candidates were coming forward. So, I started thinking maybe I should get involved. I actually considered running for 5th District City Council against Mark GiaQuinta, but I didn't sense Mark was vulnerable. I had been talking to Alan McMahan, who was GOP city chairman at the time, and I'd see him in the morning when I was out jogging. He had always been a political adviser and he told me to keep open my options. I told him I was thinking about running for City Council. He was the first, I believe, who told me I should consider running for mayor.

It was February and still no one had signaled he wanted to run as a Republican. But I felt reluctant to do it. Moses would be difficult to beat. I wasn't sure it was the right kind of life for me. My one daughter was just turning 10, the other was 5. And from a personal side, I wasn't sure I was ready for it.

But I started getting advice from other people. Ernie Williams, former editor at The News-Sentinel, gave me his advice and it was not to run. Instead, he saw my candidacy as an attempt by Orvas Beers, GOP chairman, to tack on another loss to destroy me politically. My father's advice was to not run but back somebody who could win and become city attorney. My wife, Debbie, didn't want me to run, but I was still fascinated by the idea.

It was finally getting down to almost the last day to file. McMahan wanted a decision from me because he'd need a couple of days to get somebody else. Otherwise, it would have looked bad if the filing deadline had passed and the GOP had nobody on the ballot.

A call to public service

It happened one morning. Former President Gerald Ford had been in town the day before to speak at one of the local high schools. My clock radio turns on, and there's a story about how Ford had been in town telling students they should get involved in the political process. It was sort of a wake-up call hearing that. The message was something I was always telling my daughters. "You always have to get involved." It's what I told elementary and high school students. Politics is something to get involved in.

And it got me thinking. All my life I had been involved in politics and was fascinated by it. I felt it was important to be part of the process. And here was the opportunity to run, and I really had this twinge of conscience, that if I did not do this, it would be selfishness on my part. By not running I was more concerned about keeping up the income level from the law practice, and just having things nice and comfortable, than I was about doing those things you're supposed to do as a good public citizen.

The decision is made

I decided then that I'm going to do it. I called McMahan and told him I would run. Then I asked him, what should I do next? We set up a time for me to announce. A lot of the local media didn't know who I was. We set up an announcement at the Performing Arts Center, where I made a few comments about how the city had gone in the wrong direction, and that some of Win's problems had hurt Fort Wayne. I also was concerned about the city's finances, and said we needed to get the city again on the right track.

The announcement got good play. But I didn't have a campaign manager, I didn't have a media strategy, I didn't have anything but the willingness to get out there and give it a try.

'What have I gotten myself into?'

So that was sort of the start. And then, it was, "What have I gotten myself into?" My wife said she didn't know I was running until she read it in the paper. I probably told her, but she believed we had decided I wasn't going to run. For a lot of people, it was, 'Who is this person?' The name was known more from my father.

For the Republican Party, I was sort of their chosen candidate. My candidacy had the support of the party elders, including Orvas Beers. They sensed, however, it was going to be tough to beat Win. Somebody like me with some sort of name recognition meant I had potential but as a long shot.

Early on, it was tough. I had a busy law practice with cases in progress and client work to do. So, for the first couple of months, it was more of me being a lawyer instead of a campaigner. And I had nothing set up; I relied on the party for everything. We talked about campaign managers, and I finally chose Dan Heath, who had worked for Coats. Heath had come to my candidacy announcement from Coats' office and apparently felt sorry for me. He looked at me as someone who didn't have the slightest idea how to run a campaign. When he found out I didn't have a campaign manager, he couldn't believe it.

But Heath came aboard and it was really a significant choice of someone with campaign experience.

The party did some polling with Bob Teetor, a market opinion pollster, who later became connected with Quayle and former President George Bush. Beers was a friend of Teetor's from a lake cottage in Michigan, and Teetor did some polling for the party. And it showed me way behind in terms of name recognition. But the significant thing I found out was there was some weakness in Moses' support. The challenge for me was to become better known and to engage Moses to make it a contest.

Engaging the enemy

That last statement ended up being prophetic. It's exactly how things turned out, although at the time, we didn't know how we would do things. The campaign started out slowly because of my work. The first public poll came out around the primary election in May; it showed me behind 2-1. It wasn't very encouraging. In fact I was at a Kentucky Derby party thrown by friends and got a call from a reporter, and I remember asking myself, "How do you spin this?" There isn't much you could do except say there was no place else to go but up.

We started to raise some money, and brought in John Commorato, from Commorato Video, to do media for us. He was somebody interested in trying new ideas. One of the things we did early were video billboards. They were 10- or 15-second commercials, my face and name, and something catchy, like trustworthy or integrity. It would play on Moses' weakness, but also got out the name and face and the "think-about-it line" to voters.

It started to help, along with neighborhood walks. I could really see the difference when the TV ads came out. But things were still going slow. A lot of the local GOP was anti-Moses but they weren't buying into me yet.

It started with a sign

Then, around July 4, I had done a neighborhood walk and went to my father's lake cottage for the weekend. And then, I read yard signs we had put out violated city ordinance. In June, Heath had bought some yard signs. I had believed the signs were a waste of money. I believed we needed money for TV. He was the manager, and I couldn't micro-manage everything. And he started putting up the signs early, which I also didn't agree to. And then when I read they violated some ordinance I think, "Great, this is something I didn't want to do and now we're in trouble for it."

So I'm kind of upset. But then I got to thinking about it. What do you mean they have a city ordinance where you can't put up a yard sign? It's a free speech issue, and I taught media law, and had represented The News-Sentinel and clearly, individual property, if not city right-of-way, is where people can put up any sign they want.

We started to take the position with the Moses administration we have a right to put up yard signs in our supporters' yards. And it escalated. We wound up dealing with the right-of-way department, neighborhood code enforcement officials, and these letters back and forth wound up being publicized in the media.

Finally, the issue was making its way to Win and his attorney, Bruce Boxberger. And it was Teetor's advice come true: We had to find a way to engage Moses and get my name out there. And here was an issue we hadn't planned on, yet it fell right in our lap when it came to publicity. I don't think Win's people saw it as a problem: "Here's a city ordinance. Follow it."

But we saw the free speech implications. It being a quiet summer with not a lot of news to cover, TV people covered the issue by focusing on our nice, light blue yard signs. And during neighborhood walks, people began to tell me they had seen my TV ads. However, I hadn't done any new ones since the first ads came out earlier. So, people were seeing the news stories about the yard sign controversy without paying close attention to the fact it wasn't a campaign ad. Yet for the entire month of July, that's exactly what it became.

The controversy develops; we file a lawsuit to overturn the matter. The city finally saw it was hurting Moses politically, so officials wound up settling the case with us. That month, it really helped increase my name ID and gave us an issue that resonated with the average voter.

Trouble's a-brewing

In August, Win's troubles started to accelerate. The Frank Hopkins trial had started in the murder of neighborhood activist Sharon Lapp. And I'm not sure anyone knew the trial's effect on the city race. But it had a negative effect on Win.

It was the side issues, the ones about how the Police Department was run; about Dave Riemen, the police chief, and Win, showing up at the murder scene afterward and files being removed. And this scenario got into whether Sharon Lapp had some dirt about Moses and his family included in a newsletter from the neighborhood. The case raised the issue of police procedures and Win's role in it.

There were newspaper headlines: "I Smoked Dope in the Mayor's House." Those headlines sure didn't help. And they raised questions about Moses, and even messy police revelations that led to the resignation of Riemen and Public Safety Director Larry Consalvos for their roles in the matter.

Most of the discussion about how to use this information concerned the fact we didn't know when things were going to come up and what would become public from the trial. Our attitude was let's keep our mouths shut and see what happens. Trials aren't political and shouldn't be politicized, even though others might have thought that way. But clearly the fact the trial went on that summer helped us politically because it revealed so much of the details from these sideline issues.

The resignations of Riemen and Consalvos were a sign this wasn't just a legal issue about murder for the public. And it wasn't about somebody just trying to score political points. Instead, there were real problems that led to the resignations. And by coming to a head at this stage, it hurt Moses significantly.

It was the blow that brought us even, and polls after Labor Day had us right around there. But we believed we were still behind because Moses had the money and the recognition.

Then the issue of debates came up. With his weakening politically because of the Lapp case, Win opted to agree to several.

The whole Lapp case tied into how honest was the whole operation. The basic line on Win was always he was a good mayor when it comes to economic development, he was good rallying the community in times of crisis, and he was a bright person. But there was a sense of something shady. His pleading guilty to three misdemeanors to campaign finance violations and the subsequent short-lived resignation were seen as proof of a problem. But again, he was very popular when he returned to office after a Democratic Party caucus vote returned him there after his resignation. I had the sense folks resented him more for coming back after the resignation than the campaign violation charges.

The resentment expanded to how they did the budget, how they did deals, and how they operated the Police Department. People are cynical and questioning of politicians. But it's one thing when it's campaign law or some other relatively arcane issue, another when it gets into police issues where people are very concerned and interested.

Win the politician

Because of Win's skill as a politician, the challenge for me was to prove myself. Meanwhile, from Win's perspective, he had to show he was the expert.

I was always impressed with how good Win really is. I know a lot of politicians, and Win is one of the best. Again, he might be lying through his teeth; he might be making it all up. But when he stands in front of a crowd, he knows how to connect with them, he has the right amount of enthusiasm, he says things people want to hear, he tries to tear down and poke holes deftly with the right amount of knife. He's good.

In my time with Win over the years, whenever we're on the same platform, I come away saying to myself, "That guy's good. I'm glad I out got out of there in the 1987 election with a win, because he's tough."

Even when I ran against Evan Bayh in 1998 for U.S. Senate -- and Bayh is good -- I believe Win's better. In debates with Bayh, he was more of a guy with a good set piece who knew what the script would be and who would try to stay calm and deliver it.

Win could do that as well. But if an unknown came up, whether it was a question from the audience, or someone jumping at him from an angle, Win could handle the situation just about as well as anybody. And I'm not sure Bayh has those skills. He's good. But Win, in terms of his political skills, is tops.

That's why it's so amazing that everything went wrong for him -- and some things were out of his control -- when things played out in 1987.

Debating the man

I felt I was his equal intellectually. But he knew more about city government than I, and he had a lot more experience than I. That's why the first debate was so crucial. Win's attitude was he was going to blow me out of the water at a free-form debate at the Performing Arts Center with questions from the audience after opening statements. Those are the scariest types, because you don't know what they come up with to blindside you. You have to be ready for anything.

We wanted to make sure we had a crowd there because we knew Win would have his supporters from the City-County Building on his side. Dan Heath organized a reception in the gallery beforehand, which brought people out there early. It helped psychologically knowing you have friends out there; even if you're going to screw up, they would clap and bolster you.

Win comes in and his first move is to take off his jacket, loosen his tie, roll up his sleeves. It's one of these psyche moves on your opponents, to show he's the hard-working mayor who knows what he's doing and that he can take care of things. It was the image of the debate being a minor distraction from a busy schedule.

But I wasn't going to change my way. I stayed at the podium, and when the questions came, I answered them well.

I tried to hit my points that we want to do government well, and do finances and police as well. I wasn't rattled.

After the debate, the media and folks in the business community saw me as a legitimate candidate who could do a legitimate job as mayor. It was the crucial thing to get across; I had to show I was a legitimate candidate.

There was a another debate at the chamber; Win realized after the first debate it was going to be tougher this time around.

Looking the part

I was coached to this extent: I was helped to look mayoral. I did a faux State of the City speech, and it was taped. And I delivered the speech sitting behind a desk, getting across my themes. As far as preparation for the debates, we at one time had someone ask questions but nobody played the role of Moses. Instead, the idea was just to see how I'd answer potential questions.

I don't do much debate preparation; if you have a free-for-all format, preparation can give you a sense of how you'll answer questions to keep answers short. But sometimes you over-prepare for these things and you never quite sound right. I guess it's just my debate style, a living-on-the-edge kind of feeling.

Negative campaigning?

At this stage, the campaign and debates are doing well. We're close and maybe even ahead in the polls. It was great having two newspaper polls because we didn't have the money for our own.

We had to decide toward the end what kind of ads to run after our positive, this-is-Paul-Helmke message. And there was a concern whether Moses would go negative on us and if we should respond.

We prepared a negative ad against Moses, which I thought was very well-done, but it never ran. One of the big issues was whether to run it or not. It was a debate whether to go negative, and I never really liked negative ads and voters don't like them.

The ad reminded people of Moses' legal problems with his campaign finance violations. It showed just the newspaper headlines leading up to Moses' indictment, his response of it as just politics, then onto the "Moses Guilty" headline. No voice-over, except maybe a reading of the headlines leading to the guilty one. And in the end, the ad showed a gavel coming down with "Enough is enough" as the message. For a negative piece, it was well done but I didn't run it.

The Republican state chairman at the time, Gordon Durnil, came down, viewed it and said to run it. A lot of party officials felt the same way.

I made the call not to. I made a point of running a positive campaign and there had been a lot of negatives through allegations in the Lapp trial, about Moses and his brother, but I hadn't been a part of any of it. And I didn't want to be any part of it. I felt I had established credentials on my own, and wanted the folks' emphasis to be on who I was. And if folks had negative feelings about Win, I wanted them to get those feelings on their own and we didn't need to do anything to remind them of it.

What a strange trip

It was a strange election season. Also with the Lapp case was all the Michael Moses stuff that came up, with him being mentioned as a suspect in the murder of a cleaning woman. I never did understand that. I wasn't involved in any of this stuff. Other folks that might have known from the prosecutor's office what was going on purposely kept me out of it. You can't figure out what everyone is doing or why.

From what I heard, it sounded like officials were doing things legitimately; that there were suspicions in regard to Michael Moses. And if the tip sheet had been publicized, maybe they would have had something. I don't know, I wasn't hearing too much more than the public was.

Apparently, there were a lot of people who hated Win Moses. And they were out to get him and do him in. I obviously had my concerns about Win but I didn't want to be a part of it and wasn't a part of it. Every now and then I heard something was going to happen, "but we're not going to tell you. It might be at the prosecutor's office or someplace else. Just don't ask."

You want to make sure people are playing fair but you don't have a right to find out things from the prosecutor's office.

It was a funny campaign.

Theories and timing

I didn't believe events were being orchestrated behind the scenes. After I was elected, I went to this new mayor's school put on at Harvard University by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. And each of us had to sum up ourselves, and I summed up a little bit about the election. I told them I ran against a two-term incumbent who had gotten 74 percent of the vote the last time, who had gotten national attention for turning back the flood and turning around the economy, who had been talked about as a gubernatorial candidate, who had all these political skills, who had an approval rating in April of 65 percent-70 percent, who polls showed led me by 2-1 at the start of the campaign with the economy going strong. And people would ask, "How did you ever beat this guy?"

And then, I'd say, at the same time this guy pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors, resigned from office and put himself back in through the precinct committee people he controlled. He had made headlines about kids smoking dope at the mayor's house, the police chief and safety director resigned, and his brother is accused of murder. And they said, "Why didn't you wipe this guy out?"

It was timing that wasn't orchestrated. These events, starting with the yard signs and then the Lapp trial and the Michael Moses situation, they just all fell into place. There are people who believe in conspiracy theories; instead, I've always believed things sometimes just happen. It's occurred to me before, if not for the yard signs, the Lapp case wouldn't have had the same effect because I'd be seen as someone who really wasn't contesting Win, so the situation surrounding her murder was no big deal.

Day of reckoning

It was all a blur on Election Day, but I still believed Win was going to win. He had a lot of positives going for him, despite taking a lot of hits.

Come Election Day, it's like 70 degrees and sunny, and I ponder the old standard line about good weather helping Democrats. Oh boy, this isn't going to help at all.

A lot of my tactics were to focus on Democratic parts of town. My theory was to run everywhere; I'd walk Democrat, swing and GOP districts. And near the end, I focused more on Democrat and swing districts. With research, I found some precincts where a Democrat would win like 350-10. There were some precincts where Republicans wouldn't even get into double figures. Popular political wisdom says don't even campaign there, you'll get wiped out anyway. My theory is you try to campaign everywhere, and I spent a lot of time in those precincts. It paid off for me; I still lost those precincts, but instead of by 350-10 I lost them 150-20, for example. It might sound like a wipeout but there's a difference of a couple hundred votes from past GOP showings.

It's election night and people are at the house. I'm getting excited; I have a scotch or two. But I don't want to drink too much because I'll have to speak later. But I'm also nervous and when some of the returns from my home precinct come in, I realize it's close.

And then around 9 p.m., Win comes on the television and concedes. I was shocked. Someone asked me after the election when I had thought I would win. And I said I didn't believe I had it won until he conceded because he knew more about these things than I did. I went downtown; the place is packed at the Summit Club. What an exciting night! I won by about 2,200 votes. All of a sudden the reality hits me. "I won this thing."

I felt I could handle it fine; this is what I prepared for all my life, government and politics. I looked at it a little bit like an outsider, like "Hmm, this is interesting. I'm going to do this now." It's a real challenge; it's such an important job. You don't realize how complicated the job is when you first run; you really do after you perform the job. It shows the limits of what you can do.

The next morning also is great, but all of a sudden you realize you have to put all this together and the headaches come soon enough. You realize a lot of the campaign was an anti-Moses vote. So the challenge for me was how to become not the anti-Moses but my own person. It's a challenge when voters unite to get somebody; it's hard to get those voters to support the winner as well.

On election night I went to the Fraternal Order of Police, where a lot of police officers had supported me, and they were rowdy and boisterous in celebration. And I said to myself, these are a lot of officers who wanted Chief Riemen and Moses out. But now, they all want to be police chief. And once I start picking and saying it's going to be this person and not these others, those officers aren't going to be too happy.

You figure quickly it's easier to campaign against somebody than to put together a coalition of your own.

Getting started

A lot of it, however, was fairly easy. Dan Heath stayed as chief of staff. My friend and law firm partner Tim McCaulay became city attorney. Linda Buskirk and John Stafford, who were involved in the campaign, were asked to come aboard. A lot of the people I identified during the campaign as good people I knew I would want to have stay on.

I wanted to keep somebody from the Moses administration to show we were going to be inclusive and weren't just going to throw out all the old folks. We ended up keeping Greg Purcell, from community and economic development. Despite him being a controversial official chosen originally by Moses, it turned out to be one of the better decisions I made. And I really didn't know Purcell that well.

Police chief was the hardest choice to make. I wanted to make sure we had a good selection to choose from. A lot of names were floated around; Greg Lewis had worked on the campaign and his name was mentioned, so were Neil Moore's and Dan Hannaford's. I'd go to police officers and ask for their pluses and minuses about these candidates, and Neil's came up positive the most. It surprised me; he hadn't worked on the campaign and I really didn't know him. It was down to Hannaford and Moore, and Neil had a bit of an edge on Hannaford, so I chose him as chief and Hannaford as assistant chief.

Nothing quite like it

I've always had a healthy ego and I think highly of my skills; I think that way whether I'm winning or losing. But winning is nice.

The challenge is not to allow the adulation and praise change the way you think of yourself or the way you do things. And I don't think it did. I've never been shy about liking attention and liking to be paid attention to; I like it whether I'm in office or not. But it sure didn't hurt.

If someone's looking for a thrill or a real high, winning, especially when you're the underdog, is one of the highest highs you can get. It feels great.

Cast of characters:

Ed Rousseau -- Allen County commissioner; also elected to the City Council and Allen County Council

Orvas Beers -- Former long-time chairman of the Allen County Republican Party

Alan McMahan -- Former city chairman of the Allen County Republican Party

Dan Heath -- Now an Allen Superior Court judge, Heath served as Helmke's campaign manager and chief adviser; lost to Jill Long for 4th District U.S. Representative in 1989

Frank Hopkins -- Convicted of the May, 1985 stabbing death of neighborhood activist Sharon Lapp

Sharon Lapp -- Neighborhood activist found murdered in her south-side home; kept files of alleged wrongdoing by city officials in the Moses administration

Moses' Police Chief David Riemen and Public Safety Director Larry Consalvos -- Both stepped down for their involvement in the mishandling of evidence in the Lapp murder investigation

Michael Moses - Win Moses' brother, who was mentioned as a suspect in the 1987 murder of a dentist office cleaning woman; no charges were ever brought against him