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  As I stood to make the long walk from the convention center to the Marriott that Sunday afternoon, my colleagues knew why I was leaving. This was a somber moment. They asked if I wanted someone to walk with me, but I declined that offer. I needed to walk alone so that I could pray.

  I wished my dad, Lionel, were alive. I remembered the day I called to tell him to turn on the television because Al Gore was going to make a big announcement about me. When he balked at that, I told him that Al Gore was going to announce that I was his campaign manager, the first black woman to run a presidential campaign. My father was unimpressed. He said, “It’s just a job.” I felt sad that I didn’t have him to call now. He always reminded me to be humble and grateful, fortunate to be chosen to serve. The truth was I didn’t feel lucky. I felt duty and responsibility to the party, to the president and the nominee, and to Bernie. Behind that feeling I could hear the voice of my father, a man who earned four Bronze Stars in the Korean War and always called on his children to respect their obligation to their country. I thought mostly of him during that twenty-minute walk.

  Just as I was nearing the hotel I ran into Jonathan Martin, a reporter from the New York Times. He looked excited.

  “What’s going on? What do you hear?”

  “I haven’t heard nothing,” I said. “There’s so much stuff swirling.”

  That wasn’t really a lie, but surely it was not the truth. Seemed like the job was already in me.

  I walked into the huge suite Debbie had reserved at the Marriott—I think it was the presidential one—with a dining room, living room and a kitchen and big windows. She was not in tears, but she looked like she’d just stopped crying. I was tempted to cry myself, because it sure felt like someone had just died. She was surrounded by family and congressional staff, and some members of the Florida delegation, many of whom were sniffling. I looked at Charlie, but he pointed me back to Debbie. I walked over to her and gave her a hug as a hush settled on the room. Everyone was watching us.

  “I just got off the phone with the president,” Debbie said to me. “I spoke with Hillary. And I think all of this email stuff has become a distraction.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was just meeting with the officers. We’re going to issue a joint statement, and I think you’ll like the statement,” I said.

  “I want you to know I am going to step down at the end of the week when the convention ends,” she said. “This is to give you some time to prepare to be the interim chair.”

  “That’s good, Debbie,” I said. “You worked hard for Hillary, and it’s important that you gavel in the convention.”

  “You’ll be the acting chair when I step down,” she said.

  “Just until the end of the week and then Hillary will have someone in mind,” I said.

  “That’s not in my hands,” she said. “I will step down on my terms and I will put out a statement.”

  “Okay, Debbie, you do what you need to do,” I said. “I will always be your friend.”

  She still wasn’t ready to resign.

  “I’ll be in charge of the convention and Friday I’ll just turn the gavel over to you.”

  I left her room with that aimless feeling you get after just leaving a funeral. A major party was about to nominate the first woman presidential candidate, but this did not feel like a triumph. Hillary had more primary votes than Trump or Sanders, and all of that was getting lost because of all the damn emails.

  I still didn’t want to talk to any reporters. I figured Debbie should tell the world what she was up to, not me. The press loved to talk about nothing but Donald Trump and emails, and now they had a fresh batch. They loved to write about Hillary’s problems and her shortcomings and never about the things that the public really cared about. This new crisis would keep us from talking about what we wanted to do for the country and how our candidate was so much more qualified and better prepared to lead than Donald Trump.

  My gut told me that Debbie would not last the week. If my hunch was correct I needed to call Lucy.

  Lucy Spiegel was an executive producer at CNN when I first started as a commentator for the network back in the fall of 2001. We’ve been friends ever since. She had retired to Annapolis in 2015, and I invited her to come to the convention as my guest so she could witness history being made when we nominated the first woman presidential candidate. I had snagged a backstage pass for her so she could experience the drama behind this historic convention. I could get her into all the good parties. Right then, however, I needed something from her. If I was going to be the party chair and in front of the cameras all the time, I needed a better wardrobe.

  I already was scheduled to speak Tuesday night, and for that occasion I had two dresses and a seersucker suit to choose from. When you’re a pundit, you only have to look good from the waist up. I brought many nice blue tops, but down below I wore jeans and sneakers, the perfect shoes for running around a big convention hall. I needed to step it up for this new role. With all her years on TV, Lucy knew how to outfit me, and she was my size. I caught her as she was getting ready to leave Annapolis, and she threw a few more dresses that she thought I might like into her bag. She met me at the hotel and we started to consider the outfits. We had dresses and jewelry and shoes for every outfit laid out on the chairs and sofas in the room, moving the pieces around until we thought we had the right mix. I told her to buy anything she thought I might need for the week. It was a big relief to have my good friend take care of that for me.

  On Monday morning we watched the hotel TV as the networks aired Debbie’s arrival at a breakfast meeting of the Florida state delegation. Knowing the pressure she was under, the networks decided to broadcast the ordeal live. The room was packed with outraged Bernie supporters who started booing the minute Debbie entered. Some held protest signs they’d printed out on computer paper that said EMAILS and THANKS FOR THE “HELP.”

  Debbie was brave, a lot braver than those congresspeople who run from the protestors at their town halls, and I was proud of her. She stood in front of this angry crowd and acknowledged that they were upset, but then tried to rally them to the cause of supporting Hillary. This only made them more angry, but she took her speech all the way to the end. She had to be escorted through the angry crowd by security, who hustled her out the service entrance.

  As I watched it all unfold on TV, I knew she wouldn’t last the day as the chair of the DNC. I imagined the Hillary brain trust huddled in a hotel suite, strategizing about the phone call they would make to insist that Debbie step down immediately. I knew they would want to do this before the convention opened, so a bigger version of that caucus scene would not unfold on the convention floor and be broadcast around the world.

  As Lucy and I headed toward the Wells Fargo Center that afternoon, those were the storm clouds that we saw gathering overhead, the category two hurricane that would sweep me into a job I hoped would last only a few days. I was not ready. I knew that.

  “Oh, my God, Lucy,” I said. “How can I just slow this down? This is happening too fast.”

  When Charlie called to tell me that I was to take over immediately, I told him I didn’t feel ready. I wanted to use this convention to heal the rift between the Hillary and the Bernie people, but I wouldn’t have time to do that if I became chair and had to run the convention itself. But it was happening immediately whether I liked it or not.

  Almost as soon as I accepted the fact that I could not avoid this, it seemed everyone else knew it, too.

  Suddenly I had an entourage. I had a press aide to block the media from bothering me, but dozens of other people suddenly wanted me to make decisions about one thing or another. At one point I turned around and noticed that this young woman was following me everywhere I went. I didn’t know if she was a member of my staff or a stalker. I asked her who she was, and it turned out that she was Debbie’s body woman, paid for by Debbie’s consultants.

  Her body woman?

  The president has a body man, a personal aide who f
ollows him everywhere and carries his phone and some of the things he needs, like tissues and pens; he also takes notes on things that need to be done. I have never had a body woman or man, and I found the idea ridiculous.

  Finally after a few hours of her trailing behind me I realized I had to have a talk with this young woman.

  “You know, this just is not going to work out between you and me,” I said. “I’m sure you’re good at your job; it’s just not a job that I need someone to do. Let’s try to figure out something else for you to do instead of following me around.”

  I also found out that as the incoming interim chair I was supposed to take over a room they had reserved for Debbie at the Logan Hotel, where most of the bigwigs from the party were staying. I preferred the Sheraton because it was where people I knew were staying: the party’s rank and file. The community organizers and union people, the teachers and the firefighters, were all there. The Hillary people wanted me to operate out of the Logan, which had a bar called the Commons, but there were very few common people who wanted to drink there. It was filled with party powerbrokers, lobbyists and big donors, the candidate, the Secret Service, the candidate’s family. Cocktails were $16 each, and a glass of wine set you back $12. Also, they didn’t even serve chicken wings. Who wants to go to a bar that doesn’t serve wings? The night before, when I dragged my tired self into the bar at the Sheraton after that unbelievably long day, people were shouting from many corners, “Hey Donna, whatcha drinking?” “Hey Donna come sit over here!” No one would be shouting that out at the Logan Hotel. I told Lucy to take over the room at the Logan.

  The problem I faced first was who was going to gavel in the convention. It was traditionally the role of the party chair to do so, but I didn’t want to do that to Debbie. It would seem as though I was gloating in my new role, and that was so far from the truth. No matter what she did or didn’t do as chair, Debbie deserved a respectful exit. I decided Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, mayor of Baltimore and party secretary, who had been intimately involved in planning the convention, would call it to order that afternoon. At 4 p.m., she did so, bringing the Democratic National Convention to order. She then turned the gavel over to Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was the permanent chair of the convention. Meanwhile I was able to stay offstage, get my bearings, and work on my speech, set for the convention’s second evening.

  I’d submitted my speech before the convention, but now that I was chair it was more important to set the right tone. As the convention got underway, Lucy and I holed up in my room at the Sheraton and went over my speech line by line, and we worked on picking out my outfit from all the clothes we had laid out on chairs and sofas.

  I was favoring the conservative and professional choices that reflected my dutiful mood, but as the convention came to a crescendo that first night with First Lady Michelle Obama’s incredible speech, I decided that I would not let these distractions and deflections get me down. We had a lot to be proud of as a party, and we could be particularly proud of Hillary and the way Bernie Sanders capped off the night with his own riveting speech.

  As the first night drew to a close, I knew I could no longer be the neutral voice among the pundits. I would have to toss aside my role as the expert and get my hands dirty in this thing if we were going to win. I felt my desire to help protect Obama’s legacy and accomplishments more strongly than ever after Michelle’s speech. There was so much on the ballot, including Obama’s protection of voting rights, criminal justice reform, expansion of Medicaid through Obamacare, and efforts to combat climate change, all of which needed to be preserved. I could not do that dressed for a funeral. For my big speech the next day Lucy and I chose a happy dress: simple black with a beautiful cream lace outer shell.

  That first night felt like a miracle: After all the drama of the primary campaign and especially the last forty-eight hours, the party had managed to come together. Could we get the feeling to last through the convention? On the second night, as I strode out onto the stage, I was nervous. This was the first time in my four decades in politics I had been asked to be a featured speaker. I had rehearsed my speech so many times, but I still didn’t feel as though I had nailed it. Standing at that podium, I looked out on the crowd, and it was looking into the face of America. I fell back in love with the party that had given so much to me. I searched out the Louisiana state sign, the place where I first cast my vote. I was proud to be standing on that stage to give my remarks. I felt that speech in me. I had written it myself and it came from my heart:

  Growing up, I was always told that a lady should never reveal her age, so I will simply say this. I’m no spring chicken. I’ve seen some things in my time. And as a child, I lived through and survived the segregated south. Who dat? I sat at the back of the bus at a time when America was not yet as great as it could be. As a grown woman, I saw the first black president reach down a hand and touch the face of a child like I once was, lifting his eyes toward a better future. But I have never, ever, in all of my years seen a leader so committed to delivering that better future to America’s children as Hillary Clinton.

  I talked about how she did not become a corporate lawyer right out of Yale, but worked for children’s rights at the Children’s Defense Fund and as the first lady of Arkansas. I contrasted her life of service to the corruption and self-dealing of Donald Trump. I wanted them to know who Hillary was when no one was watching, at her core, rooting her to this earth: her hope for children and her commitment to helping them live up to their God-given potential.

  My friends, as a child when I sat at the back of the bus, I was told time and time and again that God’s potential did not exist in people like me. I spent my life fighting to change that, and from the first day I met Hillary Clinton I’ve known that she is someone who cares just as much and would fight just as hard for children everywhere. Poor kids, you’ve got a champion. Kids who live in poverty, you’ve got a champion. Kids who need help, you’ve got a champion. As long as she’s in charge, we’re never going back. And that’s why I am with her! Let me say this as your incoming chair of the Democratic National Committee, I promise you, my friends, I commit to all Americans that we will have a party we all can be proud of. We will elect Democrats up and down the ballot, and we will celebrate together the inauguration of President Hillary Clinton in January 2017.

  I brought the crowd to its feet with that last line. Something came over me when I made that pledge before that huge audience. I was the chair of the Democratic Party for this historic election. I felt proud of all the party had done and proud of myself for standing there at that moment, ready to work as hard as I could to bring my friend Hillary to victory. When I finished my speech, I danced off the stage, first in little steps, a bit hesitant, like I did not have my feet under me yet. As I got away from the podium and saw all the happy faces of my friends standing in the wings with their arms open to welcome me, I started to sway a little more and take bigger steps. I had a reason to get back in the fight. I wanted to win this race for my nieces and nephews and, most important, my godson, Kai. I was missing his sweet face, and those big fat jowls.

  I was going to do this and do it well. I had just made that promise to the world, and it was one I hoped with all my soul I would be able to keep.

  THREE

  The Russians, the Russians, the Russians

  I danced off the stage and right into the storm.

  At the edge of the stage waiting to greet me were staff members Julie Greene and Patrice Taylor, Lucy, and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. I was shaking from the adrenaline of making that speech, and their hugs soothed me and brought me back to center. As I looked over Stephanie’s shoulder, I saw another circle of well-wishers, but they had a different motivation to grab me: money. They were donors and paid consultants for the DNC who were trying to block me from my friends and staff. The consultants had different agendas, but all were united in their desire to make sure that I didn’t cancel their lucrative contracts now that I was chair. All these hands reaching
out to grab me, to offer advice, to hand me lists of talking points. I shook off that crowd and went directly to see Donnie Fowler Jr., one of my “kids” and the person in charge of running the whip operation in the boiler room to tamp down signs of acrimony on the convention floor.

  Taking Debbie off the stage had not healed the deep divisions that were still tearing the party to pieces. Several of Bernie’s state delegations remained agitated, particularly California, and the news media camped out wherever there were voices of discord. Bernie supporters were happy that Debbie was gone, but the system that supported her remained in place. They would not be satisfied until there was more dramatic evidence of change at the DNC.

  Their dissatisfaction was emerging in ugly episodes on the convention floor. I had been shocked that the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Hale was booed during the invocation on the opening day of the convention when she praised Hillary. Donnie, who I worked with on former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt’s presidential campaign in 1988, had campaign people from Bernie and Hillary with him in the boiler room. They had cameras on the crowd scanning for trouble. Wherever Bernie supporters would hold up signs attacking Hillary, he’d send people to stand in front of them with bigger signs to block those people out. If someone from the Bernie faction left his seat, Donnie would send a Hillary person as a replacement to dilute the negative energy. He used a number of tactics to calm the crowd, and he was mostly successful. To seasoned convention watchers, what we saw on the floor was atrocious, but most of the folks at home saw a flawless convention, where one strong speech built on the next, and a triumphant nominee.

  Few at home or even on the convention floor understood the pressures the staff was under independent of the angry Bernie supporters. I was in awe of how the staff kept their eyes on their duties while their worlds were falling apart. In the crucial weeks before the convention, right before the party announced the hacking, the DNC confiscated the staff’s computers for the weekend without any warning or explanation. Many people were upset, thinking that they had been fired because Hillary’s team was about to take over the party. When they got to work on Monday they found out that the cybersecurity firm the party hired had wiped their computers clean, eliminating all their files, including their files about the convention. When they asked why they hadn’t been warned so that they could save important files on a thumb drive, the consultants said that they couldn’t allow them to do that. If the hackers saw everyone downloading files, they’d take evasive action. No matter the reason behind this action, the staff that was working on the convention had to spend hours reconstructing all that information.