“Hmmmmm.”
That was how Ron Silver began every answer when I interviewed him during the 2004 presidential campaign.
Silver, the actor and political activist who died this month after a battle with cancer, stands out in my memory as the most thoughtful celebrity surrogate I’ve ever come across.
Campaign reporters are often connected, through campaigns, with usually B-list celebrities who spout off talking points written by the campaigns. The result is generally a lot of eye-rolling by the reporter on the other end of the phone.
Silver shocked me by taking his time, thinking about the question and the answer. One of the biggest surprises for me during a crazy campaign year was Ron Silver, a celebrity surrogate for a campaign, being candid and thoughtful.
At the time, the actor was still taking heat from his Hollywood colleagues because he took the stage at the Republican National Convention to applaud President George W. Bush.
So of course I and every other campaign reporter who spoke to him asked why. Why was he swimming against the stream? Why risk almost certain black-listing? Why not just keep it to himself?
“Hmmmmmm.”
It was as if he had never been asked these questions before, and when he answered it was clear there was no script in front of him.
Silver talked at length about how he had always been a liberal Democrat, but like so many Americans something changed inside of him on Sept. 11, 2001.
Silver told me his decision to switch sides and stand out front as one of the handful of actors and musicians backing Bush came down to a simple reason: He thought Bush would keep the country safe and win the war on terror.
Silver told others later that his decision cost him a great deal of work. His character on The West Wing, Democratic strategist Bruno Gianelli, was written as a turncoat who went to work for a Republican candidate in the fictional presidential election.
While having drinks recently with a veteran of the Bush administration, I was not at all surprised to hear that Silver had reached out to this person for a favor heroic in nature.
The two men had worked together in preparation for the 2004 convention, and they stayed in touch here and there over the years.
Silver asked his acquaintance at the White House for one last trip to Iraq. He wanted to broadcast one of his final Sirius Satellite radio shows with the troops even as cancer was killing him.
“Hmmmmm.”
The White House aide told me, not without some sadness, that he was unable to arrange the trip in the little time he had left in office.
I try to operate with as few personal political beliefs as possible. It’s good for business.
But I will always remember Silver, not just for his courage, but for his introspection.
I can count on one hand the honest, thoughtful and studied answers I’ve gotten to the millions of questions I’ve asked, and almost all of them came from him.
Over the years, when his name came up or he was spotted in Washington, I immediately delved into testimony similar to the one I’m writing now.
As jaded as some of us get doing what we do, seeing what we see and living where we live, Silver had to have made quite an impression to elicit that kind of response simply by mention of his name.
So it is with a heavy heart that I know future presidential campaigns will be fought and won without his authentic voice.
And that’s one long pause that I will greatly miss.
Sam Youngman is the White House correspondent for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C.
