SPLITTING WASHINGTON
A novel
by
Daniel Koehler
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * *
PUBLISHED BY:
KSI/Noosphere Publishing
Splitting Washington
Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Koehler
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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"...the
propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that
disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself
has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of
liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are
justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the
experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
George
Washington’s First Inaugural Address
For Edna
SPLITTING WASHINGTON
PART I: AMERICAN GIZA
Chapter 1
“J.D.? Look, he needs you down here today. The Oval Office. Two o’clock sharp.”
Odd, I thought. Such terseness was not Libby Catton’s normal phone demeanor. I gulped the last of my chocolate donut and chased it with a big swig of Starbuck’s espresso. Normally, Libby shoots the breeze a while whenever she calls, and sometime we flirt for cheap thrills. Today, however, the President’s Appointments Secretary’s tone was anything but flirtatious.
“You cannot be serious,” I sputtered, conscious I sounded like McEnroe whining about a line judge’s call.
“I’m dead serious, J.D. Get moving. Chop chop.”
“Can’t he get Gail?” I pleaded. “She’s already in D.C.”
“Sorry, pal. You’re the campaign manager and Uncle Sam wants you.”
“What if I just RSVP ‘regrets?’”
Libby sighed. “Well, if you think your job security’s that good, be my guest. However, he’s been chewing the scenery in there all morning. My advice? Get here an hour early.”
“Aw, Lib! He does this every other week.”
“For God’s sake, J.D., take the Gulfstream. It’s two hours door-to-door.” She exhaled in frustration. “It’s not like you have to fly commercial from Logan.”
“I’m, uh, in a heavy meeting with our opposition research people right now,” I lied. “What does Quattro want anyway?”
“Quattro” was our super-secret reelection campaign code name for President Addison H. Huntington, IV. I had personally lobbied for the code name “IV,” as in “drip,” which I felt better reflected Addison’s true personality. However, the palace Mandarins deemed it too disrespectful and voted me down.
Libby sighed. “Look, all I know is he’s obsessing about the polls again.”
“Tell him to chill. We’re on it.”
“Are you crazy?” she said. “I’m not going to tell the President of the United States to chill. You tell him.”
“Maybe I will then. Ciao. Can’t wait to see you. Do you miss me?”
The slam dunk Libby performed with the receiver pretty much convinced me she didn’t.
My name is J.D. Crowell, and before Libby called, I had been enjoying a rare moment of peace, sampling the donut buffet the staff brings in and admiring the nascent verdure of the Boston Public Gardens from my penthouse office.
My office is on the top floor of the Hampshire House on Beacon Hill, where the “Reelect President Huntington” campaign maintains its national campaign headquarters. We have the run of the place since Addison owns it. Nice digs—all period furniture and New England ambiance, and the lovely six-story brownstone also boasts the famous “Cheers” bar in its basement. Believe me, during campaign season, I become very well acquainted with its bartenders.
84 Beacon Street is a far cry from the Bullfrog Car Wash in San Saba, Texas, where I began as a greenhorn political advisor. In my first race, I ran the car wash owner for city water commissioner and won handily, thanks to the free Bullfrog wax and detailing coupons we gave out at the polls. In theory, running a Presidential campaign is not all that much different, although the payoffs are a lot more expensive and the people receiving them a hell of a lot more disagreeable.
Over the years, I’ve learned that politics has much in common with multilevel marketing and other pyramid schemes: the higher you rise, the thinner the air but the fatter the paycheck. At forty-six, I stood atop the American Giza, having run one successful presidential campaign and now managing the incumbent in my second. The problem with standing atop the steep pyramid of your profession is that your future career path becomes somewhat limited.
I sat back and propped up my feet on my Queen Anne desk with the finely turned cabriolet legs, still thinking of lovely Libby. Okay, wrong verb. “Fantasizing” is probably the more accurate term. One glance at Libby Catton and it’s self-explanatory.
“You have two hundred and nine unread emails,” my computer bleeped when I switched it on.
“Not going to happen today,” I replied to the machine.
My plan that Friday was to delay any major campaign decisions and coast into the weekend. Procrastination and inertia are much-maligned activities; they are in my experience by far the best campaign strategies for incumbents, especially weak incumbents like Addison.
I gazed out my window at the Public Gardens on a gorgeous morning in early May. The canopy of the diverse arboretum sported sparse early budding, so I could still view the lagoon through it like a woman’s face beneath a fishnet veil. As I savored another welcome jolt of espresso, I watched a swan boat glide silently under the “Make Way for Ducklings” footbridge. That’s not the bridge’s real name, but that’s what I call it because I loved the book as a kid.
Crap! Another bullshit meeting with Addison, precipitated by his skittishness over the polls.
How typical. I can’t tell you the number of times over the years I have seen this mania grip incumbents. You would think challengers would be the skittish ones, but once elected, incumbents cling to office like the last lifeboat on the Titanic.
Incumbents believe voters lie awake at night worrying about who they’ll support. Believe me, they don’t, but incumbents don’t get it. Their fear makes them get everything backwards and they go wild with public appearances. I’m talking pathological here—putting on grass skirts, coconut bras, and dancing the hula in televised political events days before the election. Such is the terror of the incumbent when faced with the prospect of losing his precious public fiefdom.
What they fail to realize, of course, is that panic campaigning is like trying to push a string; the harder you push, the more you doom the outcome. Not campaigning is the far better choice. I’ve seen it all before.
When an incumbent loses an election, the post-mortem is short: he either got murdered or committed suicide. Incumbents are the neediest bastards in the world, so the prospect of being murdered by the voters on Election Day sends angst coursing through their every synapse. However, unless you’re a total Milhous, voters don’t usually murder incumbents. Even if the electorate barely knows you, that’s probably a lot more than they know about your opponent. Incumbents enjoy the dubious status of being the tallest midget in the room.
So, don’t screw with voter inertia, I tell my reelection clients. People don’t like change, and you’re the comfortable old shoe they’re used to chewing on. However, if you go bananas and hit the campaign trail like the Keystone Cops, the voters smell your fear. It’s like putting a set of taps on a pair of well-broken-in brogans and stomping around in the public venues like a narcissistic flamenco dancer.
Trust me, panic campaigning will hasten your political obituary as surely as gobbling a handful of barbiturates. My sense is that such manic flesh-pressing both frightens and annoys the electorate. I mean, why should they entrust their prosperity and upward mobility to someone who once seemed so promisingly inert but now acts like a telemarketer on meth?
What voters want from their elected officials is for them to put their hand on the Good Book, promise to fulfill the duties of office, and then go away and do nothing like every other damn politician. Louisiana and Illinois, however, are special exceptions to this rule, probably because of the Napoleonic Code in the Sportsman’s Paradise and the Daleyonic Code in Crook County. In these places, politicians are expected to do nothing but steal until caught.
The landscape of Modern American Politics is littered with the bleached bones of Presidential hopefuls launching expensive panic campaigns and, for some reason, Massachusetts boasts a goodly large number of them. There’s something in the Massachusetts air that does not like a modern President and that gives me pause, since Addison resides there.
Read your history. Sir Teddy of Camelot losing to commoner Jimmy Carter. Dukakis’ desperate but laughable public relations foray as a tank jockey to shore up his image of being soft on defense. Mitt Romney’s dismantling at the hands of McCain, and John Kerry’s Swift Boats debacle after he decided to pull his war record out of mothballs and run hard with it. And don’t forget: Massachusetts was the only state in the Union George McGovern carried.
Many believe Massachusetts’ Presidential woes—a veritable political “curse of the Bambino”—can be traced back to Richard Nixon as payback for his 1960 defeat. Those who believe Milhous’ vindictiveness bordered on the supernatural will tell you the Trickster placed a treacherous vendetta on the state in league with the unquiet spirits of the executed Salem witches. Whatever the cause, whenever the Dems nominate a Bay State Presidential candidate, the GOP licks its chops.
Outside Massachusetts, panic campaigning also yields dismal results. Who can forget Gore sealing his doom at the ballot box with his “Social Security lockbox” debate hysteria. Or hark back to 1967, when George Romney’s poll numbers plummeted from 40% to 7% after his seventeen-city tour of the nation’s ghettos to seek a “meaningful racial dialogue.” Perhaps the most egregious case of over-the-top campaigning was the Satyricon of the distaff Clinton’s Presidential bid, where the victory celebration began before the primary but, after Super Tuesday, the flop sweat of denial became plainly visible on the ice maiden’s forehead. The campaign soldiered on, maxing out its credit cards and then digging into the candidate’s own pants suit pockets. Finally, in shock and despair, the Hillary for President campaign locked itself in the bathroom, drew a warm tub, and opened its wrists.
That said, I always advise my incumbent clients never to underestimate the power of campaign inertia. First, it’s way cheaper, and second, the more you say and do, the greater the chance you have of making a complete fool of yourself. This is my greatest fear about Addison hitting the campaign trail. The man is a gaggle of gaffes waiting to happen.
My chief function as an elite political consultant is to keep my charges on message and not allow them the latitude to wander off the reservation. Often this requires me to disabuse battle-fatigued clients of many venerated, but outdated, political rules of thumb. I’m talking about nostrums right out of the Farmer’s Almanac and Dale Carnegie that perpetuate the heresy that blitzkrieg campaigning actually helps.
Trust me, all the top political advisers know by heart who benefits from your panic: your opponent. And, of course, the media, as your campaign hemorrhages money buying more airtime. Panic campaigning is like a quarterback lobbing Hail Marys into double coverage. All the other side has to do is play “prevent” defense. And defense—as my high school football coach father taught me—wins championships.
I liken my inertia strategy for incumbents to NASA’s Inertial Guidance System, although unlike theirs, mine is anything but rocket science.
Hell, it’s not even science.
The simple truth is that what I offer a candidate is merely a practical application of the Universal Law of Holes, which states if you’re not in one, don’t dig one, and if you are in one, stop digging.
* * *
I snagged a cab at the old Ritz-Carlton for the trip to Hanscom Field, where I boarded a Gulfstream 650—Addison owns two—for the short flight to Dulles.
When we arrived, the limo my assistant, Elspeth, had ordered sat waiting on the tarmac of the private aviation facility in Chantilly, Virginia. As I settled into the commodious leather backseat for the forty-five minute drive to D.C., I whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving that the limo sported luxury appointments. As I raided the minibar for a short whiskey and then another, I cursed Addison for what I knew would be just another silly hand-holding meeting with the leader of the free world.
My job today would be to explain why we were getting our ass kicked in the polls by “this wog,” as my boss referred to his Democratic opponent.
Until Maynard Keynes burst out of the fifteen-man rugby scrum that was the Democratic primary, none of us had given the loyal opposition a chinaman’s chance of fielding anything but a retread for the Presidency. What a slap in the face it was when we found out, “Hey, this guy Keynes could be a contender,” to paraphrase Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.
However, I knew Maynard’s greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. Despite his being a fresh face on the political scene, it was also a brown one. Overachieving, smart as paint, articulate, beautifully-educated, and a millionaire sports and entertainment celebrity, Maynard was quickly positioned by his handlers as the shining result of what the civil rights struggle in America had produced, the quintessence of a post-racial society who would unite America, and by extension, the rest of the overwhelmingly brown-skinned world as well.
In short, a secular Messiah.
I also knew that, as dearly as Main Street wanted to believe in Maynard’s idealistic image, it still had a hard time seeing beyond his skin color and blank political résumé. Unless I missed my guess, mainstream America was not yet ready to hand over the White House to the help.
Of course, in the past, American sports and entertainment figures had fared well politically for one reason: as pop culture icons, their images already occupied the valuable real estate of the electorate’s consciousness. Reagan’s image, for example, managed to combine sports and entertainment via one Hollywood B-movie role: the Gipper in Knute Rockne, All-American, and over the years, national politics had welcomed into its ranks a menagerie of ex-college football stars, cinematic action heroes, and aging rock idols.
In this election, however, my greatest fear was that Maynard Keynes would establish a beachhead in Washington for his particular brand of one-world diversity that would dominate the political landscape for years to come, much as Michael Jordan had come to dominate the hard court and Tiger Woods the manicured landscape of the PGA Tour.
Michael and Tiger were “naturals,” and Maynard Keynes, I suspected, was one, too, although it had yet to be proven that the rookie congressman’s African-Euro heritage would allow him to get up and down in two from the trap on the eighteenth hole of a sudden death playoff in the biggest Major in the world. My gut told me Maynard would choke: three-jab a six-footer; blow the lay-up; stare at a called third strike; fade at the tape.
Metaphorically speaking, that is.
Forgive me, but sports metaphors are occupational necessities in my profession, the machetes we use to cut a swath through the thicket of D.C. political cant. As Morris Udall once described the problem of political debate: “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. The problem is that not everyone has said it yet.”
Milhous loved football metaphors, always talking about “game plans,” “blocking and tackling,” and “level playing fields.” All Presidents like to think of themselves as quarterbacks, but the truth is they are really nothing more than marionettes wriggling on the strings of their puppet masters, their advisors and campaign contributors.
As my limo converged on the Beltway, my Blackberry rang.
“Crowell,” I answered and quickly drained my second whiskey.
A croaking toad of a voice burst from the tiny phone speaker. “J.D.? Goddamn, son! Where the hell you at?”
“Hello, Judge,” I said to my father-in-law. “I’m here in D.C.”
“Did Jeanne tell you I been trying to get ahold of you all damn day?”
“No, not yet,” I replied. “Jeanne and I only talk after dinner.”
“Well,” the Judge said, “she’s usually on top of things, but lately she’s been slippin’. You think she’s goin’ through that change-of-life thing?”
“Hell, no, Judge. She’s only forty-one.”
“Well, I hope not. Listen, son, you need to shape up that office crew of Yankee women you got working up there in Boston.” He huffed. “Lord, it really chaps my ass to be put on hold. I finally had to hang up on them. Didn’t you tell them who the hell I am?”
Everyone in Dallas called Jeanne’s father “The Judge” because he had served as a temporary judge on the Texas Supreme Court during the reapportionment of the Texas Congressional districts that gave the GOP a couple of more seats in Congress. When the Democratic State legislators ran away to Oklahoma to avoid a quorum, the Judge became an instant legend when he demanded Texas Rangers be sent to shanghai them.
“What can I do for you, Judge?”
“It’s payback time, son,” he bellowed.
I held the phone at arm’s length. Being a little deaf, my father-in-law tended to sound like the stereotypical loudmouthed Texan. "Payback? For what?"
“I need a favor from that boss of yours I raised so much money for.”
“Judge, sir, this is really not a good time—”
“Not a good time? Hell’s bells, son! Let me tell you something—the company’s about to go down the tubes here in Dallas. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir, I do but—”
“Listen, J.D., the damn Feds want to write down our whole goddamn mortgage portfolio, son. I do believe they intend to take perfectly good properties, foreclose ‘em, and give ‘em to the damn illegals. I can’t stand much more of this, partner.”
“Look, Judge, Addison’s in a tough race and he’s fixing to jump crazy on me over the polls.”
“Jump crazy?” the Judge said. “Well, I guarantee you, his pale, scrawny ass don’t have far to jump.” He chuckled bitterly. “But his state of mind ain’t what I’m worried about right this minute. No sir.”
“Judge,” I said, trying to put my foot down, “we can handle this, okay? Somewhere down the chain of command. We don’t need to get Addison involved.”
“Let me tell you one damn thing, J.D.,” he rasped. “The Judge don’t go ‘down the chain of command.’ You got that?”
“Right.” Geez, I thought, he’s using the third-person again.
“I don’t truck with the goddamn help, son,” he said. “Never have. Waste of damn time. I only talk to the top man.”
In my mind’s eye, I could see the Judge mopping his red, fat face with a handkerchief. Even in the year-round air-conditioning of Dallas, he sweated like a field hand.
“Besides, that silly bastard’s beholden to me.”
“Judge,” I said, “the President can’t risk the whiff of scandal—”
“Screw that! I can’t risk the whiff of insolvency, son. Not at my age.”
“Calm down, Judge.”
“For chrissake, J.D! All the sumbitch has to do is make a damn phone call to Fannie Mae. One measly little call.” I could hear the Judge take a drag from his cigarette. “Goddamn, it doesn’t take five million dollars of fundraising to buy a favor like this in Texas. All it takes is a steak dinner and a fifth of whiskey.”
“Well, that’s true, but D.C.’s not like Texas.”
“That’s the damn problem, son. Now, listen up real good.” The Judge coughed and wheezed into the phone. “You listening, J.D.?”
“You bet.”
“Certain things in politics are understood, son.” His tone of voice was conspiratorial. “Don’t matter whether you’re in Dallas, D.C. or Timbuktu. You know that and so does Big Boy.”
“Yes, but all I’m saying is—”
“Look, all in the world I’m saying is that nothing’s going to happen unless the order comes down from the top. You with me?”
“You’re absolutely right, Judge,” I said, knowing resistance was futile when my father-in-law got his back up.
“All Big Boy has to do is pass the word to get the goddamn regulators off my case. I swear, J.D., those government boys are dumb as a post and work about as hard. They don’t listen to reason, those sorry bunch of clock-watchers.” His voice turned singsongish. “Always talkin’ about their damn ‘guidelines’ and their precious ‘regulations.’ How you gonna do bidness with people like that, you tell me?”
“Sir,” I said, “I’m on it, okay? But I can’t do it right this minute.”
“Listen, J.D., I’m flying up thataway next week. I want you to get me in the Lincoln Bedroom and a fifteen minute appointment with the rich boy and I’ll do the rest. You hear?”
“Judge, wait—”
Chapter 2
I didn’t need to look at my watch to know I was running late for Addison’s meeting.
After the limo crossed the Potomac over the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, a detour routed us north by east through D.C. and we had to double back to get to Pennsylvania Avenue. As we neared the Willard Hotel, another delay appeared in the offing.
I stared out the heavily-tinted side window of the limo at the chanting mob waving political placards and spilling into the street. The throng engulfed the Willard like an amoeba, extending human pseudopodia around the hotel as though demanding it release Maynard Keynes or else be assimilated.
The limo came to a dead stop, and the driver climbed out and surveyed the traffic jam. “We’re going to be here for a while,” he said as he flopped back down behind the wheel. “You might consider walking the rest of the way.”
“Let’s give it a minute or two,” I said.
In the sound-dampened pod of the limo, I felt trapped, a fly encased in the human amber of the partisan mob outside. Blinking my eyes, I could have sworn the limo had entered a time warp. For an instant, I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of The Million Man March. Even in D.C., it was unusual to see that many black people in one place except that, on closer inspection, about half of the “million men” turned out to be young women of a variety of ethnic persuasions.
“Keynes Is Change! Keynes Is Change!” The chanting increased in volume, a collective hosanna rising toward the roof ballroom of the Willard where Maynard Keynes was speaking. Spontaneous events like this had been occurring across the country, causing Addison, already skittish, to behave increasingly like a thunderstruck diva.
“I got your ‘Change’ right here,” the driver said, gripping his crotch. “Move it!”
“Just what I need!” I said. “A freaking traffic jam.” I thumbed my Blackberry to dial Libby’s number and heard a series of scary electronic squelches worthy of R2D2. Then the LCD screen went blank. “No!” I cried, pounding the battery pack. “Oh Jesus, not now!”
No flicker of electronic life emanated from the juiceless Blackberry.
“Are you okay?” the driver said.
“Perfect!” I felt myself snort in frustration.
“Hang in there,” the driver said. “I think it’s breaking up.”
Relax, Crowell, I told myself. You’ve got a spare battery in your briefcase. I always pack an extra during a campaign. Everybody does.
“Crap!” I said. I was already on my spare.
There is nothing in this world quite so useless as a high-powered political consultant stuck in D.C. traffic with a dead Blackberry. I was accustomed to dealing with uselessness in others—politicians being the world’s highest-paid unskilled labor—but not myself.
Thirty minutes late for an urgent appointment with the President, I was amazed I wasn’t feeling more stressed. Even though Addison Huntington was arguably the most powerful man in the world today, I also knew that eight years ago he had been just another garden-variety American billionaire whom I had molded first into the Governor of Florida and then the guy the Secret Service refers to as the “POTUS.”
The fact of the matter was I didn’t fear Addison Huntington enough to be scared of him nor did I personally like him enough to care if he were disappointed. It wasn’t career burn-out, I thought. It was more like being comfortably numb and indifferent.
“Look at this cluster-fuck!” the limo driver said, turning to me. “The D.C. cops need to turn the water cannons on these clowns.”
“Do you have a cell phone I can borrow, please?”
“No, sorry,” the bearded, balding driver said. “They cut off my university phone when I, uh, retired.”
I muttered under my breath and mopped my brow with the handkerchief from my breast pocket. The traffic still hadn’t moved, and I was seriously contemplating hoofing it the few blocks to the White House.
Some kids danced around the limo and shoved a placard that read “Keynes Is Change” against the windshield.
“Hah!” The driver hooted and slapped the dashboard. “Look at them—screaming in the streets for ‘Change.’ They don’t have a clue how good they’ve got it.”
“If Huntington gets reelected, they’ll get ‘Change’ alright. Spare change.”
“Huntington?” The driver scowled. “Geez! What a stiff!”
The limo began rocking. He shook his fist as the overzealous mob shook the limo.
“Hey! Easy on the automobile, for cryin’ out loud!”
“Try the horn.”
“Reminds me of the Sixties,” he said, honking repeatedly. “Except without the intellectual ferment. Today it’s a one-word slogan: ‘Change.’ What the hell does that mean?” I heard the leather front seat squeal as he turned to face me. “You know, I got laid off from the faculty at GWU because of Keynes.”
“Affirmative Action?” I asked.
“Please, spare me.” He mopped his face with his hand.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You know, they say he was a poof back in the day.”
“Who? Keynes?”
“Yeah.”
My eyes perked up. Maybe this cab ride wasn’t a bust after all, I thought. All those years in Hollywood could do that to him. “Do tell?” I said, moving my face closer to the glass divider.
“The usual stuff, you know,” he said, eyeing me in the rear view mirror. “Schoolboys. They hushed it up.”
God, I thought, this was big! How had our opposition research people missed something of this magnitude? This kind of dirt would light up Addison’s poll numbers like Times Square. “You’re sure about this?”
“Most definitely,” the cabbie said. “Researched the hell out of it. And I’ll tell you something else—he’s the guy who’s responsible for the big mess we’re in now.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised they don’t need a permit for this kind of demonstration,” I said. “What with the traffic standstill they’re causing.”
“Not the traffic,” he said, turning around in his seat, his tobacco-stained goatee inches from my face. “The country. The economic mess the country’s in.”
“Huh?” I said. “How do you figure that? He’s just a freshman Congressman whose main accomplishment so far has been getting elected and looking good on television.”
“What?”
The cabbie’s mouth fell agape and his eyes cut back and forth as he tried to fathom my last statement. “No, see, I’m not talking about this guy Keynes.” He hooked his thumb toward the crowd outside his window. “I’m talking about Lord Keynes. You know? The Brit?”
“Damn,” I cursed under my breath, feeling like a guy who had bought a hot stock on Black Friday based on a tip from his shoeshine boy. My stomach sank.
“I tell you what,” the cabbie continued, “I wasted two years of my life writing my doctoral thesis on that limey fag bastard. You know? The deficit spending guy? Aggregate demand management?”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Sure,” I mumbled, embarrassed by my naïveté.
Sinking back into my seat, I sulked. I wasn’t particularly worried about running late for my meeting with Addison at the White House. What did irk me was that each time he had a panic attack, it was “all-hands-on-deck” until it subsided.
Until Maynard Keynes had burst onto the national political scene, working as Addison’s campaign manager had been the most stress-free gig I ever had in my twenty-two years as a political hired gun. Money and fund-raising had been a breeze. The coin was always there, thanks to Addison’s network of fat cats. Gail said it seemed to materialize like manna from heaven.
Four years ago, donations had poured into Addison’s coffers like oil revenues in Kuwait. Back then, the Democrats had elected a populist, Jimmy Dale Reynolds, who pursued a domestic issues agenda and promptly gotten the country in a tight overseas. The Middle East bitch-slapped Jimmy Dale over oil and Israel and then Congress raised taxes. For the remainder of his term, all Reynolds could do was twiddle his thumbs as the mother of all recessions hit the U.S.
Today, Addison’s polls were still lukewarm, even though the economy had improved thanks to the tax cuts the coattails GOP freshmen congressmen had ramrodded through Congress. Quattro’s big money donors were still dragging their feet, so the POTUS had to dig into his personal petty cash to pay the fees of the top campaign people—a cool five million between Gail and me.
Thanks to Maynard Keynes, who burst out of the pack on Super Tuesday to clench the Democratic Presidential nomination, our usual heavy-rollers were writing noticeably smaller checks.
In the old days, the whales gave the same amounts to both sides to hedge their bets. They never cared who won as long as they had access to the Oval Office. Now, however, Section 527 organizations are the de rigueur medium for political whales. You’ve heard of getalong.org and thedailykaka.org, right? Well, we just heard the Sultan of Brunei’s funding one to help Muslim candidates get better media coverage.
It’s a whole new ballgame and Maynard Keynes is the prime beneficiary.
“Screw it,” I said. “I’m getting out here.”
I tossed a balled-up hundred in the fee tray and flung open the limo door. Pushing my way through the passionate throng, I pointed my Bruno Maglis in the direction of the White House. As I threaded through the human bead curtain toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I reminded myself to sweet talk Libby into giving the Judge a couple of minutes’ face time with Addison.
I looked at my watch. Forty-five minutes late.
The billionaire-President’s wallet, I knew, was as thick as his tolerance for tardiness was thin. I tried to speed-walk amid the crush of people, and found myself cursing the District.
The limo driver was right; D.C. was a giant cluster-fuck. Someone, I thought, should take a huge wrecking ball and just demolish the whole lousy place so we could start over fresh.
Chapter 3
“Do you have any idea how late you are?” Libby asked.
“As a matter of fact, Libby, dear, I know exactly how late I am.” Normally, I don’t high-hat the help, but I was on good terms with Libby—very, very good terms, in fact—so I wanted her to know I took umbrage at her tone of voice.
She gritted her teeth and shook her head.
“But the important thing is, baby, you’re not late, I hope,” I whispered. “Right?” I winked and then did a double-take. “Please tell me you’re not late, Libby?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me,” I said. “Please.”
I watched the stunning, amber-skinned biracial young woman of thirty-three rise to her full six-foot height. She stepped around her antique mahogany secretaire in the vestibule of the Oval Office and stood eye-to-eye with me. I was a lanky, out-of-shape, white male with salt-and-pepper hair in a four-thousand dollar business suit, and this was the White House and I was late as hell, but all I could think of at that moment was how heavenly she smelled.
“That was actually incredibly funny,” she said. “Who writes your one-liners?”
“Yours truly,” I said. “To me, words are but a plaything.”
“Everything is a plaything to you,” she said. “Especially women.”
I took another sniff of her. One thing for sure: her perfume was certainly several notches above Jungle Gardenia by Tuvache that Gail used to wear. A complicated woman, my ex-wife Gail, she had a thing for vintage cologne. It was hell on my allergies, but Jungle Gardenia will always be linked in my mind with cast-off leg warmers and hot, sweaty sex with Gail in a Barcalounger.
“And stop sniffing me like a dog in heat,” Libby said.
Damn, Crowell, I thought. Why can’t you be civil? Believe me, over the years I’ve tried, but sarcasm always wins over civility. Being flippant for me is what indecision was for Hamlet: a tragic character flaw.
“C’mon, Lib,” I said, hands splayed wide. “I got caught in traffic, okay? It’s D.C. What are you gonna do?”
She breathed in my ear. “Start by not putting our business in the street! If you don’t care about your job, fine. But I care about mine. For God’s sake, J.D., show a little decorum! You’re in the freaking White House.”
Libby glared at me and I watched the perfect skin of her café au lait brow furrow like a freshly-plowed field. Her toned arms were clasped tightly across her ivory silk Mandarin blouse, accentuating her breasts like a bustiér. Her body language conveyed the message: “Don’t tread on me, buster.”
“God, you’re gorgeous when you’re righteous,” I said. Truth be told, Libby’s mood had no effect on the absoluteness of her beauty. She took your breath away in any weather.
“I’m not ‘God.’” She cocked her head toward the sanctum sanctorum of our Republic. “He is.”
“Yeah, for another eight months, at least,” I said.
“He’s been waiting for you for almost an hour. I expect he’s ready to pull his hair out by now.” Despite being a former newscaster at WBZ in Boston, she enunciated the word “hay-ah” in the fashion of her privileged New England upbringing.
“Yeah, what’s left of it,” I said, patting her hand. “Maybe we should call in Hair Club for Men? And a shot of Botox couldn’t hurt either. Might get his female approval ratings up. I sure as hell don’t want him debating Maynard this fall on television looking like a prune.”
“You’re such a putz.” She shook her head at me, her piercing onyx eyes indicating how hopeless she thought I was.
“Thank you, dear,” I said. “I treasure that, coming from an obvious connoisseur of the appendage.”
“You’re a dead man now, buddy.”
“And you, Libby, are dead sexy. Tell me again, to whom do I report an erection lasting over four hours? The FDA or the Federal Election Commission?”
“Shhh!” she said, giving me a charming, evanescent smile, a long finger held against her lips.
A momentary wave of delicious lust swept over me, and I remembered why I had succumbed to Libby’s charms in the first place. Her African/Irish ancestry gave her the flawless complexion of a china figurine, and I have always had a chronic weakness for slow-dancing with long-legged, exotic young women to whom I am not married. Slow-dancing is, of course, a type of foreplay, but at the time it seemed harmless enough, even well-deserved—a simple courtesy dance with a campaign colleague at Addison’s Inaugural Ball.
However, nothing was simple when the likes of me got next to the likes of Libby, and I ultimately broke the first rule of a successful conservative political consultant: don’t diddle the GOP staff. I could diddle away with impunity, however, when I managed the campaigns of liberals. It was considered a perk. In the fickle world of political advocacy, the only ideology that matters is the one of whoever signs your check.
Besides, Libby wasn’t Cabinet-level or anybody the media would care about as long as it were me doing the diddling and not Addison.
I felt my lust for Libby wane and give way to a predictable pang of Catholic guilt. I thought of my wife, Jeanne, back home in Dallas and attempted to rationalize my situation, namely, any married man would have behaved in exactly the same way toward Libby if given half a chance. I felt foolish and disgusted by my dalliances when blessed with a gem of a wife like her, and also because Jeanne Fougerousse Crowell was a very rich woman—Texas “Big Rich”—and I sure as hell didn’t want to ruin that either. Paul Newman once put it this way: “Why go out for chicken when you got steak at home?” His Joanne Woodward was my Jeanne Fougerousse Crowell.
I suppose Jeanne’s reasonableness was actually just a natural adaptation to being a long-term campaign widow. In the eighteen years we had been married, I had run or worked on twenty-three campaigns, several of them requiring me to spend months on end in D.C.
“Hey, before I forget,” I said to Libby, snapping my fingers. “I need you to schedule a “howdy-do” with Addison for a big contributor next week.”
“Who?”
“Guy Fougerousse from Dallas.”
She gave me a dirty look before she barraged her computer keyboard to pull up Addison’s schedule. “He’s got Tuesday at 3:15 free,” she said, craning her long, lovely neck to inspect the monitor.
“That’ll work,” I said. “It’s pronounced ‘Foo-gur-roos’. The Judge is touchy about his name being mangled.”
Libby huffed. “I know how it’s pronounced. I hear it every night on the evening news. The ‘Fougerousse Financial Debacle.’ How do you know him?”
“My father-in-law.”
“Oh, yeah! Why do I keep forgetting you’re a married man?”
“Because I’m such a big putz?”
She balled her fist at me and then burst out laughing. “You Texans are too much.”
“The Judge wants to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. Can we swing that?”
“Is that a good idea?” she asked. “Hasn’t he got one foot in the penitentiary?”
“Addison will make some calls. It’s fine.”
Libby shook her head with disdain. “Ooo-kay! What do I know anyway? I just work here.” She hit the “Enter” key, her hand rebounding with an upward flourish like a concert pianist ending a long cadenza. “There. Your father-in-law’s all set up.”
“You get my vote for employee-of-the-month,” I said, winking. “Look for a little something extra in your envelope next payday.”
“I’m sure,” she said with a dismissive scowl. “Why didn’t you call if you knew you were going to be so late.”
“Dead Blackberry. I forgot to recharge it.”
“Carry two batteries then,” she said. “Duh!”
“Look, Lib,” I said. “I’m late because it was total gridlock out there on Pennsylvania Avenue. About fifty thousand of Keynes’s most intimate supporters decided to have a Woodstock outside the Willard.”
“That’s what’s eating him,” Libby said, cocking her head toward the Oval Office. “He’s pacing a rut in the carpet in there. Says your Rose Garden campaign strategy makes him feel like a caged tiger.”
“I prefer to think of him as a wise, old elephant,” I said. “Let’s keep our animal metaphors politically congruent, sweetheart. Try to stay on message.”
“Okay, how about this? You’re a political hyena.”
“But just a minute ago you call me a putz?”
“You are a putz.”
“Look, Libby, if you’re frustrated about our-our… relationship, then—”
“Don’t ‘Look, Libby’ me!” Her eyes flashed. “And you know it’s not just about that.”
I looked over my shoulder and, finding us alone, leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You know how I feel about you, baby.”
Her eyes softened and she sighed. “I know.”
“But stop calling me a putz. You’re not even Jewish.”
“You’re not either.”
“Exactly.”
Libby shook her head. “I’ll stop when you stop acting like a putz.”
“Addison pays big bucks for a putz like me.”
“Oh really?” she said. “Well, you better not let Anna Grove over at GMN hear that. Addison doesn’t need a sordid gay sex scandal blasted all over the evening news in an election year.”
“Okay. Fine. I walked right into that one,” I said, recalling my recent vain hopes in the limo for just such a sex scandal to rock Maynard Keynes’s world.
She laughed that infectious, husky laugh of hers, and I sensed the storm had blown over.
“Is he still on the horn?” I asked, my voice docilely pleasant in order to preserve the temporary jackpot of goodwill between us.
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
“Probably the Sultan of Brunei’s people. They’ve got a photo op scheduled for three.”
“Right,” I said, glancing at my watch. Two-fifty-five.
I started pacing, trying to think of something reasonable to tell Addison about why his poll numbers continued to plummet. I decided to use Calvin Trilling’s all-purpose answer to any thorny question: “It’s too soon to tell.”
I turned back to Libby. “Wow, who would have ever thought a rookie like Maynard Keynes would turn out to be such a sensation. If I were a sportswriter, I’d have to call him a ‘Cinderella story’ or ‘a rookie phee-nom.’ I mean, to those kids out there in front of the Willard, he’s almost like the Beatles, only with more-more—”
“Diversity?” Libby said.
“Right-O,” I said, imitating Addison’s voice.
The intercom squelched, and Addison Huntington’s jaw-wired-shut Down East voice knifed through the air like a guillotine blade. “Crowell here yet?”
“He just got here, sir,” Libby said, her voice instantly modulating into Broadcast Nonregional. “Really horrible traffic around the Willard.”
“I know,” Addison said, the intercom positively vibrating with his wrath. “I’m watching it on Fox News now. Listen, tell that ill-mannered Texan to forget it. Gracious, I can’t keep Hassanal Waddaulah waiting. It would be a sign of deep disrespect. The man’s whim is law over there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Libby, one more thing—tell Crowell he’d better dust off his resume if he ever pulls another stunt like this without calling ahead.”
“I’ll make sure he gets the message, sir,” Libby said, looking at me and shaking her head. “Anything else?”
“No,” the President said. “Gail can fill him in on what I want.”
I looked aghast at Libby. “You didn’t tell me Gail was in there with him.”
Libby shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
Chapter 4
Gail Reznick, my ex-wife and co-campaign manager, runs Addison’s regional staff from D.C. while I head up National in Boston. Nominally, she reports to me, but I’ve learned not to pull rank with someone as competent as Gail.
Now that we’re divorced, I get along beautifully with her. She’s bright, sexy, articulate, beautifully educated, a superb strategist, stacked, and great in the sack, but she drove me up the wall when we were married. The lesson Gail taught me is this: if you’re a lukewarm Catholic from San Antonio, Texas, with a physical education major from Rice University (with a double minor in philosophy and English) trying to set up housekeeping with a Long Island Jewess from Brandeis while you’re both on the campaign trail six months of the year working for opposite parties, then there’s bound to be contingencies you don’t anticipate.
A famous writer once said that for a man to invite an intellectual woman to share an apartment with him was like making a pet of a baby raccoon. Sure, they’re amusing for a while but soon become randomly vicious and learn how to get into the refrigerator.
That was Gail.
“You’re in deep doo-doo,” I heard a familiar Noo Yawk voice say. Gail Reznick’s dark eyes fixed on me beneath the bangs of her pageboy. Flawlessly dressed and curvaceous, she gave me a bemused grin.
“Won’t be the first time,” I said with a shrug of calculated nonchalance. “How deep? Do I need hip waders?”
“Try a full-body HazMat suit.” She shook her head. “We need to go downstairs and talk about this.”
“Right,” I said. “Like our esteemed Chief of Staff always says, ‘Loose lips sink ships.’”
“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Spare me the platitudes from Luccio.”
I followed Gail’s provocatively swinging hips to the elevator. Chill, I told myself. As a career political operative, I was certainly not naïve about the fickleness inherent in my chosen profession. Riding high in April. Shot down in May. That’s life for a political hired gun. Just go with the flow, Crowell. Going with the flow is my number one rule in life as well as in politics. You only drown when you try to swim against the tide.
We found a vacant conference room and shut the door.
“He wants out of the Rose Garden,” she said, flopping down in a chair.
“Bad move. It’s way too early,” I said. “Geez, we’ve got practically the whole race left to run.”
“Well, Quattro wants to start running then,” she said. “The negative vibe of the polls is spooking him.”
“They mean nothing this early.” I waved my hand in disgust, although I knew all too well that lately the arc of Addison’s poll numbers had begun to resemble the arc of Thurman Munson’s Citation jet when the Yankee catcher got behind the power curve and augered in over Canton, Ohio.
“We’re down twenty points!” Gail said.
“Screw the polls, Gail. They’re just a snapshot in time. We’re in the early rounds of a title fight. Ever hear of ‘Rope-a-Dope?’”
“Spare me the drive-time sports chat,” she said, elevating her voice. “Look, you and I both know Addison’s too antsy for a Rose Garden strategy. He’s only happy when he’s the center of attention.”
“Precisely why we need to hold him back,” I said. “Look, Maynard’s a rookie. Sure, he’s getting all the flash press now, but just you wait! He’ll stumble, I guarantee it. Rookies always fade at the tape.”
“Yeah, well,” Gail said, “Addison’s starting to wonder what he’s getting for the five million he’s paying us for our services.”
“Did he actually say that?”
“In so many words,” she said as she pumped high-test out of a Braun coffee urn into a mug emblazoned with the Presidential Seal. “Want a cup?”
“A cup? Why? Are you fixing to kick me in the balls?”
“It’s tempting,” she said, stroking her chin.
“But ultimately redundant, given what you did to me in divorce court.”
“So why inflict more needless pain?” she said. “Especially since Addison’s ready to do a lot more than just kick them.”
“Wait a minute, dearest!” I said, feeling my anger rekindle the smart-ass in me. “You signed up for this Rose Garden strategy, too, as I recall. Did you even try to talk him out of it?”
“Of course, but—oh, come on, you putz!” Gail’s voice lost its professionalism. She sounded like her old Long Guyland self. “You know how he gets!”
“You’re the second woman to call me a ‘putz’ today.”
“Oh, really? Who else?”
“It doesn’t matter. Look, Gail, I thought we both agreed that a Rose Garden campaign was a smart play against Maynard?”
“Not exactly rocket science, though, is it?”
“True,” I said. “But Addison’s no Buck Rogers, either.”
“More like Ming the Merciless.” Gail chuckled. “But still, it’s his nickel.”
“So what does he want?” I said. “A bus tour?”
“More or less,” she said. “He wants to press the flesh.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“‘Fraid not, big guy.” Gail leaned back in her armchair and stretched, her sculpted breasts arcing skyward like ack-ack guns. “Luccio’s convinced Addison that a road trip is the only way to get back in the race.”
I banged my hand against the wall. “And you call me a ‘putz?’”
* * *
I had a reverse mutiny on my hands—a crazy captain rebelling against the stalwart crew’s better judgment.
As architect-in-chief of the President’s Rose Garden strategy, I had implemented my Inertial Guidance System with a great deal of trepidation. Yet, what else could I do with a stiff like Addison up against a real comer like Maynard?
Now Quattro wanted a bus tour. Geez!
The last thing in the world I wanted at this stage of the campaign was to send an epicene, blueblood billionaire incumbent like Addison off to the hinterlands to press the flesh with a bunch of out-of-work autoworkers. We would be playing directly to Maynard’s strength, sailing straight into the teeth of a howling gale of class envy.
My Rose Garden strategy masterfully took into account Addison’s innate talent for rubbing the common man the wrong way and allowed him to focus on his innate strength: doing absolutely nothing as presidentially as possible. He did look wonderfully the part—tall, lean, patrician, but why shouldn’t he? He’d been groomed for power every day of his life, beginning with an insufferably elite kindergarten in Manhattan.
“Imagine this, Gail” I said. “Quattro at the podium before a VFW audience somewhere in the Midwest.” I felt Old Man Sarcasm prodding me with his acid pitchfork. “Can’t you just see it? All the old guys sporting their medals, envelope caps, and prostheses while Addison tells them how he was too young for Korea but served with pride in the Peace Corps during Vietnam.”
“Yeah. What a mensch!”
“A real spellbinder, our boy,” I said.
“He’s just no good on the stump.”
“Exactly,” I said, pointing my finger at her while touching my nose, Charades-style. “Remember, we conceived Addison’s Rose Garden strategy as a purely visual tour de force. You know and I know, Gail, that whenever Quattro opens that smug mouth of his and those tight-ass country club vowels start pouring out, well, we have a problem, Houston.”
“But he’s Republican down to his BVD’s. His base knows that.”
“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘rock-ribbed,’ Gail,” I said. “But listen, the classic American can-do heroes—the John Waynes, Gary Coopers, Clint Eastwoods, Sly Stallones—aren’t sold to the public as chattering magpies, are they?”
“True but—”
“Look, Rashaad has absolutely handed us a gift, Gail. Can’t you see that? By positioning Maynard as dessert—the whipped-cream-topped, multiracial jello mold we can’t wait to stick our spoons into—he’s abdicated the meat-and-potatoes, the hero entrée.”
“Yeah, but a lot of women would skip the entrée for a dessert like Maynard.”
I said, “Can’t you see the folly of what Rashaad has done? He’s taken a Hall of Fame pro football icon who also starred in the black remake of Superman and has name recognition with every couch potato with a DVD player, and is positioning him as a… socialist tinkerer?”
“With Maynard’s ancestry,” Gail said, “they should have called the movie Super Mutt.”
“Yeah, but what the voters aren’t hearing are the snatches of the Isaac Hayes soundtrack to Shaft playing in the background.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Giving the taxpayers the old Richard Roundtree right up the wazoo.”
“Cute,” Gail said, scowling. “Still, you’ve got to admit Maynard’s preaching his ‘gospel of change’ brilliantly.”
“You mean the whole ‘Maynard Is Change’ schtick? Give me a break! It sounds more like a movie tag line. ‘Paul Newman is Hud.’ ‘Jane Fonda is Barbarella.’ ‘Life is a Cabaret.’”
“I get it, J.D.,” she said. “I grok where you’re going with this. But my big question is: ‘What do we do now about our campaign strategy?’”
“Not a damn thing, Gail.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Can’t you see that keeping Addison in the Rose Garden puts out a strong hero vibe? The selfless patriot working overtime to get the country out of the jam it’s in? The strong, silent type who cleans up Dodge and then rides off into the sunset?”
“Uh-huh.” Gail glowered at me and then spread her fingers to regard the state of her flawless nails. I could tell she was repressing the urge to bite them.
“All right, then,” I said. “So, who would you pick? The hero or the government social worker?”
“I’m down, all right?” Gail said, twirling her index finger in a circular motion. “Is there a new nugget of info here I haven’t heard?”
“Yeah, silence is golden,” I said. “Especially with Addison.”
“It’s that snooty voice of his,” Gail said. “Maybe we could persuade him to take diction lessons from Sly Stallone?”
“‘Mute’ lessons is what I’m talking about,” I said. “‘Silent’ Cal Coolidge will look like a motor-mouth compared to Addison if I have my way.”
“Okay, okay. You had me at ‘silence is golden.’”
I rose from the table and paced. “Mark my words, if Addison wins, the brilliance of our Rose Garden strategy will be celebrated in political science doctoral programs—a triumph of form over substance. It’ll rank right up there with Riefenstahl’s The Triumph of the Will, Henry V’s oration before the Battle of Agincourt, and Richard Nixon’s televised “Checkers” speech.
“Yeah, well,” Gail said, “don’t be throwing bouquets at us yet, Schatzie. The big guy says he’s getting cabin fever and he blames you.”
“What?” I said, cocking my head at the exact angle recommended for incredulity. “Did he forget Florida and the first term in the White House?”
“He thinks he has a better idea?”
“Doesn’t he always?”
“Let me break it down for you,” Gail said. “Addison wants a bus tour because he and Luccio have been watching GMN all day and that Keynes ‘love-in’ over at the Willard is spooking them.”
“Gracious,” I said, mock indignant. “Who’s running the country then?”
She shook her head. “He’s convinced he can damage Maynard by hitting the road and pounding him on foreign policy. You know? The ‘lack of experience’ issue?”
“It’s not ‘Presidential’ for him to raise that issue,” I said as I paced the floor behind her. “At least not yet. You’ve got to know that, Gail. Let our GOP attack dogs flog the ‘experience’ issue to death on the talk shows, so Quattro can appear above the fray.”
“Addison may have a point, though.” She wheeled around in her chair to face me. “Maynard’s a rookie. It’s all we’ve got on him.”
“It’s too early for that, Gail. I mean, everybody loves a rookie at the beginning. We’d just come off as mean-spirited. Save it for the home stretch after the Convention.”
“May I remind you of those two little ‘police actions’ we’re involved in with our fundamentalist Arab friends?” Gail curled her lip. “Perhaps you’ve seen it? It’s been in all the papers.”
“Keynes can’t touch us on that.”
“Exactly. So, why not nail him to the wall with it? Why not play to the fears of the country about Keynes being dodgy on defense?”
“With him, it’s like trying to nail jelly to the wall.”
“Look, J.D., remember Camelot and the Bay of Pigs? When Khrushchev tried to play JFK for a patsy and we nearly had WWIII?”
“How about this?” I snapped my fingers. “Picture a T-shirt with Maynard’s head in a red circle with a slash through it. You know, like the international street sign? The caption underneath: ‘No Patsies!’”
“Oy vey!” Gail moaned. “Please, spare me. Don’t tell me we’ve sunk to the level of the T-shirt as our medium of political persuasion?”
“Grass roots populism, Gail.”
“Addison’s allergic to grass roots,” she said.
“And that’s exactly why Keynes will eat his lunch,” I said, kicking a chair aside. “Maynard will just turn that fire hose around on us, equating ‘experience’ with our failure to achieve any significant breakthrough in the Middle East in four years. For chrissake, Gail, Keynes has been knocking our dick in the dirt since Christmas by painting the GOP as the reincarnation of the Know-Nothing Party.”
“Yeah, champ, that’s why Quattro wants to start playing offense. You know the drill—whatever Quattro wants…”
“Quattro gets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
“And from the looks of his favorables,” she said, “I’d say our boy needs to get on the scoreboard pretty soon.”
“Granted, but trust me, Gail, defense wins championships.”
“Enough already of Daddy’s high school half-time pep talk.” Gail tossed back a schluck of coffee and glared at me.
“But it’s true, Gail,” I said, throttling back the conviction in my voice a tad. “Defense is the best offense for an incumbent. Especially for a plute incumbent like Addison.”
“You’re preaching to the converted, J.D. Look, Quattro’s about to go meshuggah on us.” Gail leaned back in her chair and massaged her forehead. “I mean, isn’t it better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in?”
“You really think he’s fixing to jump crazy on us?”
“Most definitely,” she said. “He keeps rattling on about ‘announcing his presence with authority.’ How he wants to play the Commander-in-Chief card. He’s desperate for some love from the media, J.D.”
“But he’s already got Fox News shilling for him.”
“That’s not enough,” Gail said. “Quattro wants to go proactive to the unemployed Rust Belt Joe Sixpack types. He thinks his stance on illegal aliens and the war will sell those guys.”
“Addison couldn’t sell pussy on a troop train full of those guys.”
“Except those guys are all out of work,” she said. “They don’t have two nickels to rub together to buy Hamburger Helper, much less pussy. They’re skewing toward Maynard big time.”
“Hell, Gail, they do this to us every election. The politics of class envy. It’s right out of the classic Democratic playbook, and it works like a hose every time.”
“‘Works like a hose!’” Gail said, failing miserably at her attempt at a southern drawl. “Oh, how I love your little Texas ruralisms! They just charm the pants off a city girl like me.”
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