At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) (14 page)

By contrast, Postlewaite and Staffman were a seething bundle of nerves. They had never been down this road before. This time, the number of potential female voters outnumbered the males, and among that group, Max outpolled Blythe by a six-to-one margin.

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ChAPTER ThIRTY-SEVEN

Every Thursday night for the past six years, Bob, Phil, and Jerry met at Jesse’s Tavern, a sports bar and male refuge near the interstate. Occasionally, a woman dropped in, usually by accident or at the request of an unsuitable date. None of them found reason to visit a second time. Wives avoided the place, knowing that their husbands escaped to Jesse’s to get away from them and the kids for a few hours. If an emergency arose while the men were out, it would have to wait until the trio of political junkies had finished their weekly ritual. Jesse’s phone number was listed on the message pad near the ancient wall phone near the ladies’ room, but the regulars could not recall it being used for anything. Nothing ever seemed serious enough to disturb them, and the three men met each week to take up where they left off the week before.

As most sports fans know, Thursday is not a typical sports viewing night. Thursday at Jesse’s was reserved for politics, or as Jerry
AT RISK OF WINNING

liked to call it, current affairs. The battles of society’s overpaid and over-glorified gladiators are fought on the weekend, and Bob, Phil, and Jerry watched those contests on their high definition 3-D viewers from the comfort of their own homes. Thursday was their night away from home, and Jesse’s Tavern was their gathering place. Tonight, as always, they had the place all to themselves. The three men chose Thursday to tune in to WorldWeek, an interactive political program that polled the audience on issues ranging from abortion to assassination, the environment to genetic engineering, and any topic that was reported in the media during the prior week. These guys were as addicted to the trivia of the week as much as they were to the latest BCS rankings. To them, a presidential race was just another playoff, with the players wearing neckties.

Bob, Phil, and Jerry had direct access to every bit of information that the internet could provide. Much of what the candidates had posted on the issues came from their websites, but they could take it all in through Worldview. All of the information posted on the internet was available 24/7. The days of hunting for a candidate’s position on an issue were a part of the dust of history. All a viewer needed to do was ask a question, and the microprocessors of the Worldview interactive program looked for it, found it, and made it available. No typing of words. No searching YouTube for video clips. No hunting for web pages or e-mail addresses. If you wanted it, it came to you, tailored to your needs and interests. Information was filtered and sorted according to prior viewing habits, and the computer knew you. There was no possibility of fraud. A scanner viewed your cornea, cross-referenced it against data on file, monitored your vital signs, blood type and chemistry, fingerprints, body type, and dozens of other identity verification indicators. The system had become honest.

The audience for WorldWeek grew exponentially over its existence. What once began as a pilot program on C-SPAN, telecast to a limited audience, became a standard component when interactive TV became popular. When the conversion to 3-D digital programming became standard technology in households throughout the world, a true “electronic town hall” was created.

Each week, the number of viewers grew until WorldWeek was the number-one program in its time slot of five hundred channels. The topic of the evening was chosen interactively by the viewers, who chose from a list of ten topics that appeared on the screen. As the viewers voted, the total score was listed alongside the choices. While the choices were displayed, each viewer could change the previous vote until the time to choose had elapsed. The votes were entered on a wrist pad worn by most adults in America; the device was a timekeeper, a computer with a wireless modem, and a way of accessing information by way of an expanded internet system. The only exception was the restriction of access to personal information protected by Senator John Masterson’s Gatekeeper Project.

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ChAPTER ThIRTY-EIGhT

The campaign shifted again, this time caused by the voters. The clamor for public appearances by Max Masterson came in by e-mail and phone. Fox was forced to begin hiring staffers by the dozens just to keep up with the demand. Once the messages were received, they proceeded to the screening room, where higher-level staffers, some with a full two days’ experience, began to sort out the high-profile public appearances from the run-of-the-mill easy-to-avoid demands.

When Max entered the room, he was immediately besieged by his trusted assistants all talking at once. he backed toward the corner, raised his arms, and demanded silence. As if rehearsed, everyone sat down and waited for him to speak.

“I don’t do speeches.”

There was silence, as if they had heard the words, but maybe spoken in a language they failed to understand. They silently pondered what they had heard; a politician who doesn’t do speeches. Each of them began to think that their decision to work for Max was a brief lapse in judgment and began to consider all of the job possibilities that they had passed up to join the campaign.

“I could have had that job working for Senator Newman if he hadn’t resigned after the men’s room incident,” thought Sara.
“Mom could probably use me for a while back on the farm since Dad got sick,” thought Andrew Fox.
“I coulda been a stand-up comedian,” mused Phillip Touya, a redhaired new hire from somewhere out West.
As the seconds turned into minutes, the impact of Max’s words turned into shocked acceptance. When he realized that the full impact was being taken like the first half of a joke, Max made things worse by continuing to outline his strategy, which was sounding more like his philosophy of life.
“I don’t do public appearances, either.”
“I don’t do campaign lunches or dinners . . .”
“I have no patience for people who talk too long and neither do the voters.”
“I have prepared some rules for all of us to follow. If you don’t adhere to them, you will be asked to go home,” he mandated in his most serious tone. he passed the five-by-seven cards to them encased in a Cutter and Buck leather case, which each staff member was to carry like a wallet and memorize. The private themes were embossed on a card in gold and were to be carried by members of Max’s inner circle. They were only reviewed in private and never in the vicinity of the press. The press would be provided a revised set of “maxims” when the time was right and only if their existence was somehow leaked or inadvertently revealed. he wanted to avoid the tendency of reporters to pick apart rules for inconsistency and report on any “violations,” thereby creating news where none existed. The simple messages were to be followed without contradiction. The card was simple:

AT RISK OF WINNING

No speeches.
No fund-raising events.
No messages over two minutes long.
If you bore the listener, they can’t hear you.
Keep each message simple.
Every statement is a sound bite.
The message is available 24/7.
It is better to say nothing than to say something stupid. It is better to confess you don’t know than to lie about it. The message is more important than the image. The image is more important than the candidate. Don’t quote a statistic unless you can back it up with facts. Educate people before asking them to decide an issue. American interests must prevail over world interests. Never lie to promote the interests of the minority. Always present an idea in a positive way.
If you can’t commit to an idea, don’t try to sell it. The perception of reality is more important than reality. It’s not what you say. It’s how you say it.

The thirty pairs of eyes reviewed the card then looked at Max. he sat expressionless, his eyes scanning the room for dissent. After a long silence, a small woman, no more than a girl, spoke up from the back of the room. “But I thought you were running for president.”

The eyes shifted from him to her and back again. No one knew what would happen next, so they stayed silent, waiting. Max stood up so that everyone in his line of sight looked up at him. he didn’t convey anger by his expression. It was more of a kind, determined look. The silence stretched much longer than was comfortable. he stared at the girl, his eyes narrowing slightly, but never betraying his thoughts. She began to back away, a frightened look spreading across her face. Then he smiled. She stopped, finding approval of her words, but not comprehending why.

The young staffers erupted in spontaneous laughter, and he knew they were on their way. It was no longer Max against the world. It was a movement.

“As you can tell, this is not your usual campaign,” continued Max. “And there’s one more thing. I’m not a politician. I have never held public office, and I have no intention of running for president the usual way. If it isn’t fun, we will make it fun. If the way they have always done it is not the best way or we can’t find the benefit of it, we figure out a better way.”

Sara interrupted again. It foretold the strength of her personality, and although most of her friends found her brilliantly lively, they also found her to be tactless and confrontational at times. “But Max, if you’re not a politician, what do we tell them you are? They will ask, and we have to be ready for that.”

“Tell them I’m new and different. And tell them I’m not a politician, I’m just a man who’s running for president.” The excitement and danger of this plan, to be different from every political campaign ever run, had them fascinated with possibilities, and that was how he wanted it. Their youth and enthusiasm was the engine that would drive his campaign.

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ChAPTER ThIRTY-NINE

Max you have got to do this for me!” Andrew Fox was apoplectic. For days on the road, he had been drafting sound bites on every
important issue in the campaign, and he was attempting to persuade
Max to rehearse them. Max would read them once, shrug his shoulders as if bored, and attempt to deter Andrew from his mission. At
every opportunity, Max changed the subject and drew Andrew into
conversation, all to end the rehearsal. Andrew didn’t realize that Max,
having already written and revised each subject, had only to read the
final version once and it was memorized. he was done learning. “I don’t care if you think you have it all in your head. You can’t
get your message out unless you tell it.” Andrew was easing into the
most difficult part of the encounter. he had to tell Max that he had arranged for a small test interview to be held in D.C., and he knew that
Max would complain mightily about it.
“Andrew, it doesn’t take a genius to stand in front of a group of
strangers and tell them that you are in favor of life, you think that everyone should be entitled to be healthy, or that you are against crime. I want to get out there and tell them that everything’s going to be better than it was, that we need to decide what is the best way to resolve problems, and that most of what politicians talk about, they have no power to change anyway,” Max barked back.
This time is probably as good as any, thought Andrew. “Max, this afternoon, a dozen members of the press are going to interview you, and I want you to use it as an opportunity to get all of these sound bites out there for people to talk about.”
Max responded as predicted. he feigned a heart attack and dropped to his knees.
“My own press secretary has stopped running interference for me and has thrown me to the snarling press! I can’t trust any one of my minions to protect me!” he lay on his back and signaled that he had been stabbed in mid-chest with a sword. he lay in this pose for more than a minute as Andrew kept up the pressure.
“Listen, I’m just trying to get you to do something for once that isn’t out of the ordinary. Go give them a damn interview! It won’t hurt you to go out there and do something that has been done before!” Max moaned, as if he suddenly had recovered from his illusory life-threatening injury, and bounced to his feet. he hovered inches from his assistant’s face. “Ordinary is boring! Ordinary doesn’t set me apart. It’s a waste of time!”
his voice was raised, and Andrew had no idea whether he would bolt from the room or show up as arranged.

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ChAPTER FORTY

he was an unknown, and even though his father was one of the most beloved and idolized politicians of the twentieth century, he, the individual, was a newbie.

Max sat in the press room of the Capitol City Press Club with a small group of reporters from small-town newspapers that had enough money in their budgets to send a person to Washington, D.C. This was a big deal to the dozen or so who had come, and, for most, it was their first trip to see the nation’s political core. Dressed in their best suits, feet blistered from walking to see the sights, they clustered in folding chairs before this new low-profile third-party candidate. They were eager to bring home a “scoop” that would entertain their readers, many of whom still chose to receive a paper delivered to their door over simply directing their attention to the local website. The interview began as a simple list of basic questions, but it soon grew into something none of them anticipated.
“Max, why are you running?”
“Why does anyone run?” he responded.
“how do you expect to win? You have no experience in politics,

and you’re up against a president who is so high in the polls that he’s invincible.”

“Well, you can’t always trust those pollsters. I figure that by the time people actually get down to voting, there won’t be much to choose from,” he smiled.

“how do you set yourself apart from the rest of the candidates?”

“I don’t really do that. They’re doing a good job at setting themselves apart from me.” he smiled again.
“I tried to find some of your political speeches to view before I came here today, and I couldn’t find anything . . .” The balding, overweight young man in the front row leaned forward and a stack of note paper with illegible scribbles cascaded onto the floor at Max’s feet.
“I don’t do speeches,” Max replied before the young man could reassemble his notes.
“What do you mean? A politician who doesn’t do speeches? I suppose you’re going to tell us next that you intend to skip the primaries and stay home.” he looked agitated and perplexed, gathering his pile of notes.
“Something like that. But I need to correct you on something. I’m not a politician. I’m just a man who is running for president.”
They sat in silence. It seemed that those words confused them somehow, but it wouldn’t be the last time that they heard them.
Recovering, a young woman in a black pin-striped suit broke in. “If you become president, what are your goals for America?”
he thought for a while, until his silence made them think that he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, he spoke. “I believe that our country has been wounded by ‘politics as usual.’ The person you choose as president should be honest with you, clearly state the position that he