At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) (15 page)

AT RISK OF WINNING

or she believes is right for America, and make that dream a reality.” “What is your platform?” They weren’t there to debate. They were
there to gather information.
“My platform is presently a stool covered with some sort of
Naugahyde cushion, but I expect I’ll be able to upgrade to a more
comfortable platform once I get back on the plane.”
The resulting laughter broke the ice.
“Well, are you a conservative or a liberal?” The balding, overweight young man wasn’t about to let his victim pass without inflicting a wound. Max stared at him with an incredulous look on his face. “Those labels don’t work for me. I’m a conservative if I vote for
jobs for people who don’t have them. When I vote to give businesses
incentives to hire new people, I suppose the conservatives would call
me a liberal, when all I would be trying to do was get the jobs for
Americans. I guess you’d better just call me an American.” he paused
and surveyed their puzzled faces.
“. . . And another thing. When you think about who to vote for, is
it better to trust the experience of the one who is doing a poor job of
serving our country or is it better to trust the only one with new ideas
for making our country better?”
“Why should I vote for you?” A new question from a new face
came from the back of the room from a short middle-aged woman
who worked for the St. Petersburg Times. They had to get their questions in to justify the cost of the trip.
“Stay tuned. If I do this right, you’ll be answering that question
yourselves before long.” Max stood. “Thanks. It’s been fun.” he turned
and walked out of the room.
Andrew was waiting in the monitoring room, where he had observed the interview on a large projection screen. he saw Max’s inexperience and evasiveness as toxic. “Max, that really sucked. You spent
the entire time trying to evade, when you should have been trying to
charm and impress. I have seen better interviews by convicted felons.” Max looked like he had just been chastised by his fourth-grade
teacher for speaking out of turn.
“I know. I don’t want to do that again. You know how much I love
the press. They’re going to comment about how I was nervous and
green.” he tossed his notes in the air. They floated randomly to the
floor, where a sheet entitled “Talking Points” landed on top. he hadn’t
touched upon any of the issues he was prepared to discuss. They were
controlling him, and he felt helpless. What he had to say had nothing
to do the agenda of his interviewers.
Andrew could see his consternation. “If you want to control the
press, you need to do two things. First, you need to make yourself
available on a limited basis on your schedule, not theirs. If they had
their way, your life would be one big interview from sunup to sundown, and they would spin every word to make it fit their agenda.
Second, and you’re going to love this one, you get to pick and choose
what you want to tell them. There isn’t a question that they can make
you answer, and there is no rule that says you have to answer their
way. I have an idea.”
As a result of the government’s newly obtained ability to verify
that a person was really who they were, voting took on a new identity,
too. No waiting in line to pull a lever. No dangling chad. No electronic touch screens. When a voter wanted to vote, they voted, and
they could do it from wherever they were, provided they all voted
on Election Day, the first Tuesday of the fourth year after the previous national election. Max and his campaign staff knew that they had
only one shot at being the top vote-getter on that particular day and
attaining that goal involved setting himself apart from the rest of his
competition.
“There are a lot of truths out there. Just pick the ones we want.”

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ChAPTER FORTY-ONE

Max was in the early stages of his daily ritual, which began with a high-level meeting with his version of the incumbent’s cabinet. Present at the table were political consultant Luke Postlewaite, Chief of Staff/Press Secretary Bill Staffman, his media advisor, Andrew Fox, and Max. At this point of his campaign, that’s all there was. If it got much bigger, he thought, then the message would become diluted, and his platform needed to be simple, direct, and clear.

“Before the next sound bite, I want to have a clear vision of America’s future, and I need to get it across to them. If they are going to remember and understand what sets me apart from the rest, I need to get it into their brains now,” Max declared to nobody in particular.

Fox and Staffman weren’t talking. It was their time to listen. When Max was strategizing, they had learned to take notes and only contribute their ideas when he had reached the point of needing advice, and Max was far from finished.

“One thing I noticed about the debate was the look on people’s faces when the speaker talked too long or went into too much detail. hell, even the moderator’s eyes began to glaze over. The time to explain is not when you introduce an idea. I’ll save the explaining for after I get into the White house.”

“Then why don’t you tell them that? You have been thriving on unconventionality and big talking points. Just be clear and short. It’s working,” offered Andrew. he felt out of place in this room with two political veterans, but Max valued his ability to observe through the eyes of the regular folks, and that ability was more valuable to him than the old party political slant that his older advisors had staked their reputations upon.

“Andrew, they don’t own me. They have no right to dig into my life and spread it all over the world,” pleaded Max.
“I beg your pardon, but yes, they do.” Andrew was awed by Max’s fire and his ability to control people, but his attempts to maintain his privacy while running for the most visible job on the planet was beginning to chafe. he had to get Max to pull his head out of his ass and press the flesh with the common folk, and it was Andrew’s job to promote top-of-mind awareness.
“We’re going to rehearse your sound bites, and we are going to unleash your first one at the airport. Next, we’re going to Michigan, and then we’ll be in Florida. You always wanted to snorkel with the manatees, and I’m going to show you a place I found during spring break a few years ago. Your bags are already packed. I have advance teams in each of the locations we’re headed, and I’m going to post your daily message at 11:00 a.m., right about the time the stock exchange posts the morning earnings reports. I want to see if we can’t influence business with hopeful messages.”
Max sat in silence while Fox rattled off his itinerary for the coming weeks. he saw the determination with which his young assistant was presenting his plan and realized that if he attempted to change anything, he was in for a blow up. Andrew had taken Max’s maxims to heart and constructed a plan of his own to put him in the White house. Experience be damned.
“Andrew, there are a couple of things I’d like to add, but you’ve come up with a good plan, and I’m going to do my best to comply. If you see me doing anything un-presidential, I want you to tell me.” Max spoke quietly. he was sitting at his kitchen table, shirtless and barefoot, with pajama bottoms as his only garb of the moment. he cradled a cup of coffee that he prepared in his typical way, with raw honey indigenous to the countryside where he lived. his hair winged out to the side.
Andrew looked at him in astonishment and noted that he was dressed in a dark-blue suit and tie, holding a briefcase stuffed full with notes and papers, while the future president looked more like, well, like everyone else looks at 7:10 a.m. he laughed. “Max, there isn’t much that you’re doing that is presidential, and I’m not the guy to be the judge of that. It would take me three lifetimes, at least, to tell you all of the things that you’re doing that are un-presidential. The interesting part is, I can see where you’re coming from. You have managed to get the women, including the old ladies, the youth vote, guys who admire you for doing what they can’t, old men who wish they were young again, and everyone who’s pissed off at a politician. That’s a lot of people. I’m devoted to taking this as far as we can go. It’s really all up to you. I’m just along for the ride.”
“Well, for a guy who’s just along for the ride, you sure know where you have me riding to,” he muttered. “But I’m not complaining. I have to get out there, and I need to get my message across. A couple of things, though. I want all of these sound bites to be positive messages. Can we do that? And I don’t want to waste any time meeting with politicians unless they are going to support my campaign.”
“Max, you’re a politician.”
“No I’m not. I’m a man who’s running for president.”

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ChAPTER FORTY-TWO

Max and his political advisors wouldn’t even fill a compact car, but they were enough. While the other candidates canvassed Iowa and New hampshire and attempted to shake hands with every resident who lived there, Max rode with Bill Staffman and Andrew Fox to Reagan International Airport in Bill’s weathered Ford Focus. The intention was for Bill to drop them off at the terminal, and while he had their captive attention for the forty-five minute ride from staff headquarters, he was damn sure going to use the time for a staff meeting.

“I have Sara in Iowa and Jerry in New hampshire, and they’re going to town meetings and attending all the speeches they can tolerate. Once you’ve heard one, it’s like watching reruns of the evening news, so I’m confining their agony to attending one speech for each candidate each day. The president has a speech in Washington at the Library of Congress to dedicate something, and I’ll attend that one. Cunningham and his people are out at Arlington to do a press conference about the war, and they are really pushing to get a lot of press coverage. I have Richard and Janice out there taking notes,” rambled Staffman.

“I don’t care whether they take notes. We already know what they are going to say. I want them to sit in front and face the crowd and time how long it takes for people’s eyes to glaze over and lose their attention. Then when the speech is done, I want them to poll the crowd and ask the same question of everyone,” said Max in an unwavering voice.

Andrew was intrigued. “Why in the world would you want to do that? What question?”
Max waited the appropriate time to create suspense, sensing their irritation at his silent manipulation and smiled. “I just want them to ask, ‘What did he just say?’”
“Why?” Bill and Andrew asked loudly, their voices tinged with confusion.
“First, I need to know how long the average person will listen to a politician before their mind wanders, because once you lose their attention, you may as well stop talking. And then I need to know whether they are getting through to these people. These crowds are mostly supporters, and they’re going to vote for them anyway, so I need to focus on the rest of the voters.”
“Max.” Bill turned his head to his passenger and stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. They were stopped still in Washington traffic, and he could divert his attention until the line of cars on the off-ramp began moving again. “Max, you worry me. Why aren’t we in Iowa eating corn dogs with the locals? I don’t get it. You and Andrew are headed to Michigan, and I’m stuck here in D.C., and I don’t know what you want me to do, for chrissakes!”
Bill was beginning to sweat with frustration, and Max knew that to campaign in the way he had devised, he needed to share his philosophy with those he trusted. “Bill, Andrew is going to post videos of me speaking on every subject we decide the voters want information about. The length of my talks will be shorter than the attention span of the viewers. I have no intention of being where all the other candidates are unless I’m debating. There will be a video assistant meeting me at each of my destinations.”
Andrew had listened too long and was itching to speak. “I get the idea of strategic sound bites, but why don’t you care what the voters think about the issues?”
Max turned to address his backseat passenger just as Bill navigated the terminal entrance. he made direct eye contact with his young protégé, whose face was just feet from his. “I do care. I just have this abiding belief that people listen to politicians to make up their minds on issues that people disagree about, and polling is just a way of verifying that a politician is good at persuading and getting the message across. If I can get a majority of voters to pay attention to my message and agree with me on basic principles, I win. There’s an old adage: When you’re going to fish, go to where the fish are.”
Andrew and Bill shook their heads. “It sounds to me that you just beat up on the bully without throwing a punch,” said Bill as he pulled up to the door of Airside C.

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ChAPTER FORTY-ThREE

Andrew and Max made it through security at Reagan International Airport without too much trouble. Stripping down to your nonmetallic essence had become a ritual of travel since 9/11. Once they got to the secure area for passengers on outgoing flights, they settled into chairs near the food court and Andrew began his briefing on issues to be addressed in the next sound bites as Max sipped on a pomegranate smoothie. “We’re doing jobs and retirement on this trip,” Andrew began.

Max had his feet up on a metal chair, sat oblivious to the crowd that was gathering around them. They encroached, the numbers increasing steadily. Finally, a girl, probably seventeen, walked up to Max, and said, “You’re him, aren’t you.”

“I guess.”
“No you’re not.”
“Then I guess I’m not.” he smiled, and she screamed. “You are him! I told my Mom and Dad that if they didn’t vote for you, I was going to run away!” The girl was obviously a part of a private school trip, as signified by her uniform and the identical uniforms of her twenty companions, who all screamed in her support. This, in turn, brought a larger crowd of travelers until they were surrounded by a mass of humanity that was quickly becoming very close and very aggressive.

A man in a business suit pushed to the front perimeter and spoke. “I don’t know about the rest of us, but I have been very interested in what you have to say, and I would appreciate your thoughts about social security.”