At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) (18 page)

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ChAPTER FIFTY

There are many examples of major elections throughout the history of the United States in which the will of the electorate has escaped the attention of those who seek higher office, and as a result, they lost to less-financed unknowns. Even more numerous are those candidates who never had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected, yet they gave it their best shot and almost pulled it off. In this instance, Max had gone in one day from a guppy in a pack of sharks to swimming as the lead fish, escaping the jaws of those who were out to devour him.

The unique part of it all was that he was such a long shot that the incumbent president and his handlers failed to notice Max’s arrival as a legitimate candidate. The incumbent’s political machine, numbering in the thousands and occupying strategic offices in every major city, had discounted the Masterson ticket and predicted a landslide for the incumbent. Their focus was on the opposition party. After all, no third-party candidate had won an election for president. Most candidates for president since the Civil War who fronted third-party campaigns were only spoilers at best. Blythe was feeling very comfortable about his reelection, and those who surrounded him were unanimously predicting his landslide victory in November. All except one.

hugo Weissman had been a trusted advisor of the president since his early campaigns for national office, beginning with the first disastrous campaign for the U.S. house of Representatives for the state of New York at the green age of twenty-seven. Blythe was not elected to public office until he switched home states and was elected to the Senate. Weissman had served as his advisor through Blythe’s election to the presidency. On inaugural day, Blythe stopped taking political advice from anyone.

“Mr. President, did you watch the debate?”
“I don’t have time to watch a bunch of losers fumble around and pick away at each other. I was in an important conference with . . . never mind, just do a report and have it on my desk by tomorrow morning.” he had just emerged red-faced from the bathroom adjacent to the Oval Office, trying to buckle his belt as he emerged.
“But Mr. President, I’m very concerned by what I saw last night. This race has come down to you and Max Masterson,” Weissman intoned.
“Are you telling me that Masterson came out the winner of that debate?” sputtered Blythe. he was dressed in an old pair of jeans and had on a sweat shirt that may have once fit when he was forty pounds lighter, but he had been off his exercise regimen since his inaugural. his diet consisted in whatever they fed him, which was usually fried and in massive helpings. Part of the problem, he surmised, was that he had inadvertently revealed to the cook staff that he had a secret desire to find the perfect chicken wing, and they appeared at nearly every meal.
“No, what I’m telling you is that your previous thirty-eight percent approval rating is now in the toilet, and the voters are paying attention to Max Masterson. I have never seen a bigger change in the polls. You haven’t even made your first speech, and he managed to get everyone repeating his little one-liners.”
“You mean sound bites.”
Weissman didn’t like to be corrected. In fact, he didn’t like anyone to talk down to him, and after his long career in public service, he had little patience for elected officials at all. he flushed, but considering the fact that he was addressing the most powerful man on the planet, he bit his tongue. “Worse than that. They rhyme. They make sense. You can understand them. hell, you can memorize the whole campaign in about five minutes. I hear that schoolkids are repeating them at the dinner table.”
“Do you mean that I’m running against Sesame Street?”
“I’m more worried that you are competing for the vote of people who grew up on Sesame Street.”

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ChAPTER FIFTY-ONE

If you really want to set yourself apart from the competition, you need to be a separate story. Any time all of the candidates are in Iowa, I want you to be in Florida. When they’re in New Orleans, I want you to be in Colorado. I want the contrast to be so huge that they will all be lumped together in one news report, while you get the same amount of time in your own,” announced Andrew Fox. The look on his face reflected his determination.

Andrew was beginning to show his brilliance, a quality composed of his strong identification with average people, and the persistence instilled in him by his Midwest upbringing. he had taken this job with the single-minded focus to put his employer in the White house, and he wasn’t going to do it by trying to mold Max into a poor imitation of any politician who had ever filled the position. The only way they were going to win was if America wanted someone to lead who was so different than the rest that politics would never be the same. The boy advisor was well on his way to becoming a seasoned veteran of political wars, if he could only survive until the election without violating Max’s maxims.

Max knew he wasn’t paying him a tenth of what other political advisors made for a national campaign, but when this was over, Andrew could have any job he wanted at any price he chose.

Tuesday was the second primary of the race, and Max was not in the Southeast. In fact, he was nowhere to be found, if the reports from the horde of field correspondents was any indication. After the first debate, the phone bank at Masterson headquarters lit up at the rate of three thousand calls per hour, and the internet fund-raising web page was receiving contributions at the rate of one million dollars each twenty-four-hour period. It was an unprecedented contribution rate, considering the one-thousand-dollar cap on political contributions self-imposed by Max at the outset.

Along with the increase in phone contributions came requests for interviews. If Max had scheduled interviews with every newspaper, TV, and internet media correspondent, he would have had no time to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. he solved that problem by turning them all down.

When news came that Max had denied every request for an interview after the first one, that kernel of information became the news of the day. When no new information came from campaign headquarters in the next twenty-four hours, the news of the day became the news of the week, and political commentators had to have their say. White house Press Secretary Wiley Carlson provoked a laugh from the press corps at the Thursday morning briefing by answering a question raised by New York Times correspondent Annie Way, “It appears that the president is running against someone who hasn’t yet figured out how to run. Is the president worried that Mr. Masterson is a threat to his reelection?

“The only thing the president is worried about Mr. Masterson is whether he can find the polling booth on Election Day.”
After two decades as a press correspondent, the White house veteran thought for a short moment, and before Wiley could move on to the next question, she delivered the second question, “Then the president considers Max Masterson to be the front-runner?”
Wiley was trapped into admitting that he was. “The president has been informed of the latest polls. he has also been informed that Masterson captured a 42% share in the latest polls, and that makes him the front-runner of the moment. I do not expect that the Masterson campaign will capture the nomination of the opposing party, because he is a third-party candidate. So, in my mind, Mr. Masterson is in a strange place. I’m certain he’s accustomed to being in strange places.”

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ChAPTER FIFTY-TWO

When the press is rebuffed, it reacts by sending a film crew and team of reporters on a seek-and-destroy mission. Armed with cameras, lights, and microphones, the advance team stations itself in surveillance mode outside the scene of most likely contact. They dig in, setting up satellite dish and portable soundstage with a background that describes the story. This time, they had to settle for the playground in the preschool across the street from Masterson for President headquarters, but the routine was the same: locate the candidate outside his cordon of security; shove microphone into sound zone and ask a question before other sound crews get the same idea; provoke a sound bite; repeat the sound bite every twenty minutes on banner headline; and run audio and visual reports as often as possible, followed by feature-length reports twice a day as justified. Continue surveillance until subject moves, then move with him until no longer newsworthy.

Today, campaign headquarters was surrounded by fourteen sound trucks, all strategically located in the playground and parking lot adjacent to the preschool. The principal and preschool teachers had been bribed by each network for sums equivalent to three years’ gross income of the preschool to surrender their property to the press until further notice. Even though this development had the effect of displacing thirty preschoolers to a location on the second floor of a local warehouse, they were making the best of it, and the parents went along with the idea when informed that they had free preschool until the horde of paparazzi had moved on.

“Where is he? Why don’t we have his calendar and daily itinerary?” Greg huffington rarely sat still for long, but today, he was more active than usual. In a state of constant aggravation, he paced back and forth in front of the monkey bars and raged into the cell communicator imbedded in his right ear. With his hands in his pockets, from a distance he looked like an errant schoolboy searching for a nonexistent hall pass in his baggy pockets.

“That’s not good enough, Vivien! You didn’t become my research assistant by making excuses! Produce! I want to know where he is right now, and I want to know it before anyone else!” he paused, listened, and watched as the hologram image of Vivien appeared on the viewing screen. She was attractively dressed in red, her dress complementing the increasing glow of her cheeks. It was obvious that she, too, was exasperated.

“For a guy running for president, he sure doesn’t get out much. I know he likes to run along the Potomac every morning about five, and he’s usually inside his office by now. Nobody has laid eyes on him for about fourteen hours. You got there just after he had left for the day,” she said.

“If he isn’t here, where is he?”
he paused to watch an attractive young woman rolling a large computer case down the cobblestone street. She was in obvious distress, but reporters are not known for helping ladies in distress, or anyone in distress for that matter. They are there to report about people in distress. Finally, the young woman made her way to the front door of campaign headquarters and reached for the door while juggling a file in her left hand. Greg took the opportunity to get a statement and almost blew an Achilles tendon bounding across the street ahead of the cameras and microphones.

“Larry! Zoom in, and I’ll get the audio off my collar mike,” he hollered.
By the time Mamie Wright had the door fully open, Greg was in voice range and launched his first question.
“Young lady, good day! I’m Greg huffington of News Tonight. Can you tell us where Max Masterson is this afternoon?”
“I have been at the dentist, but Max gets in early.” She peered into the darkened lobby. “The light’s on in his office. I’m sure he knows you’re all out here. I’ll see if he wants to talk to you.” She walked in, trailing her computer case, which seemed to be stuck. With a big heave, the large bag hopped over the raised vestibule and the door slammed shut in the faces of the hastily assembled press. There was a peculiar silence as they listened to the lock of the heavy door.
In an effort to fill the “dead air,” the cameras moved from the front door to the faces that report the news. The press holding the microphones turned collectively away from the door to begin speaking to the cameras, unsure of what they should say. Just then, the door opened again, and Bill Staffman emerged, hastily adjusting his tie. he shuffled toward the portable soundstage, his large frame uncomfortably supporting an expensive Italian suit. From behind, he appeared like a large bear dressed in a human suit. Bill had never had a good clothing day or a good hair day. To compensate, he bought the most expensive attire he could fit into, but the end result was opulent frumpiness.
he slowly lumbered up the six steps and stood in front of the microphone. A teleprompter was present, but he reached forward and turned it off. “Max Masterson doesn’t make speeches. he does not schedule, nor does he participate in interviews.” he paused.
A collective “huh?” was followed by a muttering sound that took on all of the qualities of a volcano about to explode.
Joe Mostatoccio of Reuters was the first to react. “We have been waiting all day for a story. Where is Max Masterson?”
“he’s inside.”
“how can that be? We have been here all day, and we didn’t see him come in this morning.”
“Max Masterson is an interesting man, who doesn’t believe that the way we have been electing the president of the United States is the best way to pick the right person to lead our country. he also defies traditional politics and rejects politics as usual,” responded Staffman, choosing to respond to a question that had not been asked.
his remark compounded the derision of the press. The rumbling grew. Every voice with a microphone asked a question, more of a cacophony than a chorus. The sound was unintelligible and tinged with annoyance.
Bill raised his hands slowly, and the higher his hands rose, the quieter it got. When he had reached shoulder level, he achieved silence. “Max is an early riser, but this time, your intelligence is wrong. he has been here all night. We have been working on a press statement, which will be delivered by Max shortly.”
Bill turned, walked to the back of the stage, and began to exit via the back stairs but paused and returned to the microphone. The lights came on again. “I need to tell you how this will go from now on. Every other day, you will be treated to public messages from Max, but it won’t all be at press conferences. he might decide to issue a message by the internet, a letter, or in person. he won’t do the typical press conference thing.” he paused again, this time for effect. his audience seemed deep in thought.
“I won’t be notifying you of coming attractions, and I won’t be commenting or elaborating on what Max says. I don’t tell him what to say, and he doesn’t tell me what to say, but I have to live by the maxims just like anyone else in the campaign.”
“What are the maxims?” Greg spoke to the back of Bill’s head as he exited the stage.