The iCandidate (26 page)

BLAKE

Thirty
-six hours. That’s the sum of time it took for Michael Bennit to recover from the biggest political bomb our campaign could drop and come back swinging.

The ten point lead he enjoyed following the debate was a brief one
. Once I leaked the news about the affair, he plummeted thirty points overnight to a twenty point deficit, or so Marcus said when he reported our internal poll. Beaumont was ecstatic at the result, and I got a huge pat on the back.

“Your political future is secure
,” he told me. Maybe, but I sure didn’t feel like celebrating. I figured the Bennit campaign had suffered a fatal blow and would go out with a whisper.

I was wrong. The
man took our best knockout punch, but didn’t stay on the mat long. Yesterday morning, he took to every social media site in existence, and even hosted an eight hour web chat to answer any question a reporter could dream of asking. Bruce Stanton’s interview got posted to YouTube seconds after he finished it and had generated a record number of views by then. The Bennit camp tackled the accusation head-on, and as a result, Roger watched in horror as the well-planted story burned out by the end of the day.

Then
the iCandidate went on an offensive of his own last night. He twisted the issue so the question was no longer whether he slept with a student, but who
made up
the story he did. Bennit commanded the media’s attention, and could have spent the time going negative and accusing us of dirty politics. Roger thought he would, and wasted a ton of time preparing to counter his accusations. Hell, it made perfect sense because they’d be right. We were dirty.

Michael Bennit doesn’t use that playbook though.
Instead of going negative on us as predicted, his campaign went positive. No other candidate in the country could ever pull off such a move. The focus again shifted right back to his message and the ideas about both America and the future we collectively share in this country. He even used the incident to highlight everything wrong with the modern election process. His staff still addressed the occasional scandal question when it surfaced, but they managed to move everyone in the media off the subject. It’s worked brilliantly, but it will fall short.

It’s a weekend, so people are going to spend a lot more time watching
college and pro football than news about politics. He’ll get back to within ten points or so, but it won’t be a suspenseful election night. On paper, anyone reading about this race twenty years from now will see an independent candidate make a brilliant run, but still fail to unseat a popular incumbent. They won’t ever learn the back story.

So no,
Bennit won’t be able to recover from the hit he took, but he won’t go down without a fight. You have to admire the tenacity he inspires in his students. Fox News practically has his Twitter feed scrolling live at the bottom of their screen. Kylie worked the media up into a frenzy over him again, and we gave her the reason.

“I hope you’re not worried about the flurry of Bennit-related activity,” I hear Madison say from the office door. I have no idea how long she’s been standing there.

“Sorry. No,
I was just lost in my thoughts.”

“He’s finished, Blake.
It’s a Sunday night. The news can say what they want, and he can tweet, post to Facebook, and all that other crap they do, but nobody is listening or watching. He can’t recover.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Well, don’t sound so thrilled.”

I flash the best
fake genuine smile I can. I should be elated we are frontrunners again. I would have taken Dick Johnson out at any point in this campaign and slept like a baby afterwards. Even taking on the iCandidate for something he did in his past would have been acceptable. Going after Bennit by using his teenage staff? That is wearing on my conscience.

“I set you up for failure Blake, I hope you know that. I never thought you’d go through with it. You’d waffle, and complain, and ultimately fail and I’d swoop in to the rescue and do it myself.
But you came through.”

“
Yeah, well, you should never have doubted me, Madison.”

“Nope, you’re right,” she says. She crosses the small office and leans across the desk until her face is mere inches from mine. “
This thing between us isn’t over. Not for a second. You trampled me to get ahead, and I haven’t forgotten. Remember, I can be every bit as ambitious as you, and someday it’ll be your turn to take the knife in the back.”

She winks at me before retreating
out of the small office and out into the war room. The fact is, she had every reason to doubt me. I didn’t want to do what I did to Michael Bennit and Chelsea. They deserve better. Making the story up of them having a sexual relationship epitomizes everything Americans hate about politicians. Scandals make for great ratings in the press, but making one up for political gain is the ultimate in slimy politics.

The Bennit campaign is dead
, and I pulled the trigger. Beaumont has no business getting reelected after the race he’s run. He’s offered no fresh ideas or bold initiatives. His message was the same tired reliance on funneling money into the district and buying his way to another term. It’s a shame.

I actually think Michael Bennit would make a better congressman. A man of principal, he would be despised by most
of the members of the House. With the right guidance, he could actually shake things up and make life interesting in D.C. Too bad he will never make it there, not down so far in the polls just days before the election.

No, Bennit is cooked. I lean back in the chair at the desk and stare at the ceiling.
There is a lot of uncertainty with the voters of the district. Can they be influenced again? He’s finished in this race, at least on paper. Unless, of course, something drastic is done to even the score and give him a fighting chance.

CHELSEA

“
The polls open in like, fourteen hours, Chels,” Brian says despondently. “We’re just not going to make up enough ground.”

“Down
eight in the Rasmussen poll,” Vanessa says, peering at her laptop. “Eleven in the ABC-
Washington Post
poll, but they’ve never liked us.”

“What does Marist have us at?” Emilee asks.

“Ten, but with a larger margin of error,” Amanda says.

“We can’t let them beat us over a lie,” I say, slamming my hand in the table.

“Chels, if it wasn’t for your dad, we wouldn’t even be this close.” Vanessa consoles. “We’re lucky we’ve gotten ten points back so quick.”

“Well, the
mainstream media is questioning the integrity of the story, thanks to Kylie. Our numbers should be better,” Vince adds, grasping for reasons why we are still low in the polls.

“
It’s gonna take a while for the word to spread,” Xavier tells me. Maybe he’s right, but I doubt it. People have chosen to stop believing in us. I have to hand it to the Beaumont camp, they timed this little nightmare perfectly.

“I don’t know what to do
, guys.”

“We keep fighting,” Vince tells me. “We don’t quit.”

A long silence fills the room before Amanda finally breaks it. “What do you think Mister B?”

Mister Bennit is preoccupied
with his thoughts, staring blankly out the window. We convened at the shop immediately after school to make one last plea to the public for votes, but even he can’t be optimistic about what he’s hearing. He doesn’t even turn when he speaks.

“
People are confused. They don’t know what or whom to believe anymore. Everybody has a side, including the media.”

“With all the accusations flying over the last week, who could blame people if they stop listening,” Emilee decrees.

“I wouldn’t,” Vanessa agrees.

“If I wasn’t working on this campaign, I would have stopped listening months ago,” Vince adds.

“What can we do to make them listen?” Amanda asks in frustration.

“Nothing. It’s out of our hands now.”

BLAKE

If I press this button, it’s all over. My
job, career in politics, and everything I’ve worked for to this point will go up in flames. Ones and zeros sent over an invisible network to the world will lead to real repercussions.

I sit in the war room of our campaign headquarters among the rows of phones prepped for tonight’s action. Volunteers are starting to arrive for the final stages of the get out the vote effort designed to propel Winston Beaumont to victory
tomorrow. Of course, recent events have considerably reduced the urgency of the work.

I stare at the message I typed on @
WinstonBeaumontIII, the official Beaumont for Congress Twitter account as my finger hovers over the tweet button. My heart tells me this is the right thing to do, but my head is screaming that it’s also futile. Problem is they’re both correct.

“Big night tonight, right Blake?” a volunteer asks me with a slap on the shoulder as he walks by. I have no idea who he is.

“The biggest,” I say, eliciting a smile of glee from the puffy man as he continues to the table with the donuts and coffee for an afternoon snack.

The people around me are oblivious to the battle I am waging with myself. Confused and lost, I have become my own worst enemy. The internal drive that pushed me to do Beaumont and Roger’s dirty work is the same drive pushing me to undo it.

This isn’t going to help Bennit much, but maybe it helps validate the denials they already issued. Too much damage has already been done, and our campaign can spin this tweet as hacking, a rogue staffer, or a practical joke. No, a tweet alone won’t get it done, and am I prepared to go all the way with this?

I look at the triangular Second Armored pin in front of me. My father’s old unit, a token of remembrance and a gift from an old, broken man with more courage and honor than I will ever have. He was ready to fight and die for the men next to him, just like my father was. They were warriors who fought their battle, now it’s time for me to fight mine. I affix the pin to my lapel, and once satisfied with its position, look back at the screen.

“Screw it.” I press tweet and watch as the message post to the feed for the world to see:

Bennit and media are asking who could be so deplorable as to fabricate an affair with a student. Simple. We are. I know because I did it. #
Beaumontlies

KYLIE

I ignore my Twitter feed more often than I read it, and today was no different.
I didn’t know it happened until a colleague covering the race showed me the tweet. That and the simple message set off a firestorm of activity around me within seconds of it posting.

For the last five hours, I have been with the media in the
far recesses of Laura’s coffee shop parking lot trying to figure out who sent it and why. The Beaumont spin doctors immediately went into defense mode, offering a litany of excuses for the tweet that ranged from hacking, to being victims of a disgruntled campaign volunteer. While the excuses satisfied unobjective Beaumont supporters, the rest of us are on a mission to find the truth.

Media organizations rarely cooperate in the race to scoop each other, but reporters on the ground covering this campaign have created an atmosphere comparable to a fraternity. This tweet means ratings for everyone, and finding the source guarantees a huge audience going into
Election Day. For that reason, I have been treated to the rare sight of reporters and journalists working together and comparing notes, two hours before the eleven o’clock news airs.

I am chatting with a young reporter from the CBS affiliate in Hartford when someone spots him walking toward us. Even under the glow of parking lot lighting, he looks sharp, decked out in a navy blue suit and a pin on his lapel. Blake Peoni makes it thirty feet from me before the mass of microphone-clad humanity blocks any further progress. No member of the Beaumont campaign would dare show up here, and I sense something special is about to happen.

Not being a television journalist, there is no need for me to be standing here. I also know that the staff inside is too focused to be watching the news.
I run for Laura’s door and barge through, only to be greeted by Michael standing in front of me with a worried look on his face.

“
What the hell is going on out there? Why are you running?” I hear Michael ask, as I brush past him to get to the counter.

“Can you change the channel to the news, Laura?” I ask, looking back to see half the students staring at me and the other half gawking out the window at the flurry of activity where members of the press are camped out.

“Sure, dear. Any particular
station?”

“Just pick one. Any of the cable news
networks will carry this live. You guys are going to want to see this,” I shout over my shoulder at the gang, beckoning them over to the large plasma screen hung on the wall with a sense of urgency.

Laura changes the channel to CNN and the unmistakable image of the Perkfect Buzz parking lot fills the
television. Cameramen are rushing over to Blake like bees responding to a wasp attacking their hive, reminding me a little of how Chelsea, Bruce, and Michael were ambushed on her front lawn. The camera finally focuses on Blake when he begins to speak.

“My name is Blake Peoni
, and I am a key advisor to Representative Winston Beaumont and the Beaumont for Congress campaign,” he says in preamble. “As you have reported, there was a tweet sent from our campaign Twitter account several hours ago accepting responsibility for manufacturing allegations of an affair between Michael Bennit and his student, Chelsea Stanton.

“Since then, the campaign has offered several plausible reasons
why the tweet was sent in error, causing confusion among the media and the voters. I’m here to clear up any uncertainty.”

Reporters and journalists begin shouting questions, causing Blake to pause until he can finish.

“This ought to be interesting,” Vanessa mumbles aloud. “I wonder what fresh excuse they have this time.”

“I can tell you with one
hundred percent certainty that the message in question was
not
sent by a hacker or a disgruntled staffer, Blake continues. “I know this because I’m the one who sent it.”

As a journalist, I try to hide my reaction when something surprises me. In this case, m
y jaw drops. Vanessa and Amanda gasp and even Michael looks like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Even his Magic 8-Ball would never have predicted this.

The gaggle erupts with questions, and once again
, Blake has to struggle to quiet them and continue speaking.

“
Furthermore … furthermore, the content of the tweet is also accurate. The knowledge I have of the Beaumont campaign creating this story is not second-hand. I was in the room when the decision was made to pursue this course of action because we were struggling in the polls.”

Blake
still isn’t finished, but the reporters around them have been silent for thirty seconds longer than they usually can stay quiet. Another flood of questions ends with a reporter from the Connecticut NBC affiliate right in front of him, holding a microphone in his face, getting one in.

“Do you know who
specifically in the campaign leaked the fake story of the affair?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Who was it?” a chorus of people sing out simultaneously. Blake looks around at the reporters and into the cameras. Only a few seconds elapse, but it feels like a lifetime.

“Me.”