The Kid Who Ran For President (10 page)

The Moongate scandal definitely had an impact across America. People had thought I was squeaky clean. They didn't want to hear that I used dirty tricks. Moon & June dropped ten points in the polls instantly. President White was back in the lead, with Senator Dunn and me five points behind.

Lane drained the last dollars from the money we raised to buy ten minutes of air time during halftime of
Monday Night Football
. He wanted to make sure all of America was watching. It was the night before Election Day.

We did the filming in front of my house, with my parents standing behind me. Lane dressed me in a plain gray suit. “I want you to look boring,” he said. Just before the camera started rolling, Lane told my dad to put a hand on my shoulder.

“My fellow Americans,” I read somberly off the cue cards Lane held up, “in the last few days a story came out that I broke into someone's locker and stole some papers. I can understand if you have second thoughts about voting for me. I wouldn't want to have a president who did that sort of thing, and I'm sure you wouldn't either.

“I'm here tonight to come clean with America. Yes, I admit it. I broke into Arthur Krantz's locker and threw his term paper down the sewer. It was a childish prank.

“I know that what I did was wrong. I was younger then. I'm much more mature now. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience and I will never,
ever
do anything like that again. You have my word on that.

“And yes, my parakeet's name is Snot. I thought the American people would not accept that, so I changed it to Cuddles.

“One other thing I probably should tell you, because if I don't they'll probably be saying this about me, too. I did get something, a gift. A man down in Texas heard that I would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, one day I got a message that the post office had a package for me. I went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that had been sent all the way from Texas — black and white, spotted. I named it Chester. And you know, I love that dog. And I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, I'm gonna keep it. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of the game.”

 

That was it. I took off the microphone and breathed a big sigh of relief. The campaign was finally over. Lane shook my hand and told me I did a great job.

“Where did you come up with that bit about Chester?” I asked him. “It was really corny.”

“I didn't write it.”

“Who did?”

“Richard Nixon.”

“The president?” I asked. “Isn't he dead?”

“He wrote it in 1952, when he was running for vice president,” Lane explained. “Nixon had received some shady campaign contributions and Eisenhower was going to drop him and pick another person to be his running mate. Then Nixon went on national TV right after Milton Berle's show and made this speech. His dog was named Checkers and the speech came to be called the Checkers speech. It saved his career.”

“You mean I just gave Nixon's Checkers speech?”

“Well, I changed a word or two,” Lane said, with a wicked smile on his face.

Election Day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. When I woke up that morning, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. If the Checkers speech worked for me like it worked for Richard Nixon, I might actually
win
the election.

The overnight polls showed that the speech hit home with at least
some
Americans. Moon & June jumped up a few points and President White dropped down a few. CNN said the race was too close to call.

Senator Dunn had dropped down to a distant third. It looked like it was all over for him.

School was open on Election Day and I decided to go. Staying home all day would only make me more nervous than I already was.

My school is the place where grown-ups in the neighborhood go to vote. Every Election Day, the gym is emptied out and filled with those big voting machines. I always thought of Election Day as a drag, because we wouldn't get to have gym that day.

It was pretty weird seeing all those grown-ups lining up to vote, and thinking that some of them would be voting for
me
. It was the first time I really understood or appreciated that this is how we make important decisions in this country.

It was impossible to pay much attention to school. Everybody was looking at me, asking me how I felt, requesting autographs. The teachers didn't seem to be able to concentrate on their lessons, either.

Chelsea caught up with me after homeroom. “I'm so excited!” she said. “I'm going to wear my red silk dress with the shoulder ruffles to the party tonight!”

“I'm sure you'll look terrific,” I said with as much fake enthusiasm as I could muster. Chelsea was really starting to get on my nerves.

Lane had booked the Presidential Suite and the big ballroom at the fancy Edgewater Hotel for the evening. Just about everybody in town was going to be there to watch the election returns on TV.

Lane and I didn't get the chance to talk until lunchtime. I told him what I'd heard about the latest polls. For the first time, he didn't seem that interested.

“Polls mean nothing at this point,” Lane said. “It's the electoral votes that matter now.”

I never really understood that whole electoral college thing, so Lane explained it to me. It turns out that each of the fifty states is given one electoral vote for every member it has in Congress. That includes the state's two Senators plus however many members it has in the House of Representatives.

The states with higher populations have more representatives, and more electoral votes. So states like New York, California, Texas, and Pennsylvania have more electoral votes than less populated states like Nevada, Alaska, and Rhode Island.

Lane explained that whichever candidate gets the most votes in a state wins all the electoral votes in that state. And whichever candidate gets 270 or more electoral votes wins the election.

It didn't seem exactly fair to me. A candidate could become president if he just won a few of the big states, even though he lost all the smaller states.

Lane said it was even possible to win the election on electoral votes even if more people voted for the other candidate. In fact, that actually happened in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.

“What if
nobody
gets 270 electoral votes?” I asked.

“Then the House of Representatives votes to decide who will be president.”

 

After school I went home and Mom fussed over me, making food and helping me pick out clothes for the evening. I think it was the longest time I'd ever spent with her when she didn't mention carpet tiles once.

After dinner, Mom, Dad, and I checked into the Presidential Suite at the Edgewater Hotel. Lane was already there, running around, completing last-minute details for the party afterward. June Syers was wheeled in by her kids, who were older than my mom and dad. Mrs. Syers looked great, in a new print dress and lace hat.

All my aunts, uncles, and cousins milled around, scarfing down chips and those little hot dogs wrapped in rolls.

Chelsea looked fabulous in her silk dress, of course. I invited her to stay with us in the Presidential Suite, but she said she was too nervous and would watch the results in the ballroom downstairs. I think she just wanted to be where the most people would see her dress.

Lane's plan was for me to come down to the ballroom as soon as the TV networks declared a winner. He had written two speeches for me — an acceptance speech in case I won, and a concession speech in case I lost.

He also arranged for the hotel to put four TV sets in our room so we could watch ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN all at the same time. When the polls started to close on the East Coast at 8:00
P.M.
, we pulled chairs around the glowing screens.

For about an hour, none of the results were in and the announcers filled the time by talking — mostly about
me
. They went on and on about how historic it was for a kid to run for president.

“I have seen a lot of big stories in my career reporting the news,” one of the anchormen babbled. “The Kennedy assassination. The Vietnam War. Watergate. Man landing on the moon. The tragedy of September eleventh, 2001. But never in all those years did it ever cross my mind that a child would not only run for president, but ever have a chance of winning the presidency. This is a turning point in the history of the Earth.”

Lane and I made gagging noises and pretended to stick our fingers down our throats.

“If the Earth knew it was gonna be around this long,” Mrs. Syers said, “it woulda taken better care of itself.”

A little after 9:00 o'clock Eastern time the results started coming in. We stopped talking among ourselves and pulled our chairs closer to the screens.

“With thirteen percent of the votes in,” the CNN announcer suddenly said, “we are projecting the state of Delaware and its three electoral votes will go to President White.”

“Booooo!” everybody hooted, but nobody was too upset. “Three lousy votes,” my dad said. “It means nothing.”

A few minutes later, the ABC commentator stopped in the middle of a sentence and announced, “We are projecting the state of Maine and its four electoral votes will go to young Judson Moon!”

Everybody yelled and screamed. “We're winning!” my mom shouted. “We're actually
winning
!”

“Calm down,” Dad grumbled. “That's just four lousy votes. They mean nothing.”

Then the results started
pouring
in. CBS projected President White was the winner in Connecticut. NBC picked me to take New Jersey. President White picked up Vermont, Rhode Island, Florida, and New Hampshire. I won in New York, with its thirty-one big electoral votes.

Senator Dunn won West Virginia's five electoral votes, but he's
from
West Virginia. I figure if you can't win your own state, you must be really pathetic. Outside of West Virginia, he wasn't doing very well. It was going to be White against Moon for all the marbles.

Moon & June pulled ahead of President White in the electoral vote tally, but only slightly. The polls were now closed on the West Coast and it was looking like the election was going to come down to California and its fifty-five electoral votes.

President White would win a state, and then I would win one. Every time a winner was projected, Mrs. Syers would shriek with glee or disappointment depending on whether or not we won the state. Dad was trying not to appear nervous. But he was pacing the floor and mumbling to himself, which he always does when he's uptight.

Lane was very calm and serious. He had his laptop computer with him and he kept recalculating the electoral vote totals every time one of the TV networks projected a winner for a state.

By 11:30
P.M.
, the results were tabulated from every state except California. All four TV networks said the vote was still too close to call there. I was stuck at 217 electoral votes and the president had 164.

“If we win in California, Moon & June is the winner by two electoral votes,” announced Lane. “If White wins in California, the election is thrown to the House of Representatives to decide.”

The voting was over. It was out of our hands. There was no speech anybody could make, no hand anybody could shake that would make a difference. There was nothing to do but sit there and watch.

Sitting there, I felt like I must be in the middle of a dream. This Judson Moon everybody was talking about was some
other
kid. It wasn't me. It was too unbelievable to think that I was actually running for president of the United States. Or that I might actually
win
.

It
had
to be a dream. Or maybe a nightmare. Sometimes it's hard to tell one from the other.

I was shaken from these thoughts when the CNN anchorman suddenly announced, “This just in!” with some urgency in his voice.

Everybody stopped talking.

“At 11:52
P.M.
, Eastern Standard Time, on November seventh, CNN projects the state of California will go to …”

He paused for just a moment to take a breath. “Moon & June! Judson Moon will become the next president of the United States! For the first time in American history —”

I didn't hear the rest. A roar went up in the hotel room. Mom and Dad and Mrs. Syers were all over me, hugging me, kissing me. Car horns blared from the street outside.

“Kings of the hill!” Lane shouted, jumping all over the couch like a maniac. “We did it, Judd! We're kings of the hill!”

I think Lane was happier than anybody. He grabbed me and thanked me for letting him run the campaign. “This is all I ever wanted,” he whispered in my ear. “Remember our deal? I'll never tell you what to wear or say or do again. Now
you're
in charge.”

I shivered when he said that.
I'm in charge.

After the commotion had subsided a bit, we all tumbled downstairs to the ballroom where a few thousand people were waiting. When the elevator door opened, a spotlight found me and Mrs. Syers and a deafening roar exploded. Hundreds of red, white, and blue balloons fell from the ceiling. The band struck up “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”

Men pummeled me on the back and women kissed me. Some people just reached out and touched me, like I was a religious object.

Lane guided me to the podium and handed me a sheet of paper.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“It's a pretty standard acceptance speech,” he said. “The usual patriotic stuff.”

I looked out into the crowd. They wouldn't stop cheering. I held up my hands. I shrugged my shoulders. I put my finger to my lips as if to say “Shh!” They kept right on screaming.

I spotted Chelsea in the crowd, clapping as hard as she could without ruining her nails. On the other side of the room I saw Abby, smiling at me like a mom watching her kid at his first piano recital.

It must have been fifteen minutes until the noise level died down enough for me to speak.

“I shouldn't be here,” I finally said into the microphone. “It's way past my bedtime.”

The ballroom exploded in another roar and I had to wait five more minutes for everybody to quiet down.

“I have a prepared victory speech,” I said, “but I'm not going to use it.” I glanced at Lane and saw his eyebrows shoot up into his forehead.

“First of all, I want to thank the people who got me here. Mom and Dad, of course. June Syers. Lane Brainard. All the volunteers and kids across America who worked so hard to make this impossible dream happen. And of course, all the people who voted for me.”

I paused for a moment to let that sink in. Because I knew that what I was about to say was going to blow their minds.

“I have a question for the grown-ups of America,” I said seriously. “Are you out of your
minds
? Are you expecting
me
to enforce the Constitution? I never even
read
it. I was absent from school that day.

“You want
me
as commander in chief of the armed forces? What if somebody attacked the United States? Would you really want
me
in charge? I don't know the difference between North Korea and North Carolina.

“You expect
me
to sign bills into law? You expect
me
to appoint Supreme Court justices? I'm just a snot-nosed
kid
!”

For once in my life, I wasn't goofing. And it felt good.

“To win this election,” I said, “I became everything I always hated. I turned into a liar, a fake, a fraud. The saddest part is, it worked.

“America must be in really bad shape if you elected
me
president. You better get it together and find some qualified people to run this country or we'll all be in big trouble.

“In conclusion,” I said, “I hereby
resign
as president-elect of the United States of America.”

 

Have you ever heard three thousand people gasp at the same time? It's really cool. For a second, I thought all the air was going to be sucked out of the ballroom.

It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop in there, at least until my mom fainted and hit the floor with a thud.

The press were all over me like ants at a picnic. “Does this make Mrs. Syers president?” somebody asked. “Will you reconsider? What about all the kids who worked so hard to get you elected? Are you finished with politics? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” I announced, “I don't even know what I'm going to do tomorrow, much less the rest of my life. To use the words of my running mate, June Syers, the future will tell us what will happen when it's good and ready.”

As I trotted off the stage, everybody was looking at me like they were dead fish in a fish store.

The first person to come over to me was Lane, of course.