He could not believe how Walters had dressed down a high powered political professional like Chairman Dudek in front of the whole room. He was astounded at how disrespectful the nominee was to the man who was charged with bringing forth a candidate to win the presidency. But even through all of that, Murray could not help but be impressed with the RNC chairman’s professionalism and maturity. After that morning, Dudek deferred to the Walters campaign team and accommodated the men at every step.
His lineup of speakers at the convention and the arrangement of the talent were crucial to building the excitement in Tampa. He embraced Walters’ suggestion to have Tim Jenson deliver the keynote address, a decision that wowed the crowd and ultimately made Mr. Jenson a future candidate for national office himself. Murray could not believe how good his speech was, even intimating a bit of jealousy.
His thoughts jumped back to Dudek’s plan to throw all delegates to Walters during the roll call. It stayed a secret and was carried out to perfection. When Alabama announced their contingent to Walters, the media was stunned. As each state followed in kind, the reaction could not have been more favorable for the campaign. The media did not know how to react. Their hesitation and confusion just added to the positive fervor in the domed stadium.
Even Dudek’s prediction of negative feedback over the selection of Anders for vice-president was correct. But to his credit, the nimble chairman soothed over the hard feelings in the Republican establishment without once apologizing for the Anders pick. Dudek might not have fallen on his sword all the way for the new nominee, but Murray respected his political acumen and knew him to be an asset for the rest of the campaign.
Walters seemed to realize this as well, as he relied on Dudek more and more in the days leading up to the first debate with the incumbent president. He brought the chairman into debate preparatory sessions and asked his opinions regularly. He blended in well with the rest of the team, even though he clashed a few times with Ken Rader, who felt threatened by the outsider. And Hahn, who seemed to clash with everybody before long.
Jack slowed his drinking now, understanding that tomorrow was another busy day. He nursed his gin and tonic as he watched the baseball game on the television over the bar. As he did, he reviewed in his head the main points of the debate for which they prepped Walters. They wanted their candidate to stress the economy and to use the president’s own words and promises against him. He recalled Walters sitting quietly in those brainstorming sessions, soaking in the content.
Of course, the General did not disappoint. The one debate with the president went about as well as it could have. Walters figuratively took the president to school, talking about high taxes and gasoline prices and redistribution of wealth. He described the Laffer curve and how it applied to the current economy, following the script the team had laid out for him. He then moved to illegal immigration, citing the Supreme Court case against Arizona, and ridiculed the Commander-in-Chief when he asked how the federal government could sue one of its own states for enforcing laws that the federal government deputized the states to enforce (and refused to enforce themselves).
When he showed the absurdity of PresidentCare, the traditionally stoic cadets in the audience at West Point couldn’t hide their amusement and erupted in laughter so boisterous, their Tactical Officers had to ask for quiet and respect.
But neither the economy nor the border issue were what won the night for nominee Walters. It was his closing statement that had the greatest impact, an idea that he had not shared with his team previously. As a matter of fact when he started his summation, Murray and the team let out an audible gasp. Dudek looked at Rader, who looked at the others as if to say, “Here we go again.” The newest additions to the campaign were about to get another lesson in unorthodox politics.
Walters started by scolding his opponent for starting an era of class warfare and creating jealousies between fellow Americans. He called the idea of redistribution of wealth in the name of fairness an anathema to our society, benefitting chosen constituents and many of the forty-seven percent of Americans who did not pay federal income tax at all. He exclaimed that fairness was not defined by one American giving more of his hard earned dollars to a government that would take its cut and then use the balance to attempt to buy a vote from another American.
He asked who was qualified to judge what was fair.
Walters rhetorically asked if any political leaders, founding fathers or even Supreme Court Justices could be entrusted as the arbiters of fairness. Murray chewed on a lime as he recalled a nervous president peering down at his podium, not having the courage to look his opponent in the eye. Murray knew Walters had the eye of the tiger, but on that night, it was more like the eye of Godzilla.
Walters turned his head toward the camera and announced to the world that God was the judge of fairness; the Almighty deemed what was fair in the world when He delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses. Walters listed the commandments, stressing those related to honesty and envy. Murray thought Walters made a mistake of biblical proportions. The rest of the new founders agreed with Murray, understanding religious references to be the suicidal powder keg in presidential politics.
But Walters did not care. He understood what people wanted, needed, and believed. Had they known what he was going to say in advance, Murray knew the team would have done everything to dissuade their candidate from raising this taboo subject. The candidate knew that too, which was why he had kept it from them until he used it during the debate.
Once again, it worked.
Walters seemed to be addressing each American one on one when he said with reverence that nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality were necessary to make us a great and happy people.
He concluded by challenging his opponent, pronouncing that in his four years, the president offered America exactly none of those essential elements. Walters took the president to task on each of his four points, detailing the fostering of class warfare, the misrepresentation of President-Care, the attack on vibrant and successful industries, and the spending that brought the country to the brink of oblivion.
The civilian part of the audience shot to attention with the military contingent and let out a roar of approval that rivaled any C-17 on takeoff.
The president’s closing statement was rendered moot. Murray noted that it was as if the Rolling Stones had opened for Don Ho. It seemed that Frank Walters had all but secured the White House that night.
Murray settled his bar tab and headed toward the elevator. He wanted to go to the casino and join his friends. He felt lucky and was eager to test that luck at the roulette wheel or the blackjack tables. As he waited to go down, his thoughts wandered back to his wife and son. He wanted to call Dottie. In a moment of immaturity, he told himself that it was her turn to call as he put his cell phone back in his pocket.
The last time he called, she told him that Todd had shown improvement. He was still in a coma, but his body responded well to treatment and the doctors thought that a full recovery was very possible. He was thrilled and relieved to hear that, but uneasy with the tone in which Dottie delivered the news. She was still very cold to him, which made him feel angry and sick to his stomach. Murray’s wife had taken on the persona of a criminal attorney in cross examination and it made him cringe.
As the doors opened and the lights and sounds of the casino filled the elevator, Jack Murray soberly gave his marriage a 50/50 chance of survival.
Dottie was thinking the same thing. She was in the same spot she had been in for the past month. She sat at the bedside of her son, holding his hand and stroking his now long and unkempt hair. Dottie looked at her boy, thinking that he looked pretty good for a kid that had been in a coma as long as he had. He had not lost much weight and his face had good color. She looked at her reflection in the window and realized she could not say the same for herself.
She looked tired, almost frail, and had circles under her eyes that could not be hidden by makeup anymore. Even
though the doctors had given Todd a good prognosis, she still worried as he had still yet to respond.
Those worries were not just limited to her son’s condition. The status of her marriage weighed heavily on her mind. She had cheered Mr. Walters during his debate win over the president and had watched the evening news report of the rally from Omaha. Her husband was in his normal spot during the speech, three men to the candidate’s right on stage.
A little jealousy seeped into her thoughts as she wished she could trade places with her husband for just one night. Dottie started to rattle off different scenarios for the future, telling herself that if Walters won and Murray was to be part of his administration, she and Todd would not move to Washington. She knew an election win would all but solidify Jack joining the Walters’ administration. She did not know what election outcome would be better, a Walters’ win or loss.
Dottie took a deep breath and realized she was getting ahead of herself. She squeezed Todd’s hand and told her comatose son that a politician’s paycheck was a lot better than a high school teacher’s.
Dottie started to think of Jack’s good qualities. As always, she told herself that Jack was a good person, the type that always wanted to please everyone. He probably struggled with his decision to stay with the campaign. He told Dottie over and over to look at the big picture and the importance of the world-changing events to which he was now an integral part. She understood, but could not bring herself to give him the satisfaction of agreeing. The hurt caused by Jack’s delay in coming home had yet to go away.
Still, she could not shake the feeling that the schism between the Murrays was partially her fault. She pushed him toward this, but had she pushed him too far? And over the last month, had she pushed him far enough away where it was impossible to reconcile? The thought of a life without Jack would devastate Dottie.
These thoughts consumed her so much that she did not notice her son’s subtle squeeze of her hand.
She told herself that if Todd recovered in the next week, she would join her husband for the remainder of the campaign. After all, who was Dottie Murray to judge anybody? Walters’ words from the debate left an impression. Whatever was going to happen was God’s will and as she told herself this, a quiet calm came over her. She felt at peace and reminded herself to call Jack in the morning.
Murray had been at the blackjack table for an hour, but his mind was elsewhere. He was only down twenty dollars, but he was just going through the motions. He could not get his mind off his wife and son. The campaign was scheduled to be in New York and then back to Virginia in the days leading up to Election Day. He hoped to see Dottie and, if Todd was on the mend, possibly have her join him on election night.
Jack pushed his chips toward the dealer, asking to be cashed out. He spied Faulk and Hahn at the next table. Sure enough, the two card sharks had huge piles of chips in front of them. The dealer gave him his chips back as he informed him that the cashier would pay him the money he was owed. He thanked the dealer and walked to the cashier window before heading up to his room.
Chapter 31
It was all but over. At least that’s what the team thought in the two weeks following the debate. Walters’ dismantling of the president that night in West Point left the incumbent reeling. Even the mainstream media had all but declared the election over.
But this president was not a man to be underestimated; especially when his public mouthpiece was none other than William Fredericks.
Fredericks’ professional and personal life was in a tailspin since the night of Walters’ one man show at Federal Hall. He had verbally assaulted his wife on the platform set next to the stock exchange and followed it up with an on-air rant that resulted in a warning from the FCC. Subsequent shows yielded more of the same until the Monday show.
That was the day that Fredericks opened by stating that through his reliable sources, he had information stating that candidate Walters’ cancer, thought to be in remission, had returned. Fredericks reported that the man who led in the polls was weakened by secret chemotherapy treatments. He showed recent pictures of Walters on the campaign trail and compared them to pictures of his original appearance at the Lincoln Memorial. Not willing to attribute Walters’ visible weight loss and sunken eyes to the rigors of an aggressive campaign travel schedule, Fredericks pointed to the photographs as evidence of cancer.
The talk show host was doing the president’s dirty work and getting results. In only a matter of days, Fredericks accomplished what the president himself had failed to do in the last month, which was to chip away at the candidate’s lead in the polls.
Murray and his colleagues were stuck in traffic at the Holland Tunnel. The radio in the limousine delivered the latest polling, revealing their boss’s lead shrinking in the last days of the election. The men figured if the president could not beat their man on the issues, he would have to resort to scare tactics, rumors and flat out lies. Unfortunately for them, it was working.
The new founders were nervous and it showed; so much so that their boss scolded them after a rally in Columbus, Ohio. He decided he had heard enough pessimistic talk. Walters told the men to meet with local campaign officials there while he and Pepper flew ahead to New York for a meeting with a conservative PAC group at the Grand Hyatt Hotel near Grand Central Station. The team was to fly back on a commercial jet into Newark the next day. Faulk joked that they had to rough it, not having access to the private accommodations they had become accustomed to.
Murray was concerned. The cancer talk had not let up and it didn’t help that the candidate had fallen in the shower, twisting his ankle and walking with a noticeable limp throughout the Midwestern swing. His appearance just fueled the rumors. Now as the car entered the EZ Pass lane, the all news WINS AM radio station reported the story, giving it credence.
Murray hoped Walters would become George Washington once again and answer the allegations with the same forceful zeal he had exuded from the start. The team needed some reassurances and hoped to get some honest answers at dinner that evening.
Pepper set up a private dinner meeting at Fraunces Tavern in downtown Manhattan at Walters’ request. The media was not alerted to the event and Ken Rader did not mention the dinner in his daily press briefing. Walters and Pepper arrived in a normal yellow cab as to not draw attention.
The historical significance of Fraunces Tavern was not lost on the new founders. As the limo entered the tunnel, Hahn mentioned that he was a regular there since he began working downtown. He described the history of the restaurant from its establishment as the Queen’s Head Tavern to its presence as the site of the Sons of Liberty Tea Party meetings. Hahn said it got its name from its founder, Samuel Fraunces, a free black man born in the West Indies and personal friend of none other than George Washington.
Hahn’s tone turned serious when he described in intimate detail the 1975 terrorist bombing at Fraunces that killed four and injured scores of others. He explained that most of his generation unfortunately knew the building as a watering hole instead of an edifice of historical merit. Hahn finished by informing the men that his friend who lost his life on 9/11 in the World Trade Center, first lost his godfather to the lunchtime terrorist act at Fraunces Tavern. He noted with considerable disgust that for cheap politics, a former president granted clemency to the terrorists without them repenting or requesting the pardons.
“Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers that ‘The dread of being accused of weakness or connivance,’ would pretty much guarantee that future presidents wouldn’t abuse this power. I guess he never foresaw the modern president.”
Hahn’s last tidbit silenced the men for the remainder of the car ride. Pepper stood at the doorway of the restaurant as the car pulled up. He greeted the men one by one with the handshake of a man campaigning for political office himself. Everybody thought the gesture peculiar as they had spent most of the last two months together with the man.
Walters was waiting for the men inside when
they arrived at the Pearl Street address. As he always did, Hahn noted the music in the Tavern to the team and smiled at the selection of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing in the background.
The team believed that after his back to back masterful performances weeks earlier, Walters had the presidency all but sewn up. But things had changed since and Josh Anders was the first to bring up the topic.
“George, and I think I speak for all of us, we’re concerned with the latest polling. Your numbers are slipping with all this cancer talk and nobody is addressing the issue. We need to tell the press something, even a canned response.”
It took a few seconds before the new founders realized that Josh had called the candidate George. At first the men scanned the room to make sure there were no outsiders lingering. Then Murray asked where secret service agent Michelle was, to which Walters curtly responded that she was somewhere else.
The candidate did not seem to notice being called by his real name, nor did he acknowledge Anders’ concern. He elaborated on their fantastic journey which brought them to this point. He said almost apologetically that it would soon be ending and, if all went as expected on Tuesday, the team would be faced with the daunting task of governing a nation.
Walters then waved his hand and stated that the presidency was a subject for tomorrow. It might have been a party to the boss, but the new founders all sensed there was more to this dinner than celebration. Walters toasted the team by thanking them for their first class work. Faulk whispered to Steve Anders that the big guy looked as if he had had a few drinks before their arrival. Murray overhead the line and seconded it.
While still holding his wine glass in the air, Walters told of his connection to the old restaurant, telling everybody what Hahn had said less than an hour earlier, that on December 4, 1783, he bid emotional goodbyes to his officers after the Revolutionary War. He waved his hand back and forth, noting that they stood in the very room where the goodbye took place.
The New Founders Page 28
