Chapter Eleven: A Political Hack

Wednesday, July 28, 2100

“Why would I hire the man who called my Universal Food Plan ‘kindergarten economics’?” asked Carl Ajala, governor of Nigeria, president of the World Food Commission, and the Liberal candidate for president. He sat behind his desk in a dark suit, arms folded in front, a frown on his face. Behind him was a large framed picture of him shaking hands with former President Xu. Nigerian tribal art covered the walls.

The dark-skinned Nigerian spoke slowly with a deep, cultured voice, one that had made him rich doing voiceovers in numerous holograph movies, often as kings and other leaders. Toby had a hard time listening to the man without connecting the voice to that of Hollus the alien in Calculating God, the highest grossing movie of all time. The bass voice was his greatest political asset, along with his rock-solid liberal beliefs, where he got points for at least having core beliefs, even if most disagreed with them. Unfortunately, his inflexibility was an eight-hundred pound political albatross around his neck. Plus he surrounded himself with fellow liberal dogmatists rather than political experts. Bruce was right; Ajala had little chance. On the other hand, who would have believed a short, silly-looking monstrosity could have won in 2095?

It hadn’t been easy to convince Ajala to see him on short notice. Toby had taken a long-distance floater to the Liberal Headquarters in D.C. Yet, somehow, his heart wasn’t completely in it.

On the way in, Toby saw that USE security surrounded the alien ship, which floated above the ground just outside the building. Ajala had told him that Twenty-two was back in the ship, and that the security people had tried cutting into it, with Duffy cursing the whole time. They were unable to scratch the surface. Toby was slightly disappointed the alien was back in her ship; he’d hoped to meet her again.

“You know my background and record,” Toby began. “Your campaign is in trouble, and I think I can help.” He fiddled with his scarf. “You know I’ve never been a conservative, and my earliest campaign work was with the Liberal Party. Until a few years ago, I never even worked with a real conservative, only with moderate members of both parties. You can look it up.”

“I already have,” Ajala said. “Are you under the impression that I’m interested in running a moderate campaign, one that sacrifices the very principles I believe and run on?” Ajala’s voice had risen to a crescendo, like a preacher at the climax of his speech. “These terms—liberal, conservative—they are just labels, used to condemn a viewpoint that cannot be condemned by argument. One should never choose their beliefs based on whether they fit comfortably into one of these compartments. And yet, when one makes these choices, they are compartmentalized, packaged and tagged with one of these labels of yours, and it is with these labels that you hope to convince me that you are one of us?”

Toby had heard Ajala speak before, always without need of his TC or notes. What he could do with such speaking talent! If the man would only compromise on some issues. Dubois could speak almost as well, but only after hours of painstaking preparation and rehearsal, and reading the text off his TC.

Ajala wasn’t through. “Take a step back. Look at yourself. What do you see? To use your labels, you are a man who took a flamboyant nobody conservative with strong friends in low places, and turned him into the president. You took the liberal president, Mr. Xu, a good man, and turned him into a foozle doing commercial endorsements for the latest line of men’s clothing. He was the world’s fifth president, and the first not to win reelection. Look at him,” and he pointed at the picture of Xu behind his desk, “and think about what you did to him and to the world. And you expect my campaign to hire you?”

This was not going to be easy. There was no selling Ajala except with the truth. “Yes, I hoped you would hire me to save your campaign,” Toby said. “This is an exciting time to be in politics, with first contact and the leadership of the world at stake, and I want to be a part of it. You know what the polls say—your campaign is struggling. Think about what I’d bring. The former campaign director for Dubois changes his mind, realizes that Dubois isn’t right for the job, and joins the Ajala campaign!”

“Sounds like a publicity stunt.” Ajala rose from his desk. “Mr. Platt, I appreciate your coming here, but to be quite blunt, you are a political hack who sells his services to the highest bidder, or in this case, to any available bidder. I’m not bidding. I’ve heard rumors about why you left the Dubois campaign, and I prefer to assume the best, not the worst. Simply put, mine is a campaign about values, about beliefs, and you do not share those values and beliefs.” He paused as he stared at Toby. “Just think about what you are doing! You want to run a campaign in direct opposition to your own daughter! That’s exactly the type of anti-family message the Dubois campaign—that means you—have been trying to stick on us since this campaign began, before we even got out of the primaries.”

Toby continued to fiddle with his scarf, eyes now downcast. There was no way to respond to Ajala without resorting to the very type of political double-talk that he wanted to get away from. Ajala was right on every count.

“We may lose on our beliefs to a political huckster like Dubois,” Ajala continued, “but I’d rather lose on principles than win by hiring a hit-man whose main attribute is an ability to trick the voters into making winners out of losers.”

Well, Toby thought, that was what he should expect. He’d gained respect for Ajala, even if he hadn’t gained a job.

The point about his daughter hit him hardest. He was looking to run a campaign in direct opposition to his daughter. Did this say more about him, or his daughter? He didn’t want to think about it.

“Mr. Platt,” Ajala said as Toby was about to leave, “despite what you’ve done, deep down I believe you’re a good man. Someday we may work together. Just not this time.” They shook hands. It was hard not to like Ajala.

Near the front door on the way out, Toby was interrupted. “Excuse me, are you Toby Platt, the campaign director?” asked a teenaged girl, who wore her hair in the new polyhedron fashion, but with a style he’d never seen. The hair was dyed bright green, and shaped into a long tube, about three inches wide, twisted into a knot in the back. Toby recognized the twisted gun barrel image, the symbol for world peace.

She wore a blue business dress with a Holla fer Ajala! button, centered under a Hancola logo. Such an awkward slogan was another symptom of an incompetent campaign, Toby thought. The girl looked up at Toby with dark brown eyes and a seriousness beyond her apparent age.

“Yes, I’m a former campaign director,” Toby said. She had an accent he couldn’t place, perhaps a Spanish-Australian mix? No, that wasn’t it. “You can read all about me in the memoirs I’m supposed to write now that I’m out of a job.”

“Are you going to work for the Ajala Campaign?” she asked. “We need someone to take charge and focus on winning instead of trying to convince Australians to eat wheat instead of meat. We all know what’s right, but knowing what’s right isn’t the same as getting it done. The polls are clear on that.”

She went on for several minutes, quoting polls and stats, some of which Toby hadn’t heard of. Bruce would have been proud. Wasn’t there a rule where you had to be a certain age before you could know the current approval ratings in Bangkok for all the major demographics? Hearing all this from a teenager was somewhat disconcerting. Had he once been like this?

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Why do people always ask me that?” she said. She tilted her head slightly. “I’m seventeen.”

“You’re right, it’s not important,” Toby said. “You think they need someone like me here?”

“Well, I may work for the Ajala campaign, but—and please don’t tell anyone this—I don’t believe they can win. They’re going to lose because they won’t compromise, and always go with the liberal agenda on every issue, no matter how unpopular. Even if you believe in something, sometimes you have to compromise. Maybe we should have found someone else to run.”

“Who?” Toby asked. “You don’t just wake up one morning and ask someone to run for president of the planet. It takes years of planning and preparation, setting up a worldwide organization, fund-raising, and so on. And you need to be nominated by a major party, and those two spots are taken.”

“So you believe most people will only vote for whoever the Conservative or Liberal Parties tell them to vote for? Is there a poll on that?”

Hadn’t he once asked the same question, many years ago when he’d first gotten involved in a campaign? Of course, the answer was yes. The masses would vote for whoever the two main parties told them to vote for. It was a law of politics, a law of nature.

“I think people will vote for whoever they think is the best possible candidate, regardless of who they are told to vote for,” he lied. “And who are you?”

“I’m Melissa Smith, from Antarctica. I’m an intern here. And please don’t tell anyone what I said about Ajala!” The girl hurried off.

That, Toby thought with a slight smile, is someone to remember. But now his thoughts turned to his second errand. He fingered his scarf and his heart began to pound as he called a floater to visit his old friend Vinny at the cemetery.