Chapter Thirty-Three: The Russians Hate Everyone

As Feodora predicted, by early afternoon, the Russian Federation Parliament had unanimously approved Kim’s admittance. She left to attend meetings, leaving Toby and Bruce to campaign.

The entire Russian Federation was blue territory, and Ajala led the polls in every country. Feodora’s presence on the ticket and winning in Canada helped Toby, but he still ran third in every poll. Most people vote based on who is on the top of the ticket, so Feodora’s presence wasn’t enough. Liberals were for Ajala; those who were against Ajala didn’t want to waste their vote on Toby, and so supported keeping Dubois in office. It was the perpetual credibility problem of third-party candidates that Toby and Bruce had to break.

“If we can’t find a way to win here, with Feodora on the ticket,” Bruce said, “then we’re sunk. If Ajala sweeps, then he and Dubois look like winners, and we look like sideshow freaks. And then we go to China, and you know what China thinks of Feodora. Maybe we should have gotten someone from China on the ticket.”

Knowing they were probably going to lose China anyway, and that they absolutely needed to do well in the Russian Federation, and not wanting to incur the wrath of their vice presidential candidate, Toby and Bruce had decided to make Kim’s admission to the Russian Federation a top priority in their ads and Toby’s updated stump speech. Toby had a hard time thinking of North Korea as Kim, but if they wanted to be called that, and wanted admission to the Russian Federation, so be it.

Toby’s Provisional Universal Food Foundation was another priority in this socialistic region. That could also get them Cuba, the one country they couldn’t campaign in without flying back across the Atlantic. They’d considered a stop there before flying to Russia, but decided it wasn’t worth it.

Russia and France were among the few places left in the world where the English First! movement had failed. It was a sticky issue; should Russians speak Russian, or join the rest of the world in its common language? A generation before, arguing for English would have been political suicide, but the younger generation had taken to English. Toby was sure that within another generation, Russia would be as Englishized as any other place in the world. But were they ready for it now? Dubois, even though he was from France, was for it, while Ajala was against it.

Feodora had given her input on each of these issues, particularly on the Kim issue. On English First!, she’d recommended a compromise, arguing for its adoption, but for it not to take effect for twenty years. That way, they would join the rest of the world in its common language, but those who had grown up on Russian wouldn’t feel threatened by having it forced on them, while schools adopted it as required curriculum for the upcoming generation.

“These days,” Bruce wondered, “why would anyone speak anything other than English?”

“Why would anyone in Russia speak anything other than Russian?” Feodora retorted. “Yet compromise is best. You are always right if you support both sides of an issue.” Toby and Bruce wholeheartedly agreed.

She also pointed out a political problem. “Russians hate you because you are an American, one of our long-time enemies.”

“Everyone is a long-time enemy of Russia,” Bruce said. “Russians hate everyone.”

Feodora laughed. “How true.”

* * *

As usual, Gene had appearances for Toby scheduled all over the Russian Federation, and as usual, the media would cover most of them. That afternoon they were in Moscow and St. Petersburg, followed by whirlwind tours through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus. Late that night they flew into Ukraine for an early morning speech, after which they’d set off for tours of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The plan was to do three circuits of all the countries in the region.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend more time in each country,” Toby asked, “rather than spend so much time flying around, since we’ll keep coming back to the same countries?”

“Only to a logical mind,” Bruce said, which Toby took as a rare compliment. “People tend to see a candidate coming into their country as a big event, and so if we can do it three times in each country, we get their attention three times, and that pretty much sells them. Isn’t that what you did with Dubois five years ago?”

It was. Toby realized he was thinking through the fog of exhaustion. There was a reason why a person running for the ultimate decision-making job shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions until he was safely in the job.

A ping-pong ball smacked into Toby’s shoulder. He looked up. “Whatever you do,” Bruce said, “don’t get caught in public calling them countries like you just did. To Feodora and a lot of Russians, it’s all one big country made up of states that used to be countries, and you need their support. Also, is there any way I can convince you to take off the scarf?”

“Only when you stop wearing warm-up suits.”

They also met with Janlibo officials, who very politely but clearly let them know that they felt their product wasn’t getting the visuals deserving of the money they were spending on the campaign. From there on, the glass of water he sipped on during campaign stops would be replaced by an orange-tinted bottle of Jancola, with the logo conveniently turned toward the closest media cameras. Toby quickly became sick of the taste, and took to pouring the overly-sweet liquid out and replacing it with plain water.

He also received another text message from Lara: Dad, we could use you. Dubois will take you back, will back you for president next time.

He ignored it again.

Between appearances, Toby followed the Kim crisis. At the World Senate, Japan, China, and their allies angrily denounced the move, while Russian Federation countries defended it. As Feodora predicted, the Russian Federation countries were rallying together like a unified country.

It quickly degraded into back-and-forth schoolyard insults. The rest of the world was roughly split on the issue. Soon there would be a vote by the World Senate. If either side refused to abide by their ruling, it could lead to a constitutional crisis, or worse.

As they quickly learned, it was worse. Once again, Feodora had called it.

On Thursday morning, joint Japanese and Chinese forces launched surprise air strikes against Russian forces in North Korea. They quickly defeated the local Russian air forces. Combined, the Japanese and Chinese air forces were stronger than anything Russia could bring in.

By noon, Japanese troops had landed in North Korea, while China invaded to the north, quickly taking the Russian city of Vladivostok. With Japanese forces to the south and east, and Chinese forces to the north and west, and all marching on North Korea, the large Russian army was trapped—a seeming repeat of nine years before.

By Thursday night, it seemed obvious the Russians had been out-maneuvered, out-thought, and out-fought. The Russians needed another “Miracle at Khrebet” to avoid complete humiliation, but it was unlikely the Japanese would fall for the same tactics as before. And now they had the Chinese army to deal with as well.

Despite the invasion, the campaign went on. Throughout their stops in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Toby railed against the Chinese and Japanese invasion.

The only country where Dubois polled close to Ajala was in Uzbekistan, the second largest country in the Russian Federation with 52 million people. Rather than spread his time around, he spent the entire week there, ceding 35 electoral votes while hoping to pull out Uzbekistan’s five.

Dubois was in an impossible situation. He needed China’s 159 electoral votes—about four times the Russian Federation’s. So while he supported the Russian Federation as a single country, he didn’t support Kim’s admittance, and he couldn’t oppose the Chinese and Japanese invasion. His poll numbers plummeted in the Russian Federation, even in Uzbekistan.

Ajala strongly supported the Russian Federation on all issues, and his thunderous denunciations of China and Japan increased his lead in the polls. Toby would need his own “Miracle at Khrebet” just to avoid humiliation. It was looking like a sweep for Ajala.

Amid all this, a smiling General Feodora Zubkov flew to Ukraine to meet with Toby and Bruce.