Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Election of Germantown Middle School

“What are we going to do about Twenty-two?” Toby wondered aloud. He’d grown attached to the alien. The idea of that naïve alien in the hands of Duffy made him sick to the stomach, like he’d swallowed a barbecued kangaroo whole.

“What we always do when the bad guys do something bad,” Bruce said. “Run attack ads. That’s all you can until you actually become president.”

It took Bruce forty-five minutes to get the first ads out expressing shock at the arrest of Twenty-two. Video of her tangled in the net and getting carried out were run without commentary until the end; the pictures were worth far more than any words. “This is how our president deals with ambassadors from the stars,” flashed on the screen at the end of the ad.

Dubois answered back, claiming that Twenty-two was a security threat and a spy, and was only being “held for questioning.” Public opinion split along party lines.

Then, in textbook politics, Dubois changed the subject by unleashing a series of negative, hard-hitting ads—all aimed at Toby.

“Congratulations,” Bruce told him. “He now sees you as the main threat, even though Ajala still leads you in worldwide polls.”

“It’s Lara,” Toby said. “Dubois fixated too much on Ajala the last two years for him to do this on his own. Lara’s convinced him I’m a real candidate.”

“You need to work on your daddy skills.”

Three of Dubois’s ads were especially effective and widespread. The first simply showed Toby publicly giving his support to Russia against China and Japan in the war. The ad finished with Dubois in front of the world flag and saying, “I support China. I’m Corbin Dubois, and I’m asking you to use your common sense.”

The second used statistics to discredit his Provisional Universal Food Foundation. In the ad, an actor dressed in rich business clothing sitting behind a desk said, “The Platt Plan should be called the Platt Planetary Poverty Plan, since we’ll all be,” and the actor miraculously transformed into a bum sitting in a dark alley, “in the poorhouse if it passes.” It finished with Dubois again in front of the world flag and saying, “The numbers don’t add up. I’m Corbin Dubois, and I’m asking you to use your common sense.”

The third ad was more personal. It showed a collage of Toby alternately praising Dubois during his years as his campaign director, and criticizing him as a candidate, all to the accompaniment of the ancient classic, “The Monster Mash.” It finished with a narrator saying, “Which Toby Platt is running for president? The one who supports President Dubois when it’s convenient, or the one who opposes President Dubois when it’s convenient?” It also finished with Dubois, again in front of the world flag, saying, “In these troubled times, we need our president to do what’s right, not what’s politically convenient. I’m Corbin Dubois, and I’m asking you to use your common sense.”

Toby knew the ads would be effective, and that their response ads wouldn’t get nearly as much exposure as the better-financed Dubois. The common sense line was a good one.

The first ad was misleading, though there wasn’t much Toby could argue with. He had supported Russia in the war, but he had also supported China in its border disputes with Mongolia and Nepal, and was helping set up free trade agreements with Japan and Russia.

The second one simply lied about the math. The misleading and discredited statistics used were from the Department of Human Services. All the higher officials in the department, unsurprisingly, were Dubois appointees. There was little Toby could do about this—the masses simply had no way of knowing who was right.

Toby couldn’t complain about the third ad because it was completely accurate. He fiddled with his scarf, wondering how he could have stood in front of cameras all those times, never really lying, but going so close to the edge in an attempt to win votes for Dubois that, cumulatively, what he said was far worse than lies. As Ajala said, he’d been a political hack.

He suddenly felt worse than he had since the campaign began. His own daughter was behind these ads. Twenty-two was in prison. There was a rising tide of criticism that he was splitting the vote, allowing Dubois to win. And he was behind in Chinese and worldwide polls.

“You look in need of a pep talk,” Bruce asked. “Suddenly not feeling very popular?”

“After watching those ads, I feel like a two-faced anti-China scoundrel with a fourth grade math education. I wouldn’t vote for me.”

“You knew Dubois would use ads like these. He’s playing to the simple-minded masses. Why aren’t we?”

“Because we’re hoping for the intelligent vote?”

“Doesn’t exist,” Bruce said. “Oh, there are intelligent people out there. I’ll even admit, this one time only, that there are more of ’em than I admit to. But there aren’t enough of them, and so the ones who decide who’s going to be president are the idiots.”

“The chimpanzees, right?”

“Now you’re talking! Dubois’s ads don’t matter. You aren’t running for president to be a saint. You’re running to make a difference, to change the world, to show that one doesn’t have to be a babbling liberal or moronic conservative to get elected leader of the world. You are rescuing the planet from the shackles of mindless extremism.”

“You should put that in an ad.”

“Already did. It’s running all over China and half the rest of the world.”

“Aren’t I supposed to approve all ads?”

Bruce grinned sheepishly. “Didn’t have time, we had to get this one out. Next time.”

“You do that. I’d like to know what I’m saying before I say it.”

“Will do. Now about the ads, you want to be a saint? Ajala’s already taken that position, and look where that’s got him. You want to win, we do what Dubois’s doing, and demonize him right back.”

Somehow, Toby had thought, deep down, that if he ran as a moderate, he wouldn’t have to run a scarred-earth campaign. After all, moderates are supposed to be reasonable people who do reasonable things. Was demonizing your opponent to win an election the reasonable thing to do?

“Do we really need to go to Dubois’s level?” he asked.

“His level?” Bruce said. He smacked Toby in the head with his ever-handy ping-pong ball. “Wake up! You know the three laws of any successful campaign! Make ’em hate their guy, love our guy, and hate their guy.”

“When did those become the three laws of a successful campaign?”

“Since the beginning of time,” Bruce said. “And the nice thing is we don’t have to make stuff up about Dubois. Which means we can also follow the fourth law of any successful campaign.”

“Which is?”

“Never throw mud at an opponent unless you have more mud.”

* * *

Bruce hit back with their own hard-hitting ads, but without more financing, Toby knew they were outgunned. When people hear a paid ad give one side of an issue ten times, and the other side three times, they tend to believe the one they heard ten times. Of course, if asked about this, everyone says they listen to both sides equally. As Bruce would point out, this just showed that people were clueless.

Twenty-two’s arrest was knocked off the headlines by news of the Great Russian Compromise. Most of the Russian Federation countries were leery of combining into one big country dominated by Russia. Instead, they had broken up Russia.

Russia was made up of over eighty republics, provinces, and other territories. After much back and forth deal-making, Russia agreed to recombine into sixteen provinces. Those sixteen would combine with the other sixteen countries in the RF—including Kim—to make up the thirty-two provinces that would henceforth be known as the United States of Russia, or USR. The Russian tide was moving out.

Toby knew that Feodora had been behind the negotiations. Hopefully, with this behind her, she could more actively campaign. He wished the election rules would allow them to skip China and start campaigning early in Europe, but that wasn’t an option. The best they could do was blanket upcoming regions with ads.

They needed to compete in China as well. A bad third-place finish could be disastrous in follow-up regions. Voters were attracted to winners.

Bruce’s pep talk had been effective. He’d been faltering, but Bruce reminded him of the differences between himself and Dubois, in policies, ethics, and habitual arresting of alien ambassadors. They might end up using the same campaign tactics, but Dubois didn’t even question those tactics—Eth or not—while Toby did. And once in office, Toby could drop the negative tactics and use his five years to show what real leadership was all about.

Assuming he could figure out what that was.

The China regional election wasn’t the only election coming up. Tyler’s middle school election would take place the same day, both on Tuesday, September 14. He called Bruce over and asked about it.

“We’ve been talking every night,” Bruce said. “He’s got the finest campaign director ever to run a school election.”

“That would be you?”

“That would be correct. He’s got flyers all over the place, he’s giving speeches, he’s—”

“He’s giving speeches? Doesn’t that mean each candidate gives a speech to an assembly, and then they vote?”

Bruce shook his head. “You’ve been out of school too long. Tyler’s visiting all the school clubs, every after-school activity, even going to a different home room each morning. Every speech is tailored to the group he’s talking to.”

“What happens if the groups compare notes?”

“Then we shoot them.”

Toby started to respond, then stopped. “I think Tyler’s in good hands. Keep me posted. I could get used to being co-president with Tyler. He and I don’t do enough father-son things together.”

“Like the father-daughter things you did with Lara?”

Bruce smartly left before Toby could respond.

The next few days blurred together as Toby gave speech after speech to polite but unenthusiastic crowds. Often his mind was on other things, such as Twenty-two. Then, while giving a speech in Chengdu on Monday afternoon, the day before the election, things got a little more exciting.

As usual, he was surrounded by security, which did its unsuccessful best to blend in with the crowd—not easy, since none of the security was Asian. A man near the front began yelling in Chinese. Later Toby would learn that the man was demanding Toby’s arrest for war crimes for his support of Russia.

Toby knew that the best way to handle most hecklers was to ignore them. So he made a pointed effort to look at others in the crowd as he spoke. So he didn’t even see the shoe until it hit him in the face.

The man managed to throw his other shoe before he was tackled. Bruce had leaped to his feet from where he sat behind the podium and knocked the second one away before it hit the now-frozen Toby.

A thrown shoe, historically the worst possible insult in the Arab world, had spread in recent times to the rest of the world—another symbol of a system that was getting less civil every year. Toby knew of a number of candidates for office who had been shoed. But it had never happened to him.

Watching the video, he could barely believe that the tired-looking man with the “deer in the headlights” look could possibly be himself. The constant replays of the incident were devastating, both politically and personally.

* * *

Election day couldn’t have come soon enough for Toby. He hoped to finish ahead of Ajala. Deep down, there was still a part of him that thought that maybe, just maybe, the silent, intelligent masses would turn out and vote him China’s 159 electoral votes.

He and Bruce had decided it wasn’t worth overdoing it on the last day in China. So they had a relatively easy day, and Toby even got to mingle with locals. At ten that night, they gathered the crew and took off in the Rocinante for Dover, England, their first stop in the upcoming United Europe election. The Chinese election returns would be in later. It was a tense time; they didn’t want to be blown out. Bruce kept looking off into space, no doubt trying to get any inside news on the results.

Incoming call from Tyler. What would he be calling about? U.S. Eastern Time was thirteen hours behind, so it must be just after nine in the morning there. Tyler should be at school. “Accept,” Toby whispered to his TC. Tyler appeared visually on his TC.

Toby could see dried streaks running across Tyler’s face; he’d been crying. His left eye was black and puffy, blood-soaked cotton hung out of one nostril, and his torn shirt was streaked with dirt and sweat. Toby went over to the Rocinante’s TC camera so Tyler could see him.

Toby took a deep breath. “What happened?” He recognized the background—Tyler was in the school’s office area. It took Toby a few minutes to get the usually talkative Tyler to speak, though Tyler’s condition and presence in the office told much of the story.

“Jamaal and I had a fight.” The cotton in his nose gave him a nasally voice.

Jamaal? He and Tyler had been best friends. Then he remembered—the two were running against each other for class president. With all the distractions in China, he’d forgotten.

“You two are still running against each other?”

Tyler nodded.

“Okay, start at the beginning. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Where are you?” Tyler asked, rubbing a tear from his face.

“We’re probably somewhere over Mongolia by now, on our way to Europe.”

“Can you come home?”

Toby very much wanted to. “You know I can’t. I’ll be in Europe this week. Back to Asia the following week. Then Africa. The week after that is Latin America, and I think I can take a detour to Maryland before that, say around October 6. Now, are you going to tell me why your best friend punched you in the face, or do I have to call the principal?”

“I only did what Bruce told me to do!”

Toby felt a cold front move through his body. What had Bruce done?

The story came in bits and pieces, but Toby finally pieced it together. Bruce had told Tyler to think of things to attack Jamaal on. Having known Jamaal since kindergarten, Tyler had little trouble coming up with a list. With Bruce’s help, they’d narrowed it down to three. Tyler put them together in a flyer, made copies, and handed them out and posted them all over school.

It took another threat to call the principal to get Tyler to send a copy of the flyer to Toby’s TC. He put Tyler on hold, blanking out his picture on his TC, and replaced it with the election flyer.

The center of the flyer had an obviously darkened picture of Jamaal, a standard method of subliminally—and unfairly—making an opponent look menacing to some. The text surrounding it was in large black letters on a yellow background.

The text above read, “Jamaal Hussein wants to run for president?!!!”

To the left, slightly above center, it read, “His dad spent three years in prison.” Toby wanted to throw up.

To the right, slightly below center, it read, “Jamaal flunked Intro to Government last year.” He wanted to throttle Tyler. And his campaign director.

Below the picture, it read, “Jamaal says the U.S. could learn a lot from the Arab World.” At this point, Toby was too dazed to react.

At the bottom, it read, “Use your common sense. Vote American. Vote Tyler Platt,” with the last three words bolded.

It took Toby a few minutes for it all to register. His son was distributing this?

Suddenly he felt very, very old. What type of father was he? His daughter had sold her soul for politics, and his son was following in her footsteps. Was this some “like father, like son” cosmic joke?

Finally he took Tyler off hold. “Tyler, please tell me you are on Eth. I’d rather that then to believe you’d do something like this.”

“It’s just an election flyer, Dad. I didn’t think anybody would take it seriously.”

“Did Bruce see this?”

“Yeah. He helped put it together.” Bruce would need some putting together when he was through with him.

“And what did Jamaal do when he saw this?”

Tyler looked down, perhaps hoping his father would forget about the black eye and bloody nose.

“You knew all this stuff because Jamaal has been your best friend since you could walk. Do you know why his dad went to prison?”

“He had some sort of fight with the Islam World government before he came to the U.S.”

What was worse, Toby wondered, ripping into an opponent and knowing your attack is unfair, or doing so out of ignorance?

“When Islam World first united—before you were born—they instituted Sharia law. Do you know what that is?”

Tyler shook his head, still looking down, fiddling with something in his hand. A ping-pong ball? Toby stared at it for a moment before continuing.

“Sharia law is the set of Islamic laws. They are rather harsh. When you base a government on religious law, it becomes a very inflexible system, and highly undemocratic because you can’t change those laws. Jamaal’s dad and many thousands of others protested, and the government put him and many others like him in prison. He was tortured, son, tortured and forced to recant his beliefs. Three years later, the Sharia laws were overturned, and he and the others—those who survived—were released.”

Toby gave his son a moment to let all this register, then continued. “Grades on student papers are private. The only reason you knew Jamaal flunked that government intro class is because he confided in you as a friend. Do you think it was fair to use that against him?”

Again Tyler shook his head.

“And the part about the U.S. having much to learn from the Arab world?” Toby asked. “Jamaal has spent a lot of time in the Arab world, and you haven’t. Are you saying that we in the U.S. have nothing to learn from them, that we’re better in every way?”

Tyler suddenly smashed the ping-pong ball in his hand and threw it aside, eyes still down. “I’m sorry! I’ve never been in an election before. I wanted to win, and Bruce thought all this was okay. So did Lara.”

“Lara okayed that flyer?” Toby asked in stunned disbelief.

“She said if I did well as president, and as long as I didn’t actually lie, nobody would remember or care how I got elected.”

The ironic thing, Toby thought, was that Tyler would probably win the election. Bruce once said that attack ads, done well and properly distributed, would always win an election, with two exceptions: if the opponent ran better attack ads, or in an imaginary highly advanced society that never has and never will exist. Middle school probably was not that highly advanced society.

“Tyler, why are you still in the principal’s office?”

“Jamaal and I are suspended for three days for fighting. Mom’s on her way to pick me up.”

“Jamaal’s there too?”

“He’s with the principal now. He already yelled at me.”

“Good. I want you to think things over, and when you see Jamaal—your best friend—do the right thing.”

Tyler looked up. “I just wanted to win, like all the campaigns you run.”

A great influence he’d been with his son. “Tyler, you don’t need to win. All you need to do is try hard and do what you think is right, and I’ll be proud of you.”

“But you’re always so proud when your guy wins.”

Toby felt like a ping-pong ball had been jammed down his throat. It took him a minute to get any words out.

“When I run a campaign and my guy wins, I’m not proud—I’m happy. There’s a difference. Happy comes and goes, but proud can go on forever.”

They talked a little longer. Then Jamaal came out, and Tyler said he needed to go talk to him.

Tyler called back a few hours later to let him know that he’d conceded the election. At the request of him and Jamaal, the ballots were destroyed uncounted. He’d joined Jamaal in tearing down the flyers.

And now, Toby thought, he and Bruce had some serious issues to discuss, which might lead to Bruce getting tossed off the Rocinante from two miles up.