All across the United States
Eight months before the day of
The other two parties held their national conventions during July and August in the traditional manner. The party of incumbent President Phillips met in Baltimore, and the party of soon-to-be-nominated Sheila McCray met in Las Vegas. As usual, there were placards, music, and endless speeches hyping their candidates and deriding the opposition. There were also protests and riots. Ironically, neither of the delegations focused much of their vitriol on the Stakley-Lopez campaign. They mainly went after each other.
Sheila McCray and her running partner, Tyrone Brown, had emerged out of a field of twenty-four other nominees. Most analysts attributed the wide playing field to a lack of party unity and the absence of a robust platform or political agenda. If the party had a strategic plan, it wasn’t communicated to the voting public. The result was, at best, a fractionated mob mostly held together by their disdain for President Phillips. This may have blunted their effectiveness, but it didn’t dampen their ferocity.
Following the two mainstream conventions, both parties came out swinging at each other.
Sitting in the meeting room of the Maryland Centrist campaign office, his eyes glued on one of four seventy-inch HDTV monitors, each displaying a different national news channel, David barked, “Siri, Facetime Mia Lopez.”
Seconds later, a picture-in-a-picture screen appeared on all four monitors.
“Hola, señor Presidente! Oops, there I go, getting ahead of myself again. Let me start all over. Good afternoon, David.”
“And good afternoon to you as well. You’re forgiven. Actually, I’m kind of getting used to it. And you know what? I like it!
I suspect this may be something of a rhetorical question, but are you watching Fox News? Or CNN? Jim Phillips just called Sheila McCray a damn liar on national TV.”
“Yep, I just saw the interview. McCray may take a few liberties with the truth, but being called a liar by President Phillips is like being called ugly by a toad.”
David chuckled. “I can’t get enough of your Texas aphorisms. Of course, now I can’t unsee that image. We’ll let ’em fight it out. They’ll be after us soon enough, but their little feud will give us more time to get our owls in a row, so to speak.”
“Now look at who’s spouting aphorisms,” Mia replied, smiling.
“Well, I didn’t mean to totally derail your afternoon, Mia, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the little catfight. I’ll call you later tonight and we can review our next move. David out!”
As David had noted, both the Phillips and McCray campaign staff were paying only scant attention to the Stakley-Lopez Centrist ticket, blowing them off as just another doomed third-party, Ross Perot–style lost cause. That is, until the first poll numbers following their respective conventions hit the press and social media.
The results stunned both of the established party campaigns. President Phillips held the lead but not nearly by the margin traditionally associated with an incumbent—even one so arrogant and polarizing. And the McCray-Brown camp was in near panic. The sheer number of candidates in the fray before the convention would splinter their effort, at least initially. They had expected the resulting factions to regroup and coalesce immediately following McCray’s nomination, but this wasn’t happening. In fact, they were in second place, but only by a Saran Wrap–thin margin.
Things were starting to unravel on the traditional fronts.
Meanwhile, David, Mia, and their rapidly swelling army of supporters were ecstatic. Their level of voter popularity had never been experienced by an independent party. And they continued to chip away at the establishment. But these gains weren’t coming as the result of happenstance. The Centrist movement was on fire.
Working independently, David and Mia covered five or more rallies in major cities each week, hitting every state, Puerto Rico, and DC before the election. In addition, they made multiple stops in California, Texas, Florida, and the industrial sections of the country.
Kelly proved to be an exceptional campaign asset in her own right. She also worked independently, stumping colleges and universities coast to coast, always urging students to get registered, get involved, and get out the vote.
The results were staggering. Most mainstream Americans had long grown weary of shit-slinging politicians. They ravenously welcomed the energetic, upbeat Stakley-Lopez style. The evidential majority were vociferously amenable to the Centrist platform and ideals. Even the suggestion of national service as a prerequisite to citizenship went over better than anticipated. In fact, most people who were already citizens or who would be grandfathered in thought it was an excellent idea for their children and their children’s children.
By the end of September, the Stakley-Lopez campaign had moved to within a few points of President Phillips. Although not totally out of the running, McCray-Brown slipped into an increasingly distant third. If the always-dubious polls were anywhere near reliable, swing voters from both major parties were defecting in droves.
But David and Mia and the campaign team did not allow their success to lure them into complacency. Just the opposite. Every increase in the polls seemed to double the intensity of their effort. The same held true for Centrist supporters. It had become a movement. And oddly, the more vicious the attacks from the Phillips camp, the larger and stronger the Stakley-Lopez crusade became. By the first of November, statistics and artificial intelligence algorithms discerned a virtual tie.
Then came the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, Election Day. The American people were ready for a leader capable of taking their country from “great” to “greatest.” The Stakley-Lopez ticket found itself squarely in the center of “the right people at the right place at the right time.”
And so, it came to pass that the Wednesday edition of the few remaining printed newspapers all across America carried their version of the New York Times headline declaring, Stakley-Lopez Win by a Landslide! President Phillips Refuses to Concede, Demands Recount despite Underwhelming Performance.