The auditorium was packed. Even though the temperature outside in the dark New Hampshire night was close to zero, the site of the Republican Party’s third presidential debate was warm, even steamy, from the press of bodies.
Jake sat just behind the trio of news media stars who would moderate the proceedings, his winter overcoat folded on his lap. Up on the stage, hot with spotlights, were three lecterns for the three candidates.
All of Senator Tomlinson’s people had been disappointed that Governor Hackman had not yet thrown in the towel. No decision had come from the governor’s campaign headquarters about whether he would quit and, if he did, who he would give his support to: Tomlinson or Sebastian.
Jake had personally vetted Hackman’s qualifications to be secretary of energy. The governor had visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory back when he’d campaigned for reelection, more than three years earlier. He’d given a speech at one of the TVA power dams a year before that. That was it. Hackman had never made a public pronouncement about energy policy, as far as Jake could find. Of course, energy was largely a federal issue, although the energy industry provided plenty of jobs in Tennessee.
“Tell him you’ll name him,” Pat Lovett had urged Senator Tomlinson. “We need his votes.”
Tomlinson hesitated. Perhaps fatally, Jake thought. Kevin O’Donnell quite openly resisted the idea of handing the Energy portfolio to Hackman. “The man’s a lightweight,” O’Donnell insisted. “Frank’s supposed to be strong on energy policy. Putting Hackman in the energy seat will detract from Frank’s reputation.”
Jake found himself agreeing with both men: Hackman was a lightweight, but he had a block of votes that could help get Tomlinson the nomination.
A roll of applause rose from one end of the auditorium to the other as the three candidates strode onto the stage, each of them smiling at the audience and the moderators, then shaking hands with one another as if they were truly friends.
The questions from the three moderators started with softballs, Jake thought. Balancing the federal budget, a favorite piece of campaign mythology. National defense: none of the candidates was in favor of cutting down the defense budget, as the Democrats had been talking about.
“As long as we have terrorists and guerrillas on our southern doorstep,” intoned Senator Sebastian, “we must keep our soldiers and sailors and airmen at the peak of their efficiency.”
Tomlinson and Hackman said much the same, in slightly different words.
Then came the shot Jake had been worrying about.
The female moderator—well groomed, perfectly coiffed, keeping her sculpted face unsmilingly serious—asked Senator Tomlinson:
“Senator, in light of the recent disaster at Astra Corporation’s last launching attempt, there have been some experts who have done mathematical analyses that show that rockets are inherently unsafe, especially too risky to carry human crews. Do you agree?”
Tomlinson put on the smile he used to gain himself a moment to think.
“Dorothy,” he replied, still smiling, “there have been mathematical analyses that show that bumblebees can’t fly. Yet somehow the little creatures buzz around beautifully.”
“Come on, now, Senator—”
His expression growing serious, Tomlinson said, “The point is, Dorothy, that we can launch a hundred rockets without a hitch, but one failure starts the boobirds yowling.
“Planes crash,” the senator went on. “Thousands of people are killed every year in car accidents. People fall down stairs and break their bones, for god’s sake!”
“But rocket explosions are dangerous,” the newswoman insisted.
Raising a finger, Tomlinson said, “May I point out that the rocket launcher had a crew escape system built into it and that its escape system performed as designed. Nobody was hurt, except for a couple of black eyes and a chipped fingernail.”
“And the loss of a multimillion-dollar rocket launcher.”
With a sad shake of his head, Tomlinson said, “You’ve often heard me compare our drive to open up the space frontier to the nineteenth-century expansion of our nation across the frontier of the old west. Did those pioneers turn back when they were hit by a dust storm? Or attacked by Indians? Or when a wheel fell off one of their wagons? No! They overcame those adversities and pushed on. That’s what we’re doing in space.”
Jake jumped to his feet, clapping his hands as hard as he could. Slowly at first, but then like a growing avalanche, the entire audience rose to their feet and applauded.
And Tomlinson hollered into his microphone, “We’re not turning back! We’re going to open up the space frontier!”
* * *
“A damned good performance,” Patrick Lovett was saying, a tumbler of whiskey in one hand and a confident smile on his face.
Senator Tomlinson’s hotel suite was jammed with campaign workers, aides, visitors, hangers-on, all of them talking, gesticulating, jabbering at once. Jake was standing in front of the theater-sized TV screen, watching a cable news channel. It was muted, and he probably couldn’t have heard the commentators’ chatter anyway, there was so much noise in the suite, but their words were scrolling along the bottom of the big screen.
Preliminary polls of people who had attended the debate and others who had watched on television were similar: Tomlinson had pretty much squelched the rocket-safety issue. But Sebastian still held a six-point lead over him.
And Hackman was a distant third, further behind than he had ever been.
“When’s the sumbitch going to make up his mind?”
Jake turned his head to see Kevin O’Donnell standing beside him, in his shirtsleeves and conservative black suspenders, his eyes focused on the TV screen.
“Hackman’s done for,” O’Donnell went on, pointing at the poll numbers on the screen. “When’s he going to throw in the towel?”
Jake said, “As soon as somebody gives him the secretary of energy job, I guess.”
O’Donnell snorted contemptuously. “Big pain in the ass.”
Suddenly the scene on the TV switched to a crowded hotel suite festooned with Hackman banners and balloons.
“Oh-oh,” O’Donnell said. “This could be it.”
The room fell silent as Jake turned on the TV set’s sound. Everyone focused on the screen. Senator Tomlinson and his wife came up silently between Jake and O’Donnell. Lovett, Earl Reynolds, everybody stood waiting, hoping.
Governor Hackman strode into view, still in the suit he’d worn for the debate, with his wife and two of his grown children alongside him.
“This is it,” O’Donnell whispered.
“Folks, I have an announcement to make,” Hackman said, with a brave smile. He was a good-looking man, tall, trim, his hair thick and silvery, his red and black striped tie pulled slightly loose from his collar.
“Although we’ve fought as hard as we could to win our party’s nomination,” he said, in a clear rich tenor voice, “the poll numbers have been disappointing.”
His smile dimming, the governor went on, “I frankly don’t see any point in continuing this struggle. It’s taken a toll on my family, and it’s taken a toll on my responsibilities as governor of the great state of Tennessee.”
One of the women grouped behind him, wearing a loud green HACKMAN! sash, broke into quiet sobs.
“Therefore I am withdrawing my candidacy for the party’s nomination. I will continue to work for the causes that we all believe in—more and better jobs for our people, a stronger immigration policy, better protection for our nation’s borders.”
A spatter of half-hearted clapping.
“And I urge all of you who have supported me to give your hearts and your votes to the next president of the United States—Senator Bradley Sebastian!”
“Shit!” snapped O’Donnell and Lovett simultaneously.
Tomlinson said nothing. But the expression on his face was the same Jake had seen at the funeral of the senator’s father.
* * *
The gathering in Senator Tomlinson’s suite broke up quickly after that. O’Donnell and Lovett huddled in a corner, heads together, talking like a pair of football coaches who had just seen the other side score a touchdown.
Jake went through the departing crowd to Tami, who looked sad, disappointed.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” she said quietly.
He grasped her arm and said, “Let’s go to our room.”
“Don’t you want—”
“I’m in no mood to listen to Pat and Kevin doing a postmortem.” And he led her to the door.
Tomlinson stood in the middle of the emptying room, his expression serious, but not defeated. Jake heard him saying to one of the guests, “This isn’t the end of the road. Far from it.”
But he didn’t sound very confident.
* * *
Once in their own suite, Jake wormed out of his jacket and tossed it on the bed. Tami pulled off the high-heeled shoes she’d been wearing.
“That’s a relief,” she said.
“The shoes, or Hackman’s decision?”
Standing in her bare feet, Tami barely reached Jake’s shoulder. “Oh, Jake, I’m not happy about his decision. I know you had your heart set on getting Frank into the White House.”
“It doesn’t look very likely now,” he admitted.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Afraid of the answer, Jake still asked, “So where does this leave us?”
Tami sat on the edge of the bed. “I guess this simplifies the situation. I’ll go to Fresno after the Republican convention. Or maybe before. You can stay with Frank until he concedes the nomination to Sebastian.”
Dropping down onto the bed beside her, Jake said, “And then I’ll come out to Fresno, huh?”
She nodded.
With a wry grin, Jake said, “I’ll be out of a job.”
Placing her hands in his, Tami said, “Not for long. You can go back to astronomy, if you like. Or give lectures about politics.” She brightened. “I’ll bet I could get you a slot as the station’s expert on politics! You could become a TV personality!”
“Tami Umetzu’s husband,” Jake said bleakly.
She stared at him.
Feeling miserable, Jake said, “Tami, honey, I don’t want to go to Fresno. I want to stay in Washington. I want to stay with Frank.”
And he remembered from the time he first arrived in DC, an old Beltway insider warning him of Potomac Fever. “Once they get here, they never leave. They only leave this town feet first.”
Tami’s cheerful expression crumbling, she asked, “And you don’t want to stay with me?”
“Of course I want to stay with you! In DC.”
“But I can’t! Don’t you understand, Jake, this job in Fresno is my big chance. I can’t turn it down.”
“I understand,” he said. “I just don’t like it. Not one little bit.”
“What are we going to do?” Tami asked.
Jake realized he had no answer.