Stephen Cannell - The Plan

"No more meetings where Congress votes through their own pay raises at midnight. No more limos in the Senate garage. No more budget-stimulus packages. No more check kiting on the House bank. No more billion-dollar peanut-farm aid programs. No more presidential air force. No more horseshit, lying, stealing, taxing and spending. No more! No more! No more! Haze Richards, the man from Providence, an outsider who hates what's happened at much as all of us. . Haze Richards is going to take America back. He's gonna make America work, goddammit. He's gonna make it work again for you!" His voice was thundering off the back wall of the small room.

He looked around at them, all of their faces turned up at him. "And that, my friends, is the pony every American has been looking for. That message played right wins us the presidency."

They started nodding and smiling.

"We run above the issues," Malcolm said, his voice seeming small after Teagarden's impassioned oratory. "It's not about gays in the military, or health care, immigration, abortion, women's rights, or minority programs. It's about Americans losing control of the system. We want America back and Haze is going to give it to us."

"Haze Richards is going to make America work again for you," A. J. Teagarden finished. "That's the message. Malcolm will give you the strategy." And he sat down.

The room was silent and the lean, black yuppie spoke.

"I've talked strategy with most of you," Malcolm said, "It's simple. We've got to score big at the Des Moines Register Guard debate next Tuesday if we expect to get national press coverage. Right now, Leo Skatina is polling over fifty percent in Iowa, but it's on name identification alone. He's a familiar face, but we can cut into him. The other three guys have modest and equal chunks of the rest. About twenty percent is undecided. Our goal is to beat the shit out of them at the Des Moines debate and then get the press to run with it."

Vidal said, "I got some bad. News there. Because of budget problems, most network news shows have cut back their live coverage in Iowa. The only network sending out a live team is UBC," Vidal continued. "Koppel, Jennings, Brokaw, and the rest of those media big feet are gonna chill it. CNN will be there, as usual, but even their coverage will be cut down."

"All we need to do in Iowa," Malcolm said, "is get twenty percent of the vote and run a strong second to Skatina. If we do that, we're gonna look like we're taking off like a rocket. Everything, every bit of our effort, the whole banana goes into Iowa."

"What about New Hampshire?" Susan Winter asked.

"Without Iowa, there won't be a New Hampshire,"

Malcolm said. "Right now, Iowa is the whole ball game." When the meeting broke up, Vidal came over to Ryan. "Do you know anyone over at UBC?" he asked. "Cole Harris was married to a friend of mine."

"Cole Harris is dust. They axed him two months ago.

He was doing an underworld crime series that was killed by the news committee. He accused Steve Israel of collusion and they sacked him the next day."

"Really?" Ryan said, surprised, remembering the intense black-haired newsman who had been in L. A. for a while. "I also know the political editor for Steve Israel on the Rim in New York."

The Rim was a room on the twenty-third floor at the black tower on lower Broadway that housed UBC. It got its name because of its circular shape; news staffers and segment producers had desks looking out toward the floor. The center was the set for the nightly news with Brenton Spencer.

"Good. You check out your contact. I'll call Brenton Spencer," Vidal said.

Brenton Spencer was the star anchor and executive producer for the UBC nightly news. His ratings had been falling for almost six months. What Brenton didn't know was that he was destined to become the campaign's first big pony.

Brenton Spencer was scared to death. The cold January wind was tugging at the corners of his cashmere overcoat, chilling his legs, freezing his balls. He stood i n f ront of his Fifth Avenue apartment building, waiting fo r t he UBC limo.

The man he'd been summoned to meet was short and repulsive and didn't give a shit about news. C. Wallace Litman owned the network and he wanted happy talk. Just yesterday, they'd been fed a segment about whale pups being born at Marineland, California-Shama and Heidi. The network satellited the footage from the West Coast at five thousand dollars per minute, and they'd rolled off two and a half minutes of whales and their trainer. Steve Israel had put in some jokes, and Brenton had to turn to his co-anchor, Shannon Wilkerson, and say, "There's a whale of a tale, Shannon," and she said, "Oh, Brenton. . that's very fishy. . " All of this while homeless people were freezing to death in Central Park and the Middle East was teetering on the edge of destruction. When he complained, they pulled out the November sweeps book, which showed a 10-percent erosion in the nightly news ratings, and Brenton had to swallow hard and hope to hell they weren't going to drop his option.

He had a contract coming up for renewal and the business affairs department at UBC hadn't even opened negotiations yet. A very, very bad sign.

Brenton dreaded the meeting with C. Wallace Litman. He knew if he lost the anchor job on the heels of this last rating book, he would be on the plane back to Cleveland and his old job at WUBY-TV, if he could even get it.

The limo finally arrived and took him to Litman Tower. The billionaire financier had the entire top floor.

On the way up in the private elevator, Brenton looked at his reflection in the antique mirror. He had a square jaw that jutted slightly, even white teeth, black hair graying at the temples. At sixty, he had that elder statesman look that should make viewers want to believe him, but somehow they were deserting him.

Now there's a whale of a tale, he thought to himself in abstract panic. The door opened onto a marble entry hall that was decorated with original artwork from world renowned masters.

A butler was waiting to take his coat as C. Wallace Litman moved briskly into the foyer.

C. Wallace Litman was always dressed for work-even in the evening or on Sunday he wore a three-piece suit and tie. He never removed his jacket. He had ramrod posture that held up his little frame to the very last millimeter of his five-foot, six-inch height.

"Nice you could come," Litman said as if the invitation had been open to refusal.

"I always love our visits, Wallace," Brenton said, realizing that he had started out with a wheedling lie.

"Haveyou seen this new art we just bought? Sally and I have been working through a broker in midtown." He strolled down the hall where paintings of various sizes hung in ornate frames under spotlights. "That's a. Remin on," he said. "That one there is a Renoir."

He reeled off the famous names but never looked at the art. Brenton realized that the paintings weren't there to enjoy; they were there to impress.

They moved into the den and Wallace sat down. Brenton noticed that his expensive suit didn't wrinkle or ride up on his shoulders as he settled back in the red leather armchair. His eyes finally came up and fixed on the frightened anchorman.

"Brenton, we have a problem."

"Most problems can be solved."

"Maybe not."

Brenton's heart did a two-and-a-half gainer and flopped against his diaphragm. He held his face steady, years of on-camera training working the miracle.

"I don't pretend to know what makes people watch TV," Wallace continued. "Since I bought United Broadcasting, I've been shocked at what the public tunes into. But we're in an advertiser-driven medium. If we don't sell aspirin, we've gotta take it 'cause we're gonna have headaches."