George Martin - Ace In The Hole

"Right now, my job's getting the senator elected, and fighting with his bodyguard isn't going to do that. But after Gregg's in the White House, I promise I'll kick a field goal with you, okay?"

"I'm holding you to that, weenie."

"Any time after November eighth."

"See you at one minute after midnight on the ninth, weenie."

Ray stepped aside and Jack entered the headquarters suite. Open pizza boxes were surrounded by gorging campaign workers. TV monitors babbled network analyses to media-deaf ears. Jack found out which room Danny Logan was using, took a pizza box, and set off.

The campaign parliamentarian was a white-haired, paunchy former congressman from Queens who had lost his seat when his Irish constituency was replaced by Puerto Ricans. Now he advised Democratic candidates on how to collect Irish-American votes.

Jack saw him spread-eagled alone on his bed, surrounded by empty bottles and crumpled yellow legal-sized sheets, covered with numbers. "Better eat something," Jack said, and dropped the pizza box onto Logan's wide stomach.

"It's not going to make a bit of difference," Logan said. His voice was thick. "We don't have the numbers. We're going to lose 9(c}-the test case."

Jack rubbed his eyes. "Refresh my memory."

"9(c) is a formula for apportioning delegates formerly committed to candidates who have dropped out of the race. According to 9(c), the ex-candidates' delegates are divided among the remaining candidates in proportion to the number of votes the survivors won in those states. In other words, after Gephardt dropped out, his delegates from Illinois, say, were divided between Jackson, Dukakis, and us according to the percentage of the vote."

"Right."

"Barnett and a few of the party elders are challenging 9(c). They want to free the delegates to vote for whoever they want. Barnett figures he can pick up a few votes; the party elders want to start a movement for Cuomo or Bradley among the uncommitted." Logan ran a hand through his thinning white hair. "We announced our support for the rule thought we'd see who lined up for and against, to give us a hint how the California challenge will go."

"And we're losing on 9(c)?" Jack reached for a bottle and drank from the neck.

"Gregg's making some phone calls. But since Dukakis came out against 9(c), we're fighting a losing fight." He slammed his fist into the bed. "Everyone keeps asking about those stories about the senator and that reporter lady. That we're going to have another Hart fiasco. That's where the resistance lies. Everybody's smelling Gregg's blood."

"What can you do?" Jack said.

"Just try to delay." Logan belched massively. "Lots of ways to delay in this game."

"And then?"

"And then Gregg starts working on his concession speech."

Anger crackled in Jack like a burst of lightning. He waved a big fist. "We won the big primaries! We've got more votes than anybody."

"That's why we're a target. Aw, shit." Tears were rolling from the corners of Logan's eyes. He swiped at them with the back of one red paw. "Gregg stuck by me when I lost my seat. There isn't a more decent man alive. He deserves to be president." His face crumpled. "But we don't have the numbers!"

Jack watched as Logan began to weep, the pizza box jogging up and down on his broad stomach. Jack left his drink on the bedside table and wandered out of the room. Hopelessness sang in him like a keening wind.

All that work, he thought. All the renewed hope that had got him into public life again. All for nothing.

In the main HQ, campaigners were still clustered around pizza boxes. Jack asked where Hartmann was and was told the senator was cloistered with deVaughn and Amy Sorenson, plotting strategy. Then they'd try a last-minute phone blitz to win over some of the uncommitted superdelegates. Without anything else to do, Jack took a piece of pizza and settled down in front of the television monitors.

"It'll be a close vote." Ted Koppel's voice rang in Jack's ear, speaking from the nearly empty floor of the convention to a cynical-looking David Brinkley in the sky booth. "The Hartmann forces are counting on this test to show their strength prior to the showdown over the California challenge."

"Isn't. That. A risky. Strategy?" Brinkley's curt manner seemed to inflate each word into its own sentence. "Hartmann's strategy has always been risky, David. His articulation of liberal political principal in a race dominated by glib media personalities has always been thought risky by his own strategists. Even if he loses California tonight, Hartmann's campaign manager told me that he'll still stand by the jokers' Rights plank in the platform fight tomorrow." Brinkley affected curmudgeonly surprise. "Are you telling me, Ted. That in this day and age. A man can get. To be front-runner. By a consistent public articulation. Of principle?"

Koppel grinned. "Did I say that, David? I didn't mean to suggest that Hartmann's campaign wasn't media-wise-just that it's been consistent in the image it's presented to the voter, just as the campaigns of Leo Barnett and Jesse Jackson, the other two candidates nearest the prize, have been equally consistent. But, like I said, any strategy has its risks. The campaign of Walter Mondale in '84 stands as an example to any politician who dares to be too consistent and articulate."

"But let us suppose. That Hartmann loses the fight. How can he possibly. Regain momentum?"

"He may not, David." Koppel was obviously excited. "If Gregg Hartmann can't win by at least a small margin in the fight over Rule 9(c), he may lose everything. The big challenge over California may just prove an anticlimax-he could lose the whole shooting match right here in the fight over 9(c)." Drama, Jack thought. Everything had to be dramatized. Each vote had to be the vote, the significant vote, the critical vote, or else the voracious media gods were unhappy and had nothing to fill the air with but their own meanderings.

Jack tossed his half-eaten pizza slice back into the box. He crossed the room and met Amy Sorenson coming out of her meeting. There was despair in her dark eyes. Hartmann was on the phone, she said, trying to round up last-minute votes. Hopeless, Jack thought. He picked up his briefcase, left HQ, and headed down the hall to Logan's room. The parliamentarian was passed out on the bed, clutching a whiskey bottle as if it were a woman.

Alone in the corner, the television rattled on. Cronkite and Rather were analyzing Hartmann's strategy and concluding that he may have overreached this time. They reminded Jack of a pair of television movie critics chewing up a new film. What if there wasn't any drama? Jack thought. What if the vote came and nothing happened, it was just some little procedural thing? Wouldn't everyone be surprised if someone, came along and took the drama away? What if someone, some media god or something, went and canceled Leo Barnett's showdown?

Jack realized he was staring at his briefcase.

He opened the case, picked up the phone, told the little computer memory to get him Hiram Worchester. "Worchester?" he said. "This is Jack Braun. I'm speaking for Danny Logan."

"Has Logan come up with any numbers yet? From what I can see, we're in real trouble."

Jack reached to the bedside table and swallowed the remains of his drink. "I know," he said. "That's why, when the fight over 9(c) comes up, I want you to give half your votes to Barnett."

"You better not be selling us out, Braun."

"I'm not."

"That would be your classic Judas ace style, wouldn't it? A quick stab in the back, then a new job in the media courtesy of Leo Barnett."

Jack closed his fist. The glass in his hand exploded in a flash of gold light.

"Are you going to do this or not?" Jack demanded. He watched as crushed glass drained like sand from his fist.