Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

“All right, then, we’ll talk. Right after the election. In the meantime, I will convey to the forty-three million non fetuses who constitute the pro-life portion of the American electorate that they are free to shop around for a candidate who shares their commitment to the inviolable sanctity of human life.”

“Gideon-”

“Good day to you, sir.” Gideon reflexively reached for his gold watch. Still not there.

Bucky shuffled into the Oval Office with all the alacrity of a sedated mental patient. The president looked at him with a long face.

“For crying out loud, we created a whole commission more or less just for him, and then made sure old candy-ass Bascombe would put everyone to sleep with the conclusion…what the hell’s he want now ?”

“The memorial,” Bucky said. “I think he wants it next to the FDR Memorial.”

“Oh no. Uh-uh. No fucking way. No fetuses on the Mall. That is not how this presidency will be remembered. The pro-choicers and women’s groups would chew off my dick. You tell Gideon Payne-in-the-ass…Hell with it.” The president reached for the phone. “I’ll tell that fat little Bible-thumper myself !”

“Mr. President,” Bucky said, “please put down the phone. No good will come of yelling at a man who commands millions of voters.”

“I am sick and tired of being jerked around. Gimme gimme gimme. That’s all I hear. All day. Gimme gimme gimme. I’ll shove forty-three million fetuses up his ass! And I’ll bet there’s room for them!”

Bucky let the president huff and puff awhile longer, then shuffled out of the Oval Office and telephoned Gideon.

“I discussed your proposal with the president,” he said, “and he wholeheartedly agrees that we must have a memorial on the Mall.”

Bucky’s call, though prompt, had come just a few moments too late. After making his lovely little speech about how he would tell his followers to shop around for a candidate, Gideon had suddenly become enamored of the idea that he should run for president. Why not? Lesser men had-and heck, some of them had even won. He probably wouldn’t, but the experience might be entertaining. And it always seemed to have a salubrious effect on one’s lecture fees.

“Well,” Gideon said to Bucky, “I do appreciate that. You give the president my very best regards and tell him I look forward to our debate in the fall.”

“Debate?” Bucky said. “In the fall?”

Gideon said, “That is normally when they hold the presidential debates, is it not? Though I imagine we’ll be bumping into each other in New Hampshire and Iowa before then. I imagine it’s very cold in New Hampshire in February. Not my favorite climate. No, no. I am a creature of the South. But one must make sacrifices. I suppose I will need one of those puffy parka things from that Yankee store-what’s it called?-L. L. Bean? Good day to you again, sir.”

It was Cass’s idea to have Randy announce his candidacy outside the Social Security Administration in Washington. She and Terry wrote his speech.

“This building behind me, once a symbol of a compact between the people and their government, now stands as a symbol of betrayal of the people by their government, a veritable warehouse of shame and empty promises. For Americans under thirty, it might as well be the New Bastille-the prison where all their hopes of a bright future go to die.”

For the climax, Randy handed to a group of twenty-somethings (chosen, frankly, for their wholesome good looks) an enormous piece of paper with huge lettering that said:

INVOICE

TO: AMERICANS UNDER 30

FROM: BABY BOOM GENERATION

FOR: OUR RETIREMENT BENEFITS

AMOUNT: $77 TRILLION

PAYABLE ON DEMAND

– U.S. Government

Randy was very excited by it all. He had wanted to insert the line “Boomer retirement is costing your generation an arm and a leg.” And then reach down, detach his prosthesis, raise it over his head, and say, “American policies cost me a leg, so I know how you feel!”

He, Cass, and Terry had a heated discussion about whether it was “presidential” to wave artificial limbs over one’s head during speeches. Cass and Terry finally said they’d resign if he did. Randy backed down. After he left the room, Terry said to Cass, “I’m going to Super Glue that thing to his stump for the duration of this campaign.”

For their campaign slogan, they’d come up with “Jepperson-No Worse Than The Others.”

It was not without risk, but there was logic to it. Cass’s idea was to target the under-thirty voters, to convince them that Social Security was a form of indentured servitude; that they’d been economically disenfranchised by the previous generations. All the polling showed that the under-thirties were, in the words of one pollster, “the most cynical generation in American history.” Most of them got all their political information from late-night TV comics. That being the case, Cass argued, there was no point in a slogan trumpeting Randolph Jepperson as an improvement over any other candidate. She called it “the ‘whatever’ factor.” The idea was to say, “Here’s our candidate. He might make things better. He probably won’t, but at least we’re not claiming he will. So why not vote for him? At least we’re honest.” A Mobius strip of persuasion.

It was a hard sell on the candidate, who saw himself as some kind of latter-day JFK.

Randy stared at the poster with his handsome face in profile and the slogan.

“Can’t you come up with something a little more positive? This makes me sound like something on a menu that you’re not sure you want.”

“That’s the whole point,” Cass said. “That’s why they’ll go for it. We focus-grouped it. They loved it. Anyway, we’re not doing traditional TV and radio advertising.”

“We’re not? Who signed off on that?”

“I did. We’re putting all the money into podcasts and social networks. We’re making major buys on Google, Facebook, and MySpace.”

Randy looked uncomfortable. “Shouldn’t we be appealing to more than just … kids?”

Terry said, “There are twenty-five million voters under thirty. There may be as many as seven or eight candidates on the ballot in November. There may be as many as three or four new independent parties. Our old friend Gideon Payne is gathering signatures for his SPERM party. It’s going to be a crowded field. If we throw everything we’ve got at the under-thirties, we might pull it off.”

“How do we even know they’ll vote?” Randy said. “They never do. They’re too busy shrugging and putting out, what do you call it, attitude.”

“Because we’re going to scare the shit out of them. We’re going to convince them that if they don’t vote this time-for you, the ‘No Worse Than The Others’ candidate-they’re not going to be able to afford iPods and Mocha Frappuccinos. They’ll be too busy paying for bedpans for Boomers.”

“Hm…,” Randy mused. “Not a bad line. But for the slogan, what about…‘Jepperson, Leading the Way’?”

“What, into minefields?” Cass said. “Forget it. You do demagoguery, I’ll do message.”

“Hold on a mo. Who’s paying whom here?” Randy grumbled.

And so Randolph Jepperson became the most formally modest candidate ever to seek the office of president of the United States.

The Establishment commentators, the punditariat, were initially appalled by the slogan. They felt insulted. Pundits expect, even demand, a certain minimal level of pretension in political candidates. This gives them something to deplore in order to affirm their own superiority. Randy’s shrug of a slogan denied them this moral high ground. But they recovered quickly, and they were soon going after him for other than just his shamelessly modest campaign slogan. They attacked him for his scorched-earth Senate campaign against poor old Senator Bradley Smithers; his wealth; his affair with the Tegucigalpa Tamale; his embrace of legal suicide as a means of solving the Social Security impasse; even the Bosnian incident. There had been a lot of new wink-winking about that one on the talk shows.