Jeffrey Archer - Sons of Fortune

‘There’s no reply,’ said Nat, ‘they must have gone out for dinner.’

‘Can’t it wait until we get back on Monday?’ asked Su Ling.

‘I suppose so,’ admitted Nat reluctantly, ‘but I’d like to have known if Tom managed to close the Cedar Wood deal, and if so, at what price.’

‘Too close to call’ ran the banner headline in the Washington Post on election morning. ‘NECK AND NECK’ was the opinion of the Hartford Courant. The first referred to the national race between Ford and Carter for the White House, the second to the local battle between Hunter and Davenport for the State Senate Chamber. It annoyed Fletcher that they always put her name first, like Harvard before Yale.

‘All that matters now,’ said Harry as he chaired the final campaign meeting at six that morning, ‘is getting our supporters to the polls.’ No longer was there any need to discuss tactics, press statements, or policy. Once the first vote had been cast, everyone seated round the table had a new responsibility.

A team of forty would be in charge of the car pool, armed with a list of voters who required a lift to their nearest polling place, the old, the infirm, the downright lazy and even some who took a vicarious pleasure in being taken to the poll just so they could vote for the other side.

The next team, and by far the largest, were those who manned the bank of phones back at headquarters.

‘They’ll be on two-hour shifts,’ said Harry, ‘and must spend their time contacting known supporters to remind them that it’s election day, and then later to make sure they’ve cast their vote. Some of this group will need to be called three or four times before the polls close at eight this evening,’ Harry reminded them.

The next group, whom Harry described as the beloved amateurs, ran the counting houses all over the borough. They would keep a minute by minute up-date on how the voting was going in their district. They could be responsible for as few as a thousand voters or as many as three thousand, depending on whether theirs was a built-up or a rural area. ‘They are,’ Harry reminded Fletcher, ‘the backbone of the party. From the moment the first vote is cast, they’ll have volunteers sitting outside the polling stations ticking off names of the voters as they go to the polls. Every thirty minutes those lists will be handed over to runners, who will take them back to the house where the full register will be laid out on tables or pinned to a wall. That list will then be marked up — a red line through the name for any Republican voter, blue for Democrats, and yellow for unknown. One glance at the boards at any time, and the captain of the precinct will know exactly how the vote is progressing. As many of the captains have done the same job for election after election, they’ll be able to give you an immediate comparison with any past poll. The details, once “boarded”, are then relayed through to headquarters so that the phoners don’t keep bothering a pledge who has already cast their vote.’

‘So what’s the candidate supposed to do all day?’ asked Fletcher, once Harry had come to the end of his briefing.

‘Keep out of the way,’ said Harry, ‘which is why you have a programme of your own. You will visit the forty-four counting houses, because they all expect to see the candidate at some time during the day. Jimmy will act as your driver, known as “the candidate’s friend”, because we certainly can’t afford any spare workers wasting their time on you.’

Once the meeting had broken up, and everyone had dashed off to their new assignments, Jimmy explained just how Fletcher would spend the rest of the day, and he spoke with some experience, because he’d carried out the same exercise for his father during the previous two elections.

‘First the no-no’s,’ said Jimmy when Fletcher joined him in the front of the car. ‘As we have to visit all forty-four houses between now and eight o’clock this evening when the polls close, everyone will offer you a coffee, and between 11.45 and 2.15 lunch, and after 5.30 a drink. You must always reply with a polite but firm no to any such offer. You will only drink water in the car, and we’ll have lunch at 12.30 for thirty minutes back at headquarters, just so they realize they’ve got a candidate, and you won’t eat again until after the polls close.’

Fletcher thought he might become bored, but each visit produced a new cast of characters and a new set of figures. For the first hour, the sheets showed just a few names crossed out, and the captains were quickly able to tell him how the turnout compared with past elections. Fletcher was encouraged by how many blue lines had appeared before ten o’clock, until Jimmy warned him that the time between seven and nine was always good pickings for the Democrats as the industrial and night-shift workers vote before they start, or after they have finished work. ‘Between ten and four, the Republicans should go into the lead,’ Jimmy added, ‘while after five and up until the close of the polls is always the time when the Democrats have to make their comeback. So just pray for rain between ten and five, followed by a fine warm evening.’

By 11 a.m. all the captains were reporting that the poll was slightly down compared with the last election when it had closed on fifty-five per cent. ‘Anything below fifty per cent, we lose, over fifty and we’re in with a shout,’ said Jimmy, ‘above fifty-five and it’s yours by a street.’

‘Why’s that?’ asked Fletcher.

‘Because the Republicans traditionally are more likely to turn out in any weather, so they always benefit from a low turnout. Making sure our people vote has always been the Democrats’ biggest problem.’

Jimmy stuck rigidly to his schedule. Just before arriving he would hand Fletcher a slip of paper with the basic facts on the household running that district. Fletcher would then commit the salient points to memory before he reached the front door.

‘Hi, Dick,’ he said when the door was opened, ‘good of you to allow us to use your house again, because of course this is your fourth election.’ Listen to reply. ‘How’s Ben, is he still at college?’ Listen to reply. ‘I was sorry to hear about Buster — yes, Senator Gates told me.’ Listen to reply. ‘But you have another dog now, Buster Jr — is that right?’

Jimmy also had his own routine. After ten minutes he would whisper, ‘I think you ought to be leaving.’ At twelve, he would begin to sound a little anxious and dispense with think, and at fourteen, he became insistent. After shaking hands and waving, it always took another couple of minutes before they could finally get away. Even with Jimmy keeping to a rigorous schedule, they still arrived back at campaign headquarters twenty minutes late for lunch.

Lunch was a snack rather than a meal, as Fletcher grabbed a sandwich from a table that was heaped with food. He took the occasional bite as he and Annie moved from office to office, shaking hands with as many of the workers as possible.

‘Hi, Martha, what’s Harry up to?’ asked Fletcher as he entered the phone room.

‘He’s outside the old State House doing what he does best, pressing the flesh, dispensing opinions, and making sure people haven’t forgotten to vote. He should be back at any moment.’

Thirty minutes later Fletcher passed Harry in the corridor on his way out, as Jimmy had insisted that, if they were still going to visit every counting house, then they had to leave by 1.10. ‘Good morning, senator,’ said Fletcher.

‘Good afternoon, Fletcher, glad you were able to find time to eat.’

The first house they visited after lunch showed that the Republicans had gone into a slight lead, which continued to increase during the afternoon. By five o’clock there were still fifteen captains left to visit. ‘If you miss one of them,’ said Jimmy, ‘we’ll never hear the end of it, and they sure won’t be there for you next time around.’