A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [149]
Quinn’s family began to surface in the press and interviews. Rita and her smile and her kind ways. One had to think back to Jackie Kennedy, although Rita’s beauty could scarcely be matched.
Hey, that Duncan, what a hunk! He left the daily nuts and bolts of the ranch operation to Juan Martinez. He spent most of his hours in the veterinarian and animal research facility built on the property.
It was only fitting that Duncan fall in love with a Glenwood Springs veterinarian, Lisa Wong, of Asian-American heritage. She came to Troublesome on a research grant, to positively determine the shelf life of eggs. She saw Duncan enter through the chicken coop…and that was that.
Duncan went campaigning and saw to his father’s rest periods, filtered the incoming communications—a lion at the gate.
Lisa remained at the ranch, seeing to the comfort of her grandmother-in-law Siobhan, who was failing to cancer.
Rae, a computer scientist at the Atmospheric Research Institute in Boulder, took a leave of absence to set up and operate the campaign headquarters’ computers. She reported to Greer on everything from collections to travel reservations to advertising.
Rae tried one four-day campaign swing with the candidate, and that was enough!
…because everything blurred together: airports, welcoming committees, Secret Service men moving back TV cameras, shouting correspondents, “Would you mind a picture with Mrs. Gumport?” “I’d love it!” Quinn would answer…hamburgers, baloney sandwiches, tourist class, Big 8 motels, polls, TV studios, talk radio shows, ballrooms, school auditoriums, “Let’s hear a rah-rah O’Connell,” homes for the aged, beady-eyed big donors, wide-eyed girls with short skirts, throw out the first pitch, press conferences, more press conferences, short parades in small towns, Irish, Jews, Italians, Gulf Coast fishermen, Mexicans, wheat farmers, black mayors, white mayors, tan mayors…Sunday. “Rita, you go pray for me, honey, we’ve got meetings every twenty minutes”…Internet, outer nets, books as wisdom, “Can we get this pressed and have it back in an hour?”…“What the hell do you mean, I’ve got a fever? I can’t have a fever, because I’ve got to be in Des Moines,” “We need cash, boss,” position papers, “Happy Days Are Here Again!”…orange juice, lots of orange juice…“Am I going to have time to go to the john?”…“Sorry, not till our next stop, Governor.”
Chad Humboldt blistered the South through innuendo. The word Catholic was not used out loud, but it played in the Christian Right churches. The gist of it was that O’Connell is only pretending to be one of us, but he isn’t. He’s a brooding mountain man, and when he looks you in the eye it is impossible to know if he is truthful. “Let us not forget that we have had presidents who looked us in the eye and lied through their teeth.”
Chad Humboldt was a generations fixture supported by a sudden coalition of politicians in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and mighty Texas. Be cautious of the stranger. Be cautious of his inexperienced views on the issues. Humboldt wove around the gun-control issue but warned of a stranger who would steal away the traditions.
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI-MONDAY
MARCH 10, 2008
“You’re going to the well once too often,” Greer snapped. “It won’t play in Jackson.”
“It played in Atlanta.”
“It had great surprise and shock value, granted, but that was then and now is now. No electorate is going to keep listening to morality plays. We are in Apache country, Quinn.”
“Ummmm.”
“Rita, Mal, help me, for chrissake.”
Mal scanned the polls. “We’re behind in every Southern state—well, you’ve got a small lead in Oklahoma, but they’re a sister state to Colorado.”
Quinn did not speak. He seemed to be drifting off again in some kind of narcoleptic state with an inner concentration that shut out external noises.
“If I were a gambler,” Mal said, “I’d say, go ahead, make your doom-and-gloom population-control speech. This isn’t a gamble. You’re going to lay an egg.”
“So we’re going down either way! What can I do but gamble?”
“Play it safe,” Greer