A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [151]
“Tell me, and I’m listening, how are we going to survive to see the next century without population control?…”
“Oh, Jesus, he did it!”
Florida: Humboldt 64% O’Connell 35%
Hawaii: Humboldt 21% O’Connell 79%
Louisiana: Humboldt 53% O’Connell 47%
Mississippi: Humboldt 50% O’Connell 48%
Oklahoma: Humboldt 40% O’Connell 55%
Oregon: Humboldt 33% O’Connell 62%
Tennessee: Humboldt 45% O’Connell 46%
Texas: Humboldt 51% O’Connell 44%
* * *
Thornton Tomtree took two top White House people and moved them to his election campaign. Hugh Mendenhall, a hefty, bubbly wizard of the polls, and Dr. Jacob Turnquist, the analyst. They were close enough to T3 not to be overcome with fear in his presence. Like any great executive, Thornton allowed those close to him to take him on and speak their minds.
The nation had undergone the first anniversary of the Four Corners Massacre. Thornton had flown over Six Shooter Canyon in a helicopter and afterward laid the cornerstone of the permanent memorial.
He had done just enough on his unopposed Republican reelection campaign to keep his name high, and took the convention by acclamation.
But so had Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell in a boisterous, bombastic Democratic convention in Detroit.
On Thornton’s return to Washington, he called in Hugh Mendenhall and Dr. Jacob Turnquist and repaired with them and Darnell to Camp David.
“Ahhh!” said the President.
“Ahhh!” Turnquist and Mendenhall agreed.
“Ahhh!” said Darnell, and poured from the large pitchers of Bloody Marys. The President’s steward adjusted the awnings to keep the sun off the patio.
Darnell Jefferson lay back in a chaise longue chair as a listener.
The time was here to start blazing away at the Democratic opponent. The weekend was to detail strategic warfare. There was the sound of celery stalks being crunched.
“Our jingle-jangle rope-a-dope cowboy is going to be a handful,” the President said.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Mendenhall bubbled. “O’Connell talking birth control in Mississippi. He’s got to trip and fall; he’s too disorganized and reckless.”
Jacob Turnquist always had his authoritative, sincere, goateed, think-tank expression. “Or,” he suggested, “are we dealing with a political genius? He knows, like a bird riding the wind, just how far he can ride any issue. He is developing quasi-fanatic followers…and keep in mind, all he has done so far is to present himself with a soft-shoe dance. He has only touched on significant issues superficially. He has given the Second Amendment wide berth. Why? Until he got control of the party—now he can take dead aim at you. Up to the day he won the convention, he took wild gambles to gain attention…for example, financing through populist means…we are now facing close to two million voters who have invested in him, who will show up at the polls.”
“Clever desperation. It worked this time. It never worked before,” Mendenhall said. “We’ve got to look back to Four Corners to understand the trepidation the voters still have.”
Tomtree spoke, and both leaned forward, Darnell still the quiet, removed observer. “What the son of a bitch has done,” the President said, “is deliberately start an erosion of our Southern base. A lot of Baptist women are on birth-control pills, and a lot of Baptist women don’t like the guns in their husbands’ closets. His invasion was either going to blow him out of the race or establish him as a powerful new force. Now, what are we dealing with?”
Turnquist spoke keenly, sincerely, earnestly. “Quinn and Chad Humboldt barely slapped each other’s wrists. Our ace in the hole, Vice President Hope, has held his end of the coalition of the right wing together for twenty years.”
“It’s our imperative,” the President said. “The vice president will be here tomorrow to get his marching orders.”
“We’re still leading in the South,” Mendenhall insisted. “It’s still O’Connell’s to take, and my money is on Matthew Hope.”
“Have we got anything on O’Connell?”
“He’s refused to answer questions of a personal nature,” Hugh Mendenhall went on. “I think, maybe, the press has