The Prodigal Daughter (60 page)

Florentyna’s
financial backing was always a problem as even the most ardent supporters
assumed she could foot her own campaign bills. Parkin, with the backing of the
oil tycoons led by Marvin Snyder of Blade Oil, had never had to face the same
problem. But during the next few
days
campaign
contributions flowed into Florentyna’s office, along with telegrams of support
and good wishes.

Influential
journalists in London, Paris, Bonn and Tokyo began to tell their readers that if
America wanted a President of international status and credibility there was no
contest between Florentyna Kane and the cattle farmer from Texas.

Florentyna was
delighted whenever she read these articles, but Edward reminded her that
neither the readers nor the writers could pull any levers on any voting
machines in America, although he felt for the first time they now had Parkin on
the run. He was also quick to point out that there were still 412 of the 3,331
delegates who after the primaries and caucuses remained undecided. The
political pundits estimated that 200 of them were leaning toward the Vice
President while about a hundred would come out in favor of Florentyna. It
looked as if it was going to be the closest convention roll call since Reagan ran
against Ford.

After
California, Florentyna returned to Washington with another suitcase full of
dirty clothes. She knew she would have to cajole, coax and arm-twist those 412
undecided delegates. During the next four weeks she spoke personally to 388 of
them, some of them three or four times. It was always the women she found the
least helpful, although it was obvious they were all enjoying the attention
that was being showered on them, especially because in a month’s time no one
would ever phone them again.

Edward ordered a
computer terminal so that Florentyna had access to the records at campaign
headquarters. The terminal provided information on all 412 delegates who
remained uncommitted, along with a short life history of each, right down to
their hotel room numbers in Detroit. When he reached the convention city, he
intended to be ready to put his final plan into operation.

For five days
during the next week, Florentyna made certain she was never far from a
television set. The Republicans were at the Cow Palace in San Francisco,
haggling over whom they wanted to lead them, no one having excited the voters
during the primaries.

The choice of
Russell Warner came as no surprise to Florentyna. He had been campaigning for
the Presidency ever since he had become governor of Ohio. The press’s
description of Warner as a good governor in a bad year reminded Florentyna that
her main task would be to defeat Parkin. Once again, she felt it was going to
be easier to defeat the Republican standardbearer than the opposition within
her own party.

The weekend
before the convention, Florentyna and Edward joined the family on Cape Cod.
Exhausted, Florentyna still managed to beat Edward in a round of golf and she
thought he looked even more tired than she felt. She was thankful that the
Baron was run so well by its new, young directors, which now included William.

Florentyna and
Edward were both due to fly into Detroit on Monday morning where they had taken
over yet another Baron. The hotel would be filled with Florentyna’s staff,
supporters, the press and 124 of those uncommitted delegates.

As she said good
night to Edward and then to the Secret Service men and women-whom she was
beginning to treat as her extended farmly-that Sunday night, Florentyna knew
that the next four days were going to be the most important in her political
career.

W
HEN JACK GERMOND
OF THE Baltimore Sun asked Florentyna on the plane when she had started working
on her acceptance speech, she replied, “Since my eleventh birthday.”

On the flight
from New York to Detroit Metro Airport, Florentyna had read through her
acceptance speech, already drafted in case she was nominated on the first
ballot. Edward had predicted that she would not secure victory on the first
roll call, but Flor
,.
-ntyna felt she had to be
prepared for any eventuality.

Her advisors
considered the result was much more likely to be known after the second or even
the third ballot, by which time Senator Bradley would have released his 189
delegates.

During the
previous week, she had drawn up a short list of four people whom she thought
worthy of consideration to join her on the ticket as Vice President. Bill
Bradley still led the field and Florentyna felt he was her natural successor to
the White House, but she was also considering Sam Nunn, Gary Hart and David
Pryor.

Florentyna’s
thoughts were interrupted when the plane landed and she looked out of the
windows to see a large, excited crowd awaiting her. She couldn’t help wondering
how many of them would also be there tomorrow when Pete Parkin arrived. She
checked her liair in her compact mirror; a few white strands were showing in
the dark hair, but she made no attempt to disguise them, and she smiled at the
thought that Pete Parkin’s hair had remained the same implausible color for the
past thirty years. Florentyna wore a simple linen suit and her only piece of
jewelry was a diamond studded donkey.

Florentyna
unbuckled her seat belt, rose and ducked her head under the overhead
compartment. She stepped into the aisle and as she turned to leave, everyone in
the plane began applauding.

She suddenly
realized that if she lost the nomination, this would be the last time she would
~ee them all together. Florentyna shook hands with all the members of the press
corps, some of whom had been on the trail with her for five months. A crew
member opened the cabin door and Florentyna stepped out onto the staircase,
squinting into the July sun. The crowd let up a yell of “There she is,” and
Florentyna walked down the steps and straight toward the waving banners because
she always found that direct contact with the voters recharged her. As she
touched the tarmac, she was once again surrounded by the Secret Service, who
dreaded crowds they could never control. She might sometimi-s think of being
assassinated when she was alone, but never when she was
,in
a crowd. Florentyna clasped outstretched hands and greeted as many people as
possible before Edward guided her away to the waiting motorcade.

A line of ten
small new Fords reminded her that Detroit had finally come to terms with the
energy crisis. If Pete Parkin were to make the mistake of being driven in a
Mercedes in this city, she would be the Democratic choice before Alabama cast
its first vote. Secret Service men filled the first two cars while Florentyna A
as in the third, with Edward in front by the driver. Florentyna’s personal
doctor rode in the fourth and her staff filled the remaining six “Mighty
Midgets,” as the new small Ford had been dubbed. A press corps bus followed at
the rear with police outriders dotted up and down the motorcade.

The front car
moved off at a snail’s pace so that Fiorentyna could wave to the crowds, but as
soon as they reached the highway the cars traveled into Detroit at a steady
fifty miles an hour.

For twenty
minutes Florentyna relaxed in the back seat during the drive into the midtown
New Center area, where the motorcade exited at Woodward Avenue, turned south
toward the river and slowed to about five miles an hour as the crowds filled
the streets to catch a glimpse of Senator Kane.

Florentyna’s
organizing committee had distributed 100,000 handbills showing the exact route
she would take when she arrived in the city, and her supporters cheered her all
the way to the Baron Hotel. The Secret Service had begged her to change the
route, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

Dozens of
photographers and television crews were poised awaiting her arri
‘ val
as Florentyna stepped out of her car and climbed the
steps of the Detroit Baron, the whole area lit up by flashbulbs and arc lights.
Once she was inside the hotel lobby, the Secret Service men whisked her away to
the twentyfourth floor.
which
had been reserved for
her personal use. She quickly checked over the George Novak Suite to see that
everything she required was there, because she knew that this was going to be
her prison for the next four days. The only reason she would leave that room
would be either to accept the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate or
to declare her support for Pete Parkin.

A bank of
telephones had been installed so that Florentyna could keep in touch with the
412 wavering delegates. She spoke to thirty-eight of them before dinner that
night and then sat up until two o’clock the next morning, going over the names
and backgrounds of those who her team genuinely felt had not made up their
minds.

Next day, the
Detroit Free Press was filled with pictures of her arrival in Detroit, but in
truth she knew Pete Parkin would receive the same enthusiastic coverage
tomorrow. At least
she
wa.i relieved that the
President had decided to remain on the sidelines when it came to supporting
either candidate. The press had already treated that as a moral victory for
Florentyna.

She put the
newspaper down and began to watch the closed circuit television to see what was
going on in the convention hall during the first morning.

She also kept an
eye on Athree channels at lunchtime in case any one network came up with some
exclusive piece of news that the other two had missed and to which the press
would demand her instant reaction.

During the day,
thirty-one of the wavering delegates were brought to meet her on the
twenty-fourth floor. As the hour progressed, they were served coffee, iced tea,
hot tea and cocktails. Florentyna stuck to Perrier water.

She watched in
silence as Pete Parkin arrived in Air Force Two at the Detroit airpon. One
staffer told her that his crowd was smaller than the one that had turned out
for her yesterday, while another said it was larger. She made a mental note of
the staffer who said that Parkin’s crowd was larger today and decided to listen
to his opinions more carefully in the future.

Pete Parkin made
a short speech at a specially set-up podium on the tarmac, his Vice
Presidential seal of office glistening in the sun. He said how delighted he was
to be in the city that could rightly describe itself as the car capital of the
world. I should know,” he added, “I’ve owned Fords all my life.” Florentyna
smiled.

By the end of
two days under “house arrest,” Florentyna had complained so much about being cooped
up that on Wednesday morning the Secret Service took her down in a freight
elevator so that she could stroll along the river front, enjoying the fresh air
and the skyline view of Windsor, Ontario, on the opposite bank. She had gone
only a few paces before she was surrounded by well-wishers who wanted to touch
her hand.

When she
returned, Edward had some good news: five uncommitted delegates had decided to
vote for her on the first ballot. He estimated that they needed only another
seventythree to clairn the magic 1,666. On the monitor she followed the program
on the floor of the convention hall. A black school superintendent from
Delaware expounded Florentyna’s virtues, and when she mentioned Florentyna’s
name the blue placards filled the hall with “Kane for President.” During the
speech that followed, there was an equivalent sea of red placards demanding
“Parkin for President.”

She paced around
the suite until one-thirty, by which time she had seen forty-three more
delegates and spoken on the phone to another fifty-eight.

. The second day
of the convention was devoted to the major platform speeches on policy,
finance, welfare, defense and the keynote speech by Senator Pryor. Time and
time again, delegates would declare that whichever of the two great candidates
was selected, they would go on to beat the Republicans in November; but most of
the delegates on the floor kept up a steady hum of conversation, all but
oblivious to the men and women on the platform who might well make up a
Democratic cabinet.

Florentyna broke
away from the welfare debate to have a drink with two delegates from Nevada who
were still undecided. She realized their next stop would probably be Parkin,
who would also promise them their new highway, hospital, university or whatever
excuse they came up with to visit both candidates. At least tomorrow night they
would have to come out finally in someone’s favor. She told Edward she wanted a
fence put up in the middle of her room, so that wavering delegates had
somewhere to sit when they came to meet her.

Reports flowed
in during the day about what Pete Parkin was up to, which seemed to be much the
same as Florentyna except that he was booked into the Westin Hotel at the
Renaissance Center.
As neither of them could go into the
convention arena, their daily routines continued: delegates, phone calls, press
statements, meetings with party officials and finally bed without much sleep.

On Thursday,
Florentyna was dressed by six o’clock in the morning and was driven quickly to
the convention hall. Once they had arrived at the Joe Louis Arena, she was
shown the passage she would walk down to deliver her acceptance speech if she
were the chosen candidate. She walked out onto the platform and stood in front
of the banked microphones, staring out at the twenty-one thousand empty seats.
The tall, thin placards that rose from the floor high into the air proudly
proclaimed the name of every state from Alabama to Wyoming. She made a special
note of where the Illinois delegation would be seated so that she could wave to
them the moment she entered the hall.