The Race (36 page)

From behind the tinted glass, Corey gazed out at the pedestrians on the sidewalk in front of Central Park—old people, couples, sidewalk vendors, nannies shepherding children or pushing baby carriages—a sampling of the three hundred million often bewildered souls whom Corey proposed to govern. "This bitter contest," he heard the reporter continue, "occurs in a climate of fear that soared exponentially when terrorists linked to Al Qaeda attempted to crash a private plane into the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour."

Corey turned to see the now-iconic amateur video: the south span of the Golden Gate Bridge in a whorl of dark smoke. The anchor continued in a swift staccato rhythm. "As the Dow fell and Americans groped for answers, the candidates have struggled to provide them. And the renewed fear of terrorism," the CNN reporter said, "has fueled calls from the Christy campaign for a 'president who deserves God's blessing.'

"For Senator Grace, this linkage of terrorism with questions regarding America's moral and religious life presents a two-pronged problem. The first is his consistent refusal to support the Reverend Christy's demand, echoed by Senator Marotta, for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. But perhaps more costly is Grace's romance with Lexie Hart, rife with both glamour and controversy ..."

On the screen, Lexie appeared, dispatching an android with a laser gun in a science-fiction film from the beginning of her career. Even on film, Corey discovered, seeing her face intensified his sense of loss. With seeming matter-of-factness, he remarked to Spencer, "Her worst role, she once told me—shooting other minorities."

Spencer gave a shrug of resignation. "Maybe it'll help us with the gun nuts. At least it's not a love scene."

"Needless to say," CNN continued, "the personal dimensions of this campaign—reflected in the open antagonism between Senators Marotta and Grace—have escalated the bitterness and tension surrounding the convention."

Outside, a motorcycle backfired, causing Corey to flinch before he noticed that they had reached the end of Central Park. "Shit," Spencer exclaimed.

Turning, Corey saw that his manager had sat straight up, listening intently to his cell phone. "Caught in the middle of this contest," the anchorman was saying, "are the delegates controlled by four potential kingmakers: the Reverend Christy and three governors with national aspirations of their own—Charles Blair of Illinois, George Costas of New York, and Sam Larkin of Mississippi. While Larkin may lean toward Marotta, Blair and Costas are deemed more sympathetic to Senator Grace. But within the last hour speculation has intensified that Senator Marotta will choose one of these four men as his running mate in an attempt to break the deadlock—whatever the risk of alienating the remaining three ..."

Squinting with tension, Spencer turned to Corey. "Marotta's called a press conference for six o'clock. His people won't say why."

"They don't need to," Corey answered. "Rob's picked a VP."

Nodding, Spencer spoke into the cell phone, "Start working our friends in each guy's delegation. I don't want Marotta catching us by surprise." To Corey, he said, "So which one is our Judas?"

Eyes, closed, Corey lay his head back against the seat, swiftly assessing the motives of three utterly disparate men. Then he took out his own cell phone and hit speed dial. "This is Senator Grace," Corey said. "I'd like to speak with Governor Blair."

There was a split second's hesitation. "Just a moment, Senator."

Corey waited. A half minute later, a woman said, "Hello, Corey. It's Janet Blair."

Her voice, soft but cool, told Corey that his instinct had been sound. "Having fun yet?" he asked.

"Oh, always. You can guess how much the children enjoy this little gathering, all dressed up with their hair neatly combed like they were going to church on Easter. Which seems more apt than usual."

Despite himself, the arid remark made Corey smile. "So where's Charles?"

"Meeting with his chief of staff to go over his convention speech." After the briefest of pauses, Janet Blair added, "Or so they tell me."

Or, Corey thought, so they told you to say. "How can I find him?" he asked.

"I'm not sure—it's like everyone here's on speed. You know how it is."

Discomfort, Corey thought, was making her voice more brittle. "I know how it is," he answered. "Please have Charles call me."

Getting off, Corey said simply, "It's Blair."

Spencer did not argue. "It's a risk," he said. "After all, Blair wants to be president someday, too."

"So do they all. But Blair is younger, more appealing, and absolutely squeaky clean. Even if Marotta picks Costas, he loses New York in November. And he'll win Mississippi even if he picks Al Sharpton, so he doesn't need Sam Larkin and all his baggage. In Illinois, Blair might actually make a difference.

"Then there's gay rights. Blair's been more hostile to gays than Costas, but not as nasty as Larkin—a lot of delegates feel better when we demean our scapegoats with country club politeness. Blair's the smart move—if I were Marotta, it's what I'd do."

Spencer grimaced. "Make you wish you'd gone to Blair yourself?"

Corey shook his head. "I'm not Marotta. Granted, it wouldn't be the first time this country had a vice president with the spine of a mollusk. But vice presidents have a way of becoming president, and too many people want to kill me. It's not the time to pick the wrong person. Besides," Corey added with cool practicality, "it's better if they all think I'm going to ask them to the prom. At least until I ask someone else."

Spencer emitted a perfunctory grunt. "We need to get ahead of this," he said. "If you're right, Marotta just pissed off three potential presidents—including God's anointed, the Reverend Christy. Bob doesn't take kindly to sacrilege. We need to game out how to handle him. With the media, and with the also-rans. I'll start with Costas's people."

The limousine was easing to a stop; absorbed in his dilemma, Corey had not noticed that they had reached the Essex House. As he glanced out the window, a Secret Service agent reached to open the car door, ready to shield him from danger. "Give me ten minutes alone," Corey said to Spencer. "I want to clear my head."

With this, Corey stepped out of the bubble.

Feigning unconcern, he looked around himself. The hotel was ringed with Secret Service agents, distinguished by their tensile alertness. Above, the percussive thumping of more helicopters filled the air; on the sidewalk across Central Park South, a claque of anti-gay demonstrators had gathered, some brandishing handmade placards, others praying on their knees, presumably for Corey to see the light. Surrounded by a fresh team of agents, he took an elevator to the thirty-fifth floor. Entering his suite, Corey took a moment to gaze out at Central Park, filled with throngs protesting the war or gay marriage or immigration—their pick of the myriad controversies that roiled the country Corey so dearly loved. Now it was nearly incapacitated by a fear of terrorism that contended with more synthetic fears ginned up by the political classes—of gays, of immigrants, of a "liberal elite" so enfeebled in reality that its only power resided in the popular imagination. Perhaps Corey's deepest fear was that America would no longer face its real problems—that, despite his best efforts, Stepford candidates programmed by political hucksters had permanently reduced the campaign to lead the country to an exercise in marketing and distraction.

Corey did not much worry for himself. He worried for America's next generation, for the daughter he rarely saw, for the other children he had come to want but now might never have. And all the surface jauntiness he did muster could not dispel these fears.

As so often, he wished that Lexie were with him. Though he knew it was hopeless, Corey checked his cell phone for the voice he most wanted to hear.

Nothing.

"You know how it is," Corey mused, wondering if the presidency, like Lexie Hart, was slipping from his grasp.

AS COREY'S STAFF scurried to find out whether Governor Charles Blair had pledged his delegates to Marotta, Corey and Spencer went to Madison Square Garden.

Their limousine moved slowly: the Garden was cordoned off by a two-block perimeter of metal fences manned by police and Secret Service agents, with more fences forming chutes designed to funnel delegates through magnetometers and security guards trained to check credentials. The airspace above the Garden, a no-fly zone, was filled with police helicopters whose thudding sounds penetrated Corey's windows. The oppressive sense of military occupation would, Corey thought, leach the gathering of its usual aura of a massive cocktail party, with endless liquor and catered canapés to reward loyal delegates and donors. Just as well, he decided: the fight for delegates was sucking up his campaign's last dollars.

The convention itself was a two-hundred-million-dollar rental operation, within which the principal tenants—Grace and Marotta—fought over space, amenities, and any logistical advantage the Garden offered. Convoyed by the Secret Service, Corey's limousine eased through the passageway reserved for candidates and into the bowels of the Garden. An elevator ride later, Corey and Spencer entered the main hall.

The vast indoor space, Corey saw, was on the verge of becoming a glitzy technological marvel, pulsing with more light and sound than a hundred casinos in Las Vegas. Technicians were setting up camera platforms and correspondents rendering their "eve of battle" reports, while Miss Teen New Mexico, a beautiful Hispanic girl, practiced the amped-up rendition of the national anthem with which she would open the convention. The floor space was crowded with folding chairs, above which signs demarked each delegation, including those that would decide the nomination: Illinois, New York, Mississippi—and, courtesy of Magnus Price, Alabama, with two delegations fighting to be seated. Amid each delegation were TV and computer screens on which anxious delegates could track the balloting. Walking beside Corey, Spencer stopped, listening intently on his cell phone. "All Marotta's press guy says," he told Corey, "is that he 'won't comment on rumor and speculation.'"

"Price has made his move," Corey said. "At Rob's six o'clock press conference, Blair will appear with him, the new vice president in waiting."

He resumed inspecting the premises. A red-carpeted stairway rose to the speaker's platform, behind which was an enormous TV screen and, above that, a giant American flag that glowed in violent neon. "Can't burn
that,
" Corey observed. "You'd electrocute yourself."

He stopped, hands in his pockets, gazing up. Above the crawl sign on all four sides of the arena—currently flashing a fireworks display—were glass-encased luxury boxes appropriated by the networks: NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, MSNBC, PBS, C-SPAN, and Rohr News. Hanging amid the klieg lights were nets filled with red, white, and blue balloons, waiting to be dropped the moment Corey Grace or Rob Marotta reached the magic number needed to win the nomination: 1,051 delegates.

By Spencer's current count, Marotta held 827 delegates; Corey was 2 short of that. Of the remaining 470 or so delegates, Blair of Illinois controlled 73; Larkin of Mississippi 38; Costas of New York 102; and Bob Christy 110. Tomorrow night, the convention would vote on which delegation, Corey's or Marotta's, would represent Alabama's 48 votes; roughly 80 more delegates remained uncommitted. If Blair had cut a deal, Illinois would give Marotta 900 or so—at which point, either Christy or Costas could put Marotta so close to winning that it would precipitate a stampede, particularly if Alabama went to Marotta. Corey hoped to hold New York: like Corey, Costas was a moderate, and Corey had raised money to help Costas win reelection. But then, he thought bitterly, the same was true of Blair.

As for Bob Christy, Corey thought, God only knew.

What Corey knew was that Spencer had constructed the best delegate-hunting operation since the Ford-Reagan battle in 1976. Spencer's delegate hunters were jammed in a trailer outfitted with more communications systems than a military command post. Armed with profiles of each delegate, they would split up the undecided and favorite-son delegates and call each of them like clockwork, trolling for information and support. More delegate hunters would patrol the floor, checking the uncommitteds. High above them was Spencer's command post—a skybox positioned next to Rohr News equipped with phone banks, computers, BlackBerrys, and TV screens, from which Spencer would monitor the delegate hunters, gathering any information that might affect the outcome.

Spencer had broken the delegate hunters into six regions, each with a whip. There were separate whips for each state; a dedicated team of delegate minders; delegates assigned to police other delegates; supposedly uncommitted delegates who were acting as Spencer's spies; lawyers expert in delegate challenges and the arcane rules that governed when committed delegates could switch their votes; and star attractions—athletes, actors, congressmen, and senators—to woo delegates susceptible to celebrity. The idea was to know each uncommitted delegate on the rawest human level: strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, secrets, desires, friends, enemies, and obligations—whether moral or financial. All of this would yield a delegate count, tallied twice a day, designed to identify slippage or targets of opportunity right down to the last uncommitted delegate. As for Corey himself, he had set up camp at the Essex House, on Central Park South, and his chief role now was to keep up his profile through meetings with uncommitted governors and delegates, as well as public appearances designed for maximum impact.

Price, too, had a delegate-hunting operation. Spencer had received reports about private investigators, paid for by Rohr but furnished through cutouts, whose business was blackmail. "Marotta needs it," Spencer had told Corey just the day before. "_Your_ delegates give a damn; Marotta's are functionaries, motivated by greed or fear. More lab rats in Price's experiment.

"Our strategy is to convince the media that when we say we're gaining delegates, we actually are. Every delegate we claim will have to commit themselves in public—which has the added virtue, we hope, of creating media mini-events. All that, if we're lucky, will help push Illinois or New York our way, and get us over the top."