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THE WHITE HOUSE
THE WHITE HOUSE
Raleigh Van Sythe was relieved that he would finally have access to the President. The important foundations for a traditional campaign had been neglected too long, largely due to the influence Robert Haskill's old political advisor had exerted on the President. Hanneman was clever, alright, but there was only so much progress that could be made with covert actions. Covert actions which, as it turned out, had made things much more difficult.
Van Sythe longed for the thrill of the convention and the cheerleaders with his candidate presented to the nation as a calm and competent business man in a thousand dollar suit with a smiling trophy wife at his side. That was what would draw the voters of the country. It had done so four years ago, and it would turn the trick again.
"Good morning, Mr. President. Raleigh Van Sythe from the National Committee. I'm very pleased to met you!"
President Robert Haskill had a sheath of papers clenched in his hand. He started whipping them against his desk. "This is crazy! These are the latest poll results from last week. Hanneman caused this didn't he? The son-of-a-bitch!"
"I, ah, don't know that much about him, sir. I've never met him." Van Sythe distanced himself. He hadn't expected this mood from the President.
"Don't feel all alone! No one else does either. I had Naval Intelligence look in on him last week. Now it's ten days later and they aren't completely convinced he even exists! The owner of the building where his offices were says that the suite has been vacant for over a year. He has no driver's license, insurance, family, birth certificate. Nothing!" Haskill stood up and began to pace the length of the Oval Office. Remarkably, the furniture had been rearranged to accommodate this. "Hanneman started all of this. It was his idea to put the pressure on the UCFC, not mine. No sir. I would never do anything that stupid."
"We still have to start this campaign from where we are. No candidate is ever where he really wishes he were at this stage. We'll just have to muck it out from where we stand." Van Sythe said, feebly trying to inspire a little fight into his man.
"The papers said that crazy woman was just flexing her muscle to make me stop the Justice Department. That's all. Just a show of force." Haskill said with an air of hopelessness.
"Did you?" Van Sythe was getting a bad feeling about all of this.
"You bet I did! Old Bob Haskill knows enough to run away and fight again another day! The problem is that she is acting like she is really running a campaign. She's not stopping. There's nothing like a cease fire with this broad." the President protested. "I mean she's just making television appearances -- you know that. But no convention. No whistle stops in forgotten awful little places."
"Like Racine? I'm sure it was hard to get over Racine, wasn't it?" Van Sythe asked casually.
"Oh God it was awful! I still have nightmares about all those geese. The whole damned thing live on the up-link to every network. Why can't something like that happen to her?" Haskill asked.
"Exactly my point, Mr. President. Six weeks after Racine, you won the election. It doesn't matter what things look like right now. We can still do this." Van Sythe offered.
"But the way things stand right now, she won't even have to do any traveling. The damned UCFC is qualified in every election district in the country. All she had to do was tell 'em to go register for Christ's sake! This election is just like baking a cake for her!" President Haskill complained.
"That looks worse than it is. Your constituency right now is all the folks who don't like the UCFC. That means all the folks who don't think Jesus Robeles is really Jesus, mainly the Catholics and the Mormons and, of course, the Fundamentalists. Then there's always the bloc who's determined to be political, not religious. That makes about a hundred and sixty million votes out there, eighty for you and eighty for Oxford. It's going to take one hell of a campaign to win the election, but it can be done." Van Sythe speculated. "It wouldn't hurt for you to start looking a little more orthodox. You know, religious."
"Speaking of that, what about Robeles?" Haskill asked.
"Well, He isn't willing to endorse anyone right now. It looks like He just has no appetite for it. If He were going to jump on one side, it would probably be the UCFC and he hasn't made any move to do that." Van Sythe reasoned.
"Hanneman said I should resign." the President muttered.
"Absolutely not! We can still win. If we need more votes than we can take from Jerry Oxford, we just take 'em from the UCFC. This thing is a fluke. It can't go on for ever." Raleigh Van Sythe said encouragingly. "Once we get our campaign going, people will realize that they've had enough of this God crap and get back down to politics as usual. That's what they really want. Trust me."
