The 45th, page 14
Reporters shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders, certain now, if they had not been before, that they had never seen anything quite like it. Who else could give a speech like the one they had heard and win the nomination because of it, and then take a question that anyone else would have used as a chance to make a connection with what the great majority of the people in the country knew something about to a disquisition on what no one else either knew or probably cared to know?
“And you would be right in thinking what you must be thinking now,” remarked Julian as if he knew what was in their minds before they could put it into conscious form. “There probably are not more than a dozen people in the country who have the slightest interest in this. But you asked me a question, and that is the answer.” His eyes lit up, he tried, and failed, to suppress an impish grin. “It’s not my fault. I left public life twelve years ago. I’ve forgotten how to lie.”
It brought down the house, and what had seemed an exercise in scholarly irrelevance was turned in an instant into an example of wit and likability. Rachel Good was already convinced that everything Julian Drake said or did was planned in advance, that his mind moved so quickly that the moment he began to answer a question he knew what he would have to do to guarantee safe passage, how he could say what no one else would think, or know, to say and make it sound exactly what everyone would have liked to have said themselves. She watched the way his soft blue eyes moved, the cheerful, quick calculation, the keen sense of anticipation, as he called on one reporter after another. It was hard to believe he had not done anything like this in twelve years; hard to believe he had not been doing it all his adult life.
“What are the Democrats saying?” she asked, when she called her editor in New York after the press conference had finally ended.
Hobart Williams emitted a barrel-chested laugh. “The official version - they tried to be cute - is that….Here is the quote we’re using, ‘The Republicans finally agreed with us: none of the candidates for the nomination deserved to be president. They have nominated someone no one knows in the hope that everyone will forget everything they were saying before.’ Privately they’re worried. They saw what he did, they heard the speech. They don’t know what the hell to make of it; no one does. I don’t, do you?”
Rachel thought she did. “If he wins, it will be something bigger than a change of government, a new administration; it’ll be something like a revolution. Listen to me, Hobart - he knew this was going to happen; he knew -”
“That he was going to be nominated? That’s impossible. How could he; how could anyone -?”
“I don’t know, but trust me, he knew. He isn’t what you - what anyone - thinks he is. He isn’t some new version of Sarah Palin, a new name, a new face, someone who comes out of nowhere and because of that, becomes the new center of attention, the only one anyone wants to talk about. Sarah Palin was an accident, a bad choice; Julian Drake has been getting ready, waiting for this moment, all his life. Don’t ask me how I know this; it’s just a feeling, an intuition, if you will, but I’ve never been so sure of anything. I know its true.”
Williams asked the only question that really mattered. “Where is the story?”
“There isn’t one; not yet, anyway,” she admitted.
“No, not yet,” replied Williams, thoughtfully. “But it isn’t a bad way to begin. It’s the biggest story in years: someone takes the convention by storm, gets the nomination with a single, remarkable speech, a nomination by acclamation. The other candidates don’t even get to have their names placed in nomination; no one else is even considered. And no one knows anything about him. We’ll need a whole profile done. ‘Who is Julian Drake and why should he be president’ - that kind of thing. Lots of stories in that,” he mused aloud. “When did he first think he might one day run for president? That should give you room to work your way through that other business, whether he somehow knew what was going to happen. Try it. You’re close to Louis Matson. Can you get an interview, one on one, with our new candidate?”
Chapter Eleven
“Who do you want to run with you? Who do you want to be vice-president?” asked Ismael Cooper quietly.
They were alone in the living room of the majority leader’s suite. Louis Matson had just gone to bed. It was a few minutes past two in the morning. Julian had taken off his suit coat and loosened his tie. He sat slouched at the corner of the long, pale blue sofa, his feet on the glass coffee table. He was wide awake.
“I didn’t answer that question, did I?” he remarked, staring up at the ceiling. “Everyone always wants to know what you’re going to do next.”
“When that reporter asked, you said you had not had time to think about that or anything else. That wasn’t quite true, though, was it -?” Ismael got to his feet, went over to the bar and started to make himself a drink and then, with the glass in his hand, changed his mind. “It’s too late - or is it too early?” He shook his head at what he realized was not just an unexpected, but an incongruous situation. It was impossible, but it had happened; he was sitting there in the middle of the night discussing with someone who might actually become president what he wanted to do about the vice-presidency. “I didn’t mean to suggest…,” he began to explain, and then stopped himself with a laugh. “This is the strangest business. I’m not sure if I’m awake or dreaming. We don’t have anything, no staff, no campaign ,and no plan for one. I don’t even know if you want me involved -”
“Only if you want to be,” said Julian, with a quick, friendly glance. “I hope you do, because this isn’t something I want to do alone.”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” replied Ismael, with the simple dignity that made it a solemn promise.
Julian motioned for him to take a seat at the other end of the sofa, while he moved to the blue wingback chair directly across from where Ismael sat. They were now less than three feet apart, looking at each other eye to eye. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together, Julian stared down at the carpet. The lines in his forehead deepened as his gaze seemed to focus on a small, diminishing point.
“I think we should take the governor,” he said finally, looking up to see if Ismael agreed. But before Ismael could reply, Julian sat up straight and tossed his head back. “We have this much in common: neither of us could have been elected on our own. Although that may not be entirely true. Do you remember what Adlai Stevenson did in the Democratic convention in l956 ?- Instead of choosing his own running mate, he threw it open and let the convention decide?”
“And John F. Kennedy tried to get the nomination, lost to Estes Kefauver, the senator from Kentucky. Had he won, become the vice-presidential nominee, he might never have had the nomination in l960.”
“Better not tell the governor that,” remarked Julian with studied ambiguity. “I want him on the ticket - the others, the ones who ran in all the primaries, God help us if any of them ever become president - but I want him to be the choice of the convention.”
“You want the convention -?”
“We throw the nomination open, let anyone who wants try to win it. This isn’t l956; the analogy doesn’t hold. They’ll all try to get it; they all want to show, they have to show, that what happened here tonight was an anomaly, something that shouldn’t have happened even once and can never happen again; that take Julian Drake out of the equation and they would have had the nomination. That way, if I lose, they can blame me for the defeat and start running next time with the lead. They have to run, all of them.”
Ismael was quick to point out the obvious. “Whoever wins, it isn’t likely to be the governor. He doesn’t have a single pledged delegate.”
“Neither did I.”
It made no sense but the look in Julian’s eyes told him that there was more to it than what Julian had said.
“Do you want Louis to make the announcement?”
“No, let him sleep. He needs it. Besides, it works better if we do it now.”
Ismael glanced at his watch. “It’s already after two.”
“Other than Louis, do you think anyone in this town is asleep? That reporter, the one Louis likes - Rachel Good - see if you can reach her. Ask her if she would like to do an interview.”
Rachel Good was asleep. When the telephone range, she reached for it, ready to slam it down on whatever drunk had reached the wrong room.
“Who the -?”
“This is Ismael Cooper,” she heard someone say, a voice that in the haze of less than an hour’s sleep seemed vaguely familiar.
“Ismael…What, why are you…?”
“Julian Drake asked me to call. We know it’s late, but we were wondering if you might want a private interview, the first one he has given. There is something you might be interested in knowing. It is about the vice-presidency.”
She was already out of bed, standing bare-footed next to the phone, switching on the light.
“Ten minutes, will that work?”
Julian greeted her at the door.
“It’s good of you to come at such short notice. And I apologize about the hour,” he said as he showed her inside.
Ismael offered her a cup of coffee. With a grateful smile she took it and then sat down on the edge of the sofa, opened her notebook and took out her pen.
“Ismael mentioned the vice-presidency. In the press conference you said you had not had time to think about it. Have you now come to some decision?”
“Yes, I’ve decided not to decide.”
She blinked twice in quick succession. “You have decided not to…?”
“Im going to let the convention decide who the vice-presidential nominee should be.”
Rachel Good looked across to Ismael as if she wanted him to confirm that she was not hearing things.
“But that means you could be running with someone who believes everything you said in your speech was wrong,” she said, quickly recovering. “How can you reconcile what in some cases are diametrical opposites?”
“I don’t imagine anyone will put themselves forward as a candidate who isn’t willing to reconcile their views with mine,” replied Julian with a shrug.
She searched his eyes, wondering if he could possibly be that naive, or that cynical.
“Both,” said Julian to her astonishment. “What you were thinking: that I’m either a fool or a Machiavellian; that I honestly don’t believe anyone would sacrifice his opinions for the chance at office, high office, or I believe that no one cares about anything else. It’s what I would have thought,” he said, gently, “if I heard someone say what I just said. In any event, everyone will now get to see what everyone thought they were going to see: a roll-call vote for the nomination.”
“And you haven’t told anyone about this yet? When are you going to make the formal announcement?” she asked, her pen poised to write down what he was about to say.
“A formal announcement? I just did; or, rather, you get to do it for me - unless you would rather not. I could hold another press conference, if you think I should,” he said, a teasing sparkle in his eyes. “I wanted to give you the story first.”
“But why…? Oh, I see, it’s something Louis….Well, thank him for me.” She got up to go and then remembered. “You can’t just be neutral in this. Throw it open to the convention, let the delegates decide, but you must have a preference; there must be someone you would rather run with. Who is it?”
Julian moved close enough to touch her on the arm. “It would have been Louis,’ he remarked, confidentially, “but I knew he would never do it.”
It was only when she was outside, heading down the hallway to the elevator that she realized how deftly he had avoided her question.
All the candidates for the presidency had been asked, and asked repeatedly ,whether, if they failed to win the nomination, they would consider the second spot on the ticket. All of them had said no; but now, with the announcement that the nomination for vice-president was being thrown open to the convention, all of them were running.
“It’s all they know how to do,” explained Louis Matson as he sat having a late breakfast with Rachel Wood in the back corner of the hotel restaurant. “Even if they aren’t very good at it,” he added, rolling his eyes in a playful gesture. He was feeling better than he had in months, the effect, as no one had to tell him, of the sense of accomplishment, the knowledge that he had done something, something of importance, that no one else could have done. Whatever happened now was out of his hands.
“You’re rather proud of yourself, aren’t you?” she asked, as she lifted a cup of coffee to her mouth. She took a sip, put the cup down and, vaguely conscious that she had not stopped to do anything with her makeup, dabbed her lips with a napkin. “I must look a fright; I haven’t slept; I haven’t even gone back to my room. This story just keeps going, building on itself, and….”
“And you’ve seldom felt so alive. Isn’t that the truth of it/‘ asked Matson with a look that seemed reflective of a deeper understanding, a deeper sympathy, than what she had normally seen on his aging, weathered face. “There is nothing like it - the sense of being in the middle of things. Especially something like this.”
There were only a few other people in the restaurant. An hour earlier, you would have had to wait for a table; everyone who had been up all night - and nearly everyone had - eager to find out what they might have missed, what was going to happen, what all the candidates were going to do with the nomination for vice-president now wide open. And then, an hour later, the restaurant emptied out as the delegates scattered to the meeting rooms where each delegation would try to decide who would be the best candidate for the vice-presidency and what their own votes were worth.
“Why did he do that, Louis? He must have asked your advice.”
She was guessing, but she was certain it was true. There was not anyone else Julian Drake would have consulted.
“First I heard about it,” replied Matson with a droll expression “was when I read it in your story this morning.”
“That can’t be true!” she blurted out, almost knocking over her coffee cup in her surprise.
“Let me tell you something,” said Matson, leaning forward on his arms. He glanced from side to side as if to make sure no one was close enough to overhear and then, with a glance she immediately understood, insisted that what he was about to say was not only off the record but could never be mentioned to anyone else. “The only time Julian will ever ask for anyone’s advice is when he wants them to feel they are someone he trusts, because whatever you think you have to say, he’s already had the same thought himself. Watch him, if you don’t believe me; watch his eyes, the way they look at you, as if he knows before you do what you’re going to say. What is really fascinating is that look isn’t one of boredom or disdain He doesn’t look at you like you’re wasting his time; it is a look of encouragement and approval, telling you that you’re on the right track. It may take you a while to see what he saw right away, but he is sure you’re going to get there. It’s uncanny, is what it is. When he was a young student he must have taught his teachers.”
Rachel bit on her thin lower lip and peered at her old friend through puzzled eyes. She remembered how Julian had read her mind, telling her what she thought almost before she had become aware of it herself.
“You’re telling me that he hasn’t talked to you about this at all?”
“He talked to me about it this morning, after I saw your story.”
“And? What did he tell you?”
“I can’t tell you that. It was a private conversation.”
She reached into her handbag and pulled out her notebook.
“On the record. The vice-presidential nomination. Who do you support, who do you intend to vote for - who will the Michigan delegation support?”
“The governor of Ohio,” replied Matson, as if the choice were obvious.
“On the record?” she asked, just to be sure.
“Yes, absolutely. And you can quote me on this as well: the governor will win on the first ballot and it won’t even be close.”
“Why? What makes you think that…? Oh, I see….”
“No, I don’t think you do.” A sly, knowing grin, barely visible at the left corner of his mouth, suggested something devious and secret.
“All right,” she agreed, grasping in advance his negotiated terms. “Off the record.”
“Not for attribution will be sufficient.”
“Julian wants the governor. He won’t say that publicly; he can’t. Because of the way he got the nomination, he isn’t in the same position as someone who has earned the right to tell the convention who it should nominate for the vice-presidency. Like Julian, the governor was not a candidate; he did not run in the primaries and he never announced his candidacy. If the convention were to nominate someone who came here with delegates they had already won, that might suggest that the convention had second thoughts about what it had done, that it was trying to make amends by giving to the candidate who would have been nominated had things gone through the normal procedure the only thing the convention has left to give.”
With a doubtful look, Rachel rubbed her small chin.
“Exactly how is the convention supposed to know all this?”
Matson drank what was left of his coffee, shoved his plate aside, put a few dollars on the table for a tip, and started to get up.
“Because in about ten minutes - if you care to come and watch - I will be explaining to the Michigan delegation what I just said: that only by nominating the governor can the convention, can the Republican party, show that it stands behind the decision, the historic decision, we made last night.”
Rachel reached across the table and held him by the wrist.
“Don’t go, not just yet. Sit down; there is something I need to know. Just between us. I promise I won’t use it. I know what happened last night, that what you did was no accident. It did not happen because you collapsed. You faked the whole thing. No, don’t bother - not with me,” she said when he started to deny it. “All I want to know is when did you decide to do it and why?” she asked with an intensity that made the question seem personal, something beyond the professional curiosity of a reporter.
