Contrary legal arguments were dredged up, of course; even with just two lawyers you get three opinions.
But what was swaying the general public was the absurd notion that a fusty old legal judgment, based on the state of world politics more than a century ago was still the law today; surely it was merely a dreary relic of a quaint and distant past. The Wall Street Journal led that charge, reminding its readers that 1898 was the year the USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbour triggering the Spanish-American War and the Cuban blockade; it was the same year a nest of white supremacist ideologues from the Democratic Party—yes, the Democratic Party—signed the scandalous “White Declaration of Independence” in Hank Clemens’ home town of Wilmington, North Carolina: “we will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.”
But The Journal wasn’t the deciding forum, and the antiquity of the decision cut no ice with the lawyers.
All the pro-Diaz legal lobby could do was say that the old case should be limited to its own facts; the most popular arguing that while Isabel was the daughter of a diplomat, despite his visit to see LBJ, he hadn’t been an official envoy to the United States itself, so it didn’t matter, or that since he was long dead, it rendered the Supreme Court decision irrelevant. There was merit in the counter-arguments, but the RNC’s own experts didn’t see them guaranteeing a positive outcome since it was inevitable the Democrats would challenge everything before the Supreme Court, the diversion throwing the election into total disarray.
Bill Edwards wasn’t going to be deflected by legal maybes. He knew that with Isabel standing firm behind Hank and Perry, carrying the momentum on as best she could, they’d at least have a shot.
26
TWO WEEKS AFTER the Close-up close-down, as dispirited Diaz supporters had dubbed the depressing night, the temperature was dropping, not as fast as the Republicans’ electoral prospects had plunged, though out in the skipping heart of the seniors’ sunbelt, you wouldn’t have known it. According to the placards, the crowd hailed from not only Phoenix, Arizona but from miles around: Scottsdale, Sun City, Mesa, Chandler, Peoria, and even the quaintly named Surprise.
To Isabel—up on the stage forcing a laugh and swaying arm-in-arm with Hank Clemens and Perry Patein—two things seemed remarkable. One was the vast difference from yesterday’s rally in Long Beach, California: there, they’d been surging on a roiling sea of predominantly sun-bleached hair yet today they’d submerged into a languid grey lagoon, where the only buzz came from the faulty hearing aids and pacemakers down in the mush pit. The other was that Isabel was here at all.
As a tentative “Isa-bel” quivered over the somewhat ambiguous “Go Hank, Go” chants of the new campaign, she stepped forward to the microphone.
“Friends,” she said, launching into the stock introduction she’d perfected over the last ten days, “Let’s give a big, warm Arizona welcome to the two men with my vote for the next president and vice-president of the United States… my very good friends, Hank Clemens and… Perry Patein.”
It wasn’t as bad as Bobby Foster’s rockstar version of “Hel-l-o-o, Phoe-e-e-nix,” or Pi-i-tts-burgh, or wherever he happened to be, but she knew it wasn’t a whole lot better.
TRAMPING city-to-city and breakfast-to-dinner, Isabel was doing her best to repair the damage she was responsible for, unwitting or not. Putting the Republican team back on top was what drove her, regardless of the painful fact she wasn’t going to be the one enjoying the trappings of office. Despite her reservations about Hank, shared by many, she was convinced that the country would be better off with him in the White House than Bobby Foster. Especially with backup from Perry and with her in Hank’s Cabinet, as his secretary of state.
Isabel had strong-armed her own campaign team to embrace Hank; especially Gregory, though he held Hank at a distance. They hired extra speechwriters. Hank’s skills in the insight department followed the edict that genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Merely giving Hank a pen made him sweat.
Isabel’s stocks were still booming with the public, perhaps more so due to her demonstrable altruism. Almost instantly, “We was robbed” became a rally mantra.