The good guys were back on track.
Within a week, with only two more to Election Day, Hank’s support was ratcheting up. Gregory had withdrawn his resignation on the night of the attack on the subway—“In the national interest,” he claimed modestly—and was back in full flair directing the reinvigorated Hank & Perry Show. The tracking polls showed them bumping up to a more pleasing 48 percent. Bobby Foster had been dragged down, first as far as the 30s but he had started bouncing back and was now at 41. The “dish-drop drag” as Don Thomas had called it, was wearing off.
The election outcome was going to be close—very close—so Gregory’s new campaign ads took on a vivid blush. He had his most aggressive fifteen-second spots playing six times a night in peak time, five nights running, on every network. One started with a quiet female voice over a blank screen with just a nudge of children squabbling in the background:
Trial lawyers sure know how to side with a rapist or a murderer… but they never make the tough calls that could’ve protected the victims… us. America needs Hank Clemens, a man we can trust… with the experience to make those decisions…
The clip ended abruptly with the crashing sound—but no image—of a breaking plate. The focus groups loved it. The lawyers hated it. The American Bar Association, no bunch of wimps, came out blubbering it was vilification, but apart from them few others cared.
The ad was working beautifully for Hank. And it was only one of four.
Don Thomas retaliated for Foster but made a titanic miscalculation. In truth, his ads were hardly more negative than Gregory’s but the voting tide was rushing so fast ahead of him he couldn’t seem to catch up. His most poisonous stole its venom from Hillary Clinton’s “It’s 3 AM and your children are asleep and the phone is ringing” anti-Obama ad during their 2007 primaries. Don’s opened with a shaky nail-bitten index finger hovering over the nuclear button. A voice, genteel and plummy like Hank’s, said “Fire” but what flashed up on screen was a newscast video of the Boston nightclub blaze. This time, the public rage was savage and Don had to pull the ad within hours.
“SO now I’m the desperate one,” Foster fumed as he slammed down the newspaper. “Clemens attacks me and that’s fine, yet I can’t even whisper he’s a fucking arsonist without it creating a stink. Go figure!”
SNAP!
“And Don, get that fucking Niki Abbott out of here. She gets no more, ah, access. None.”
Niki had already enjoyed plenty of access to Foster. More than Don knew.
IT was getting down to the wire. Just as the polls had swung violently in Hank’s favour a week ago, Gregory knew they could easily swing back, especially if the “old Hank” revealed himself. There was no way he, or Hank, or Bill were going to let up the pressure on their most valuable asset, Isabel. No way could they countenance anything short of stapling her to Hank’s right hand during the final stretch.
“If I’m stuck here, courtesy of you,” said Gregory in mock complaint, “you’re going to stay here too. This could be…”
Isabel placed her finger over his mouth. She wouldn’t be quitting, not after what she’d gone through to get to this point. This wasn’t about her; it never had been. It was about doing what was right; about winning the best government for the nation.
And with the right backup, even Hank Clemens would do fine.
She smiled at Gregory like a cat that had just finished off a careless sparrow.
41
IT WAS FRIDAY before Election Tuesday. The weekend pundits were firming up their predictions for Saturday’s editions. The near-miss subway attack had blown Don Thomas’ strategy way off course and Hank had strong odds in his favour. Don had to manufacture an alternative scare campaign. It was a hackneyed classic, sure, but what else did he have? In it, Hank was portrayed as a lightweight, a stooge at the beck and call of sinister faceless men, all Republicans and thus evil, white, rich and old.
He didn’t know how close he was.
Again, the public reaction was not what Don had expected. Was he losing his touch? What came back to campaign HQ from the focus groups was… Hank seems so, you know, nice, chirpy, and he does know about national security… and so what if he is a stooge, so long as he’s Isabel’s stooge, and she’s rich, sure, but she’s not evil, white or old. We like her, so…
With Isabel’s in-your-face, day-in-day-out backing, Hank’s mediocrity had strangely become an attribute and perversely Don’s ad would only give it air.
Don’s heaviest campaign burden had again become “that woman,” a term he had winced at in an earlier frustrating era. But this woman had clout with the electorate, not just sway in the corridors and closets of power.