Don loathed that plate. If the election weren’t being played on damn Queensberry Rules over the last two weeks, Hank Clemens would have been knocked onto the mat and counted out. It was time to rip off the gloves and go for the kill.
Fuelled by beer, cigarettes and rage, Don hunkered down alone for two hours lifting two-or three-second grabs from the DVD and, with the editing machine, he stuck together a quick-and-dirty ad with Hank himself doing Don’s dirty work, all thirty beautiful seconds of it. Pure vote-catching magic.
“So how will you deal with another terror attack, Mr Clemens?”
The initial furrow of the brow, “I was at Homeland Security as you know…” The deeper crease, “…and you saw what we… er, they… did this time.” Crease unwinds into smarmy smile, “I think the people can trust me on this one, Tim…” Earnest puppy-dog brown eyes to camera, head tilting just a tad to flop his light brown fringe down to soften the image. Cut.
And so it was also with Julia, and Phil, and Barbara, and Larry, and… Whether these six, no seven, repeat episodes were conscious ham-acting by Hank or not, Don couldn’t care. Jammed up one after the other—BAM! BAM! BAM!—they looked like it. The gestures, even the words, were pretty much identical, even down to the fireside golly-gosh ums and ers.
Don leant back with his hands clasped behind his head and took a deep, long drag of his sixteenth Marlboro—but who was counting? It was sweet. Very sweet. He had sniffed out the rancid whiff of the disingenuous Republican prick and he was going to dig right in, yank him out and pump the fucker dry for all he was worth.
Through the smoke cloud of three more cigarettes, the punchline for Don’s makeshift ad materialised, “So… WE’RE gonna trust HIM to do WHAT?” It would be spoken over an old sepia snapshot of a young Hank bowing deep on a schoolboy stage, arms spread, soaking in his parents’ uncritical applause. With a good ol’ fratboy like Clemens, Don’s media hounds would be able to scavenge a shot like that from somewhere, for sure.
And they did.
The ad got to air Saturday night and Don had it running all Sunday and all Monday. No voter registered in any of the swing states could have missed it unless they were on vacation and lodging their postal votes from New Zealand.
“HANK, this Foster ad is despicable,” said Gregory, crushing his empty Diet Coke can for emphasis. It was still an hour before Don’s new ad would first hit the airwaves—a “friend” at CBS, still trying to suck up after the Close-up debacle, had slipped Gregory a soft copy by email and he’d forwarded it to Hank.
“Why?” Hank asked, doe-eyed with na?veté. “It’s what I believe… It’s why we’re winning.”
“You are kidding, right?”
He wasn’t.
To retaliate, Gregory upped the frequency of his negative Foster ads, turning the volume on the dish drops way up. He also revived an early one: a clip showing Isabel and Hank in serious discussion with the newly added caption, “What Isabel Diaz likes about Hank Clemens is that he listens…” If Don’s ad got any grip, this one—Gregory was certain—would loosen it. If you couldn’t trust Hank, don’t worry; Isabel was behind him.
By Monday morning, Gregory felt sick. The Times’ editorial stank and even the generally pro-Republican Wall Street Journal questioned his strategy. “Buy one Hank… get one free Isabel?” it asked, rejecting the notion.
The polls were no better either.
Foster was back. By a nose.
42
HANK’S ELECTION NIGHT concession speech was initially seen as respectable, mostly because it was short:
Just a moment ago, I spoke with Robert Foster and congratulated him on becoming the next president of the United States… What remains of partisan rancour must be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country… I am grateful to all those who supported me and supported the cause for which we have fought… I know that many of my supporters are disappointed. I am too. But our disappointment must be overcome by our love of country…
It was the usual billowy fluff that a loser would plump up to express his grace in defeat and to charm his followers into accepting that their months of unpaid toil weren’t wasted. Yet, Hank’s words failed both objectives and, worse, twisted themselves into the ultimate sword of humiliation, skewering any scraps of dignity his campaign workers and supporters had clung to. As headlined the following day, even in defeat Hank was a phony.
Bobby Foster had been ensconced in his hotel suite putting the final touches on his victory speech and his Big Entrance but, in case he needed to respond to something, he kept one eye and one ear on Hank’s teary TV act. Hank wasn’t long into it when Bobby’s other eye was drawn to Don Thomas who he caught over in the corner mumbling. Mumbling was something Don, a stickler for the spoken word, never did. On closer inspection, Bobby thought he saw Don’s lips flapping perfectly in sync with Hank’s.