Chapter 127: A New Campaign

That night I had Marilyn come into my office with me and I told her what was happening. Not entirely, though - I didn’t tell her about the commitment, just that I was being selected. I didn’t do this until after the girls went to bed, but I didn’t want them to have any chance to overhear us. This was too insane to let them know. They would never be able to keep their mouths shut! Marilyn was simply astonished, since we had both concluded prior to this that I had no chance in the world of being named for anything whatsoever.

“You’re kidding me? When will this become official?”

“Not sure, exactly. I’m expecting a call from him tomorrow, and then we’ll be announcing it a few days later.”

Bush messengered me the account number the next day. I then called Bob Seaver, who had already been warned about laundering the first five mill and who had run it into the account, although I didn’t tell him who was getting it. It wouldn’t show up until the next day (it never goes as fast as they show on the TV crime shows!) and we would make an announcement Tuesday the 11th. Bush’s people would handle that, and the details weren’t exact yet. That would give us almost three weeks until the convention.

“Well, won’t you be important then!” she teased.

“You know, us important guys have certain expectations,” I replied.

“Really? Just what kind of expectations?”

“Well, I mean, the kind of expectations that require some really serious effort to fulfill. I mean, really serious effort!”

“Oh? Just how serious?”

“Let’s just say that it might be a good idea to see if you can earn your way on to the Vice President’s staff. Remember Monica Lewinsky? I am figuring I will need to audition an intern or two!”

“Yuck! You are such a pig!” she protested.

We were in my office as I told her all of this, so once she began protesting, I grabbed her and we wrestled on the couch until I got her undressed, and then I showed her just how serious she needed to be. Afterwards, we repeated the demonstration in our bedroom.

I got a call from the Governor by lunchtime Friday that the transfer had gone through, and I had until Tuesday before the announcement. That was still being sorted out, but I would get the details Monday morning. In the meantime, I needed to make certain preparations. I called Marty and told him to shag ass to the house for dinner that evening, and then repeated the call to Brewster McRiley. He complained that he was in Chicago, and I told him I didn’t care. He needed to be in Westminster that night, and then I asked him if he wanted me to send the G-IV. That got his attention and he agreed to come, so I sent the plane. I called Cheryl and told her to bring her husband as well, and I called Millie Destrier, Jack Nerstein, and Macy Adams. Finally, we told the girls they had to stay home that evening; they couldn’t go out with any friends. They wanted to argue, but we told them it was for a serious meeting, and they needed to be there as adults, which both intrigued and flattered them. They were still fifteen but not for long. They would turn sixteen before the convention.

I couldn’t see spending a lot of time cooking and playing host tonight. I called Nick Papandreas and asked him to make up a buffet platter, a big one, and I’d have somebody come over and pick it up. I left Holly and Molly with their mother to help make some iced tea and lemonade and clean the house. They must have sensed it was important, since for once they didn’t argue with us. We expected people to start arriving any time after six, although Brewster might be the last to show.

He was. Most of the others had arrived by 6:30, when a call came in from the Westminster airport that the Gulfstream was on final approach. I had a driver waiting for him, so we should expect him a few minutes before 7:00. Otherwise, Macy Adams was the only one late, and she showed up right after the call. “What’s going on, Carl?” she asked, like every other guest.

I gave the same answer the others had gotten. “I’ll explain when we’re all here. In the meantime, grab some food.”

At 6:50 Brewster arrived. I shook his hand and invited him inside. He asked, “Okay, Carl, what’s up? What was so important that you sent a plane to pick me up in Chicago? I was damn near expecting the chopper on the pad to fly me to the door! What happened? Bush pick you or something?”

I nodded and simply answered, “Yes.”

Brewster stopped in his tracks and said quietly, “You’re not kidding me, are you? Bush picked you?” Around us the room was suddenly quiet.

I nodded to him. “We came to an agreement on my commitment to the campaign. Now we need to have a talk, all of us.”

Suddenly the room exploded in questions. I smiled at the uproar and loaded some seconds on my plate. I sat down at the head of the table, and then I held my hands up in a quieting gesture. “Okay, here’s the long and the short of it. I met with the Governor yesterday morning. We talked and he promised to call me with the news today. He called me this morning, and I told him I would need a couple of days to make arrangements. The official announcement is on Monday. We have this weekend to make some plans.”

Molly was the first one to speak. “Dad, you’re going to be the Vice President?”

I smiled at my youngest. “Well, we have to win an election first, but that’s the general idea, anyway.”

Molly looked at her older sister, and they were silently talking to each other. You could almost see the brain waves traveling back and forth between them.

“One election or two?” asked Millie Destrier.

“Now, isn’t that an interesting question.” I replied. “That’s the real reason I invited everybody here tonight.”

“I don’t understand,” commented Holly.

I nodded to the girls. “Okay, let me explain how this works. I’m up for re-election this fall. You already know that I’m running against Rob Hollister. Now I have to run two elections at the same time.”

“You mean you’re still going to run for re-election at the same time you’re running for Vice President? Can you do that?”

It was Millie Destrier who answered that. “Yes, it’s legal, just unusual. It only gets complicated if your father wins both elections. I mean, if he only wins one and loses the other, he only has the one job to worry about, and if he loses both, he’s out of a job anyway.”

“So, what happens if he wins both? Can you be a Congressman and a Vice President at the same time?”

Everybody smiled and shook their head. “Nope, it doesn’t work that way,” said Macy.

“No, your dad becomes the Vice President, and then we have a special election to elect a new Congressman,” said Jack.

“So, who becomes the new candidate for Congressman?” asked my wife.

“That would be one of the topics for tonight. The people in this room are basically going to be the ones who decide that. Not you and the girls, so much, but you know what I mean.”

“Maybe I should change to become a Republican? Do I get a vote then?”

I grinned and waved off the idea. “No! Forget it! Do you know how many votes it’s worth with you as a Democrat? It’s a great human-interest item!”

Brewster smiled and agreed with me. Around the table the other political types nodded as well.

Cheryl Dedrick cleared her throat, and I turned to face her. She looked over at her husband, Jim, who I recalled was a paving contractor in Reisterstown. Then she said, “I don’t know how you pick the candidates, but can I put my name in the hat?”

I glanced over at Marty, who I had discussed this with already, who shrugged and nodded. Then I looked over at the others before answering. “The only person I’ve talked to about this is Marty, but you were the name we talked about. I wanted you here tonight, you and Jim, to raise the question. You’d be interested?”

She looked over at Jim again, and then nodded. “We talked about it when you were being mentioned for the Vice-Presidential slot. Then, when you said they told you no, we kind of wrote it off. But, yes, I think I could do it.”

I looked around the table to the other professionals. “Any thoughts on this? Have any of you been thinking on this?”

Macy commented, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Carl, but I figured you never had a chance for the VP slot. I couldn’t even figure out how you got on the short list. No offense meant.”

“None taken. I was as surprised as you were.”

Millie asked, “Carl, are you planning on running for both offices? It’s too late to run somebody else. They would have had to register months ago.”

“I don’t have a choice, not if we want a chance to keep the Maryland Ninth in the Party. I have to run as hard here as we had already planned, as well as spend my every waking moment campaigning for Bush. What else can I do? I am going to have to rely on you guys to help me win an absentee campaign.”

“And that’s why you needed me here,” added McRiley.

“And that’s why I needed you,” I agreed. “I don’t know what you would be able to do with the Bush campaign, but I am going to need the help here. I have to win this election here. If I win as VP and lose in the Maryland Ninth, I become a national joke. We are going to have to do this full bore.”

“And afterwards?”

“I work just as hard for my hand-picked successor, whoever that ends up being. Likewise, we’ll be able to crank up all the resources we can from the RNC. So, the question really arises, who am I hand-picking as my successor? Marty and I vote for Cheryl. Any other candidates you guys have been thinking of?”

Nobody else had any names, but nobody had any issues with Cheryl. This wasn’t going to be decided tonight, but we’d come up with a name by the convention. Marty and I explained how he would be leaving after the inauguration, though he agreed to hang around long enough to help the next Republican victor find a replacement. It was late when we finally broke up and everybody went home. We gave Brewster and Marty guest rooms for the night. Marty took Charlie’s room. Charlie was at sea in the Indian Ocean and had just deployed; he wouldn’t be back until around Christmas. He would get to miss the circus this was about to become. I almost envied him. Then I called my sister in Rochester, swore her to secrecy, and let her know what was happening.

By Saturday lunchtime somebody talked. I began getting phone calls on the unlisted number from reporters asking for comments. I just referred everybody to the Bush-Cheney team. I did accept the call from Joe Allbaugh with the itinerary for the announcement. We were to fly to Houston on Sunday afternoon. There would be a suite for us at the Four Seasons. The announcement would be made right after lunch from the deck of the USS Texas, docked as a museum ship in Houston. Would we be able to make the travel arrangements? I assured him it wouldn’t be a problem, and then called and made sure the G-IV was ready. We began packing our bags. By Saturday afternoon reporters and camera crews began camping out by the driveway and parking on the side of Mount Carmel Road. I called the head of our security detail in and gave him the good word. He would need reinforcements!

Sunday morning, the political talk shows were all over the rumor. My bet was that somebody from the Cheney-Rove camp had leaked it, for good or for bad, perhaps in a desire to get me to say something stupid and premature, and thus derail the whole thing. The most amusing segment came on ABC’s This Week, with Sam Donaldson interviewing my old buddy Fletcher Donaldson (no relation to Sam.) Fletcher had discovered that, almost by default, he was now the go-to guy on all matters Buckman. He had been covering me for the Sun for ten years now and was probably the only reporter who had ever been inside the house. I had talked to him the other day, but only to tell him to call the Bush campaign, and that he knew me well enough to know I wasn’t going to say anything else to him.

“So, Fletcher, you’ve known Carl Buckman the longest of any reporter I know of. What’s he really like?” asked Donaldson.

Fletcher looked like he had bought a new suit for the occasion, and gotten a haircut, to boot. He said, “He’s a very plain person, for one thing. He truly and honestly thinks he’s a really boring guy and lives a really boring life. He’s been married to his college sweetheart for over twenty years. Both he and his wife Marilyn were middle class kids. They live in the same house they built when he left the Army, a rancher out in the outer Baltimore suburbs. His kids go to the local public school. His son went into the Marines. Marilyn spends her time either being a stay-at-home mom or helping out as an intern at the Congressman’s Westminster office. On fall weekends, they make jam...”

“They make jam?” asked an incredulous Donaldson. “As in jam and jelly?”

Fletcher nodded. “I’ve had some. It’s pretty good stuff, too. They always make extras, and he takes it down to his office and lets his staff and visitors have some. They also make pies together. Marilyn’s a pretty good baker, but Carl says he’s the better cook. It gives them something to argue about, their son once told me.”