Chapter 96: In the Running

After I hung up the phone, Marilyn looked over at me from the dishwasher. “I thought you told me you didn’t want to run for Congress.”

“I thought you told me you did want me to run for Congress!”

“I never said that! Besides, you never listen to me anyway,” she responded with a smile.

I stared at my wife for a moment and was interrupted in my reply by the twins racing through. I snagged Holly and asked, “Do you know where Mommy keeps the camera?”

“No.”

“Well, I want you and Molly to go look for it. I’m going to strangle Mommy and I want a picture for when I go to jail.”

The two girls squealed and giggled and ran out of the kitchen. Marilyn gave me an amused look and said, “That’s not going to get you the family values vote!”

“You are pushing your luck, lady!”

That got her to laughing at me, and she threw the dish towel at my head. “Dry the dishes and put them away, Congressman!” I made a rat tail out of the towel and flicked it at her rear. “You just lost the women’s vote, too!” she added.

“Yeah? Well, I just picked up the exasperated husbands voting block, so I’m covered.”

Tuesday morning John convened a meeting in my office. When we had talked on Sunday, he had told me not to talk to anybody about this but Marilyn, and that Marilyn wasn’t to tell her friends either. Or family, a pack of lefto pinko Commies if ever there was one! Okay, my words, not his.

Tuesday, we had John, Brew McRiley, Bob Destrier, Rich Miller, and Jack Nerstein in my office, and we bolted the doors, closed the drapes, and lowered the Cone of Silence. Jack was the equivalent of John in Carroll County, the head of the Republican Committee for the Maryland Ninth. He had been out of town on Friday. It was time to talk politics.

It was Jack who started it off. “I heard you turned down the idea on Friday. What made you change your mind?”

A good question. “I talked it over with Marilyn, my wife, over the weekend. She told me not to worry about her and the kids, but to do it if I thought I could make a difference. I think I can.”

“What kind of difference?” asked McRiley.

I smiled at him. “I thought you wanted me to run?”

“I’m serious. We’ll need something more than just platitudes and feel-good stuff to do this. We’ll need to develop what makes you different and what makes you right. Answer the question.”

“You’re a pushy little bastard, aren’t you? Okay, what do I believe in? My biggest position is going to be the need to balance the budget. Fiscal policy in this country is a disaster. If we can’t draw a distinction between me and Stewart on that, we all need to rethink this!”

“There’s more to it than that. What about on social issues? Where do you stand on gun control? Abortion? Are you pro-life? Defense? What about the Republican platform?” asked Rich.

“If we make this about social issues, we are screwed! Maryland is one of the five or six most liberal states in the nation. If we start harping on Democratic hot buttons, they will bury us,” I replied.

“We’re not that liberal, Carl,” responded John. “Maryland voted for both Reagan and Bush, remember.”

I shrugged. “Maryland voted for Reagan in ‘84. In ‘80, they voted for Carter. In ‘84, Jesus would have lost against Ronald Reagan, and in ‘88 my eight-year-old could have beaten Mike Dukakis. You ain’t making your point, John. We can’t make this about Democratic hot buttons. We will go down in flames!”

We spent some time going over the 1988 Republican platform. Somebody had a copy of the platform, so for each item we marked off where I stood. Sometimes it was amusing. McRiley asked, “What about gun control?”

“I’m in favor of gun control. I always hit what I aim at!” I answered. That set the others to laughing and was written down as a line to be used. I thought it was a bit glib, especially when the last thing I had hit was my brother.

It was less amusing when they got to abortion. Pro-life or pro-abortion? “I’m pro-choice, guys,” I told them.

That set Destrier and Miller back a peg. It was Destrier who pushed, “That’s definitely not in the platform, Carl.”

I shrugged unrepentantly. “Then it’s not in the platform. You want a pro-life candidate, then fine. You find one and see how he does. You will piss off three quarters of the women in the district and half the men, but hey, what do I know? I will say this until I am blue in the face. If you want to win this election, you need to focus on economic issues. If you want to lose, focus on social issues. This is Maryland, not Arkansas.”

“Meaning what?” asked Miller.

“Meaning this is not the Bible Belt! Now, there are plenty of rural areas in Baltimore, Carroll, and Frederick counties, but this district is becoming more and more suburban. They have pushed out from Baltimore and Washington along 83 and 795 and 70. There’s a whole lot more soccer moms and commuting dads than farmers. You start thumping a Bible and you will be playing to deaf ears! We need to play to what the majority of the people want, which is how the Republicans are going to help their pocketbooks and keep them safe, and not tell them how to pray and behave.”

Miller looked like he was about to explode. “This is a Christian nation! Are you even Christian? It certainly doesn’t sound like it!”

That caused the others, the locals and Brew McRiley, to stare at Rich Miller curiously. “Is that what this is about? I need to be vetted by a church before running? Oh, boy, that ain’t going to go too far!” I told him.

Miller calmed down slightly. “No, but we can’t have you making disparaging remarks like that in public.”

Again, I shrugged. “That’s fine, I won’t. What happens when somebody stands up while I’m speaking and wants to know about some social issue? Abortion or religion or evolution or birth control or something? What do you want me to say then?”

“Well, we can simply create ahead of time some neutral sounding quotes that won’t contradict the platform,” he told me.

“Uh, huh.” I glanced at the others. John looked a bit horrified by this all, McRiley was rolling his eyes, and Destrier and Nerstein looked like they wanted to dump Miller in a river somewhere. I got the overall impression they wanted the guy to drop it.

I was right. Nerstein smoothly interjected, “Well, let’s table that for the moment, shall we. We can develop some responses more closely attuned to local needs.” The rest of us just nodded.

We all took a potty break at that point, and when Miller headed out to the bathroom, I leaned over towards Jack Nerstein and asked quietly, “Do you think I should mention my wife is a Democrat and a Catholic to him?”

Jack, who I had met a few times before at fire department fundraisers in Hampstead and Westminster, grinned and shook his head. “No! He’s a hard-core evangelical. He’d have her tarred and feathered.”

“Great! We’ll just have to get them together!” I replied.

Destrier chimed in at that. “Just keep your mouth shut until we can send this guy home. Let us work with you on the local stuff.”

I nodded in agreement.

When we started again, the topic was what I had mentioned at the dinner party. No matter what I believed in or didn’t believe in, we had to overcome the issue of the Billionaire Murderer campaign posters. Everybody seemed to feel that the ‘billionaire’ part of the poster was a non-issue. “Stewart’s a millionaire himself,”, commented John, “and he doesn’t even live in the state!”

I looked at him curiously at that. “He doesn’t? Isn’t that, like, a requirement?”

He shrugged. “Eh. Not really, but residency is kind of questionable in a lot of things. He mostly lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and has an apartment in Cockeysville, just inside the limit. He’s never there, but it allows him to claim he lives here. You actually live here, full time, year-round!”

“Speaking of money, how much is this going to cost me?” I asked.

That got me a few stares. “Well, under normal circumstances, I would say at least a half mill, but with what Stewart is going to pull, double that. If we don’t raise a million dollars, we won’t have a chance,” answered Brewster.

I shrugged at that. “Okay. I assume we need to set up a bank account. Can I just start with the half million, or do I need to deposit the entire amount up front?” I asked.

You could have heard a pin drop at that. Miller’s jaw dropped to the floor, and the locals simply stared in disbelief. It was McRiley who answered. “ You are going to pay for the campaign?”

“Uh, yeah, why not? Is that illegal or something?” Maybe this violated some sort of campaign finance rule, but I didn’t think so.

“Oh my God! No, it’s not illegal, it’s just damn near unheard of! You need to collect campaign contributions!” he replied.

“Uh, huh. Let me make sure I have that straight. I am going to spend the next year of my life selling my soul to whoever wants to cough up some cash. Then, after I get elected, I promise to vote their way, so they keep coughing up cash. That’s the way it works, right?”

“Well, yeah! Haven’t you heard; the definition of an honest politician is one who stays bought!” he replied.

“You’re as cynical as I am. I like that,” I told him. “That’s how Stewart made his money, isn’t it? Campaign contributions, and some of it stuck to his fingers, right?”

The others nodded. Destrier commented, “It’s not as bald as that, but in effect, yes. He’s a man of the people, don’t you know?”

John added, “It’s illegal now, but at one time, any money you raised above what the campaign cost you could keep as income. That’s really sticking to your fingers!”

Rich Miller brought us back on track. “If you don’t take campaign contributions, but pay for a campaign out of pocket, you’ll be accused of buying the election.”

“Flip that around,” I said. “Instead say that I can’t be bought! What campaign contributor could possibly afford to buy my vote, on anything?”

“Holy Christ!” he muttered to himself. I got the feeling that Mister Miller was starting to wonder at the wisdom of putting me on this path. I wasn’t feeling all that sympathetic to him.

“Let’s table that for the moment. We can figure a way to manage campaign contributions. Maybe we can funnel them directly to the RNC,” added McRiley. The RNC, the Republican National Committee, was always looking for money. They often provided extra funding above and beyond what an individual could raise on his own, and my understanding was that a candidate could divert contributions the other way as well. Some of the big-name politicians, the ones who could command top donations, but were assured of re-election, often sent money to the national organization, and in return got lots of political favors they could call on in the future. Miller’s eyes gleamed at the thought of contributions going to the RNC. That would earn him some Brownie points, also.

“That would be best,” commented Destrier. “By taking campaign cash, you are promising the contributors that they will have your ear, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. You’re going to need their support.”

Brewster chimed in, “You’re in investments. When they make a contribution, they are buying shares in Carl Buckman, Politician, Inc. They’re going to want you to succeed so that their investment pays off. After you get their money, then you ask them for their time, which is even more important.”

Miller said, “You ever heard the line about grabbing them by their balls and their hearts and minds will follow? That’s for amateurs. Grab them by their wallets and their hearts and minds will follow!”

I nodded in understanding. “That makes sense. I never thought that through. I’ve got a lot to learn, don’t I?”

“You do, so be a quick study,” said John, which got a few chuckles around the room.

McRiley wanted us to get back to the topic of my brother. “Just how bad is the murderer part of the equation going to be?” he asked.

“Bad enough. Are you old enough to remember it? This was six years ago, back in 1983. What grade were you in then?” I asked.

“Droll, very droll,” he responded. “I was in law school at the time, Yale, if you must know.”

“Really? You know what you have when you bury a lawyer in the sand up to his neck?” I asked.

“Yeah - a good start. Are we going to trade lawyer jokes the rest of the day? Trust me, I’ve heard them all!” he riposted, and quickly, too.

“Carl, before you piss off the other five people in the room, most of whom are lawyers by the way, why don’t you go over what happened. Get it out in the open, right here and now. I was there at the time, but they weren’t, and they need to hear it from your side, because you’re right, we will surely hear it from the other side,” said John.

We broke for a bit, and I got my assistant to bring in some coffee, and some tea for me. After we were all settled around the table again, I said, “Okay, this is going to take a bit of time, but hear me out. John knows all about this. He’s been my lawyer since I was a kid, and I do mean kid. I’ve known him since I was thirteen.” I pointed at Brewster. “You don’t know about this, though, right?”

“I’ve read your bio. The best one I found was the one from a few years ago in Fortune magazine. After lunch, we’ll be reviewing that. Once we announce your name, you can guarantee that Stewart’s team will do the same.”

I nodded and turned to the others. “You guys know about this?”

Both Bob and Jack admitted to seeing it in the papers and on the television back when it happened. Miller didn’t know anything more than what was in the magazine bio McRiley was referring to.

“Okay. Well, let me just start out by saying that if you look up dysfunctional in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of my family there,” I started. It took me about fifteen minutes to take the others through my family, specifically related to the fact that my brother was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and my mother was depressive, which John and I had found out through the security agency we used.

Then I got to Hamilton’s final meltdown. “So, anyway, that’s just the background. After I got out of the Army, I moved back home and John and I, and the others, started the company. That was in ‘82. I don’t think my family even knew I was back in town. We met again in the spring of ‘83, when my sister invited us to her college graduation. Hamilton freaked out, big time, and he and Mom and Dad got into it. Dad threw the pair of them out, and my mother and Hamilton ended up in an apartment in Towson. Hamilton figured it was all my fault, and decided to go after my wife and son, and Charlie wasn’t even two yet. Over the next few months, he began stalking Marilyn, vandalized her car repeatedly, and even tried to firebomb the house.”

“Couldn’t you get the police involved?” asked Miller.

“Oh, they were involved, all right. We got them involved almost immediately. They ended up checking alibis on almost a hundred people, but Hamilton slipped through it all,” said John.

“Right. By then we had a security company bodyguarding Marilyn and our son, and I sent them away. I stayed home and stayed in the house with my old Army pistol, in the hopes that whoever was doing this would make another run at us, and he did. We had no idea it was going to be my brother, but he broke in one day with a gigantic Bowie knife, and when he found it was only me, and not my family, decided to attack me instead. I had to shoot him.”

“Jesus!” whistled Brewster. He looked around the room. The three locals all nodded their remembrance of it. Miller looked a bit horrified. McRiley rubbed his jaw for a moment, and then took over. “Okay, let me ask a few questions. Did you own the gun legally?”

I shrugged. “It was my .45 from when I was in the Army. The cops didn’t bitch about it and gave it back to me later, and the Army never came looking for it,” I answered.

“Hmmm, interesting. Where were you when you shot him?”

“We were in my house. In my kitchen maybe six or seven feet apart. It was all fully investigated by the cops,” I said.