Chapter 27

Campaign, or no campaign, I still had the Pentagon to run. Hawk and Sam went out on the trail giving speeches, shaking hands, raising money and promoting Hawk’s agenda. The press dutifully followed and invented the stupidest stories trying to drive wedges between voters and the Vice President. Rallies continued to be packed. It seemed like the hottest ticket in the nation was wherever Hawk or Sam were appearing.

The threat board changed one morning when China infringed against Japans’ territorial waters. The Chinese Navy loved to push the envelope and I was certain this was such a case but things heated up when Chinese and Japanese boats exchanged warning shots.

At the time the Secretary of State had a ‘special’ relationship with the Chinese leadership due to his long and profitable history of hiring Chinese factories to manufacture for his companies. He was sent to make a hasty call upon the Chinese delegation at the U.N. and take their temperature on the matter. Japan formally requested U.N. assistance with getting Chinese Naval vessels out of their waters and China got all prissy with the American Ambassador when economic sanctions were brought up as a way to get things on better footing.

The entire exercise looked to be rather routine, but the Defense Department never gets to lie back and assume that everything is O.K. The Chiefs suggested moving an aircraft carrier into range along with its escort group. That seemed to be a conservative, yet bold statement and our press relations people released the news to the public in due course.

China mumbled on and off about the U.S. playing Dictator of the Sea, but quietly recalled the battle group far out to sea to avoid having a bunch of American manufacturing contracts delayed. Then the American ships returned to international waters and stopped provoking the Chinese. It was always tense when Hawk called China’s bluff, because there was a time when U.S. presidents refused bold response and basically let rogue states walk all over law abiding ones. This dust up was no different.

The public watched the China incident very closely. We were aware of heightened interest in foreign relations but hadn’t considered the attention having to do with the coming election until scientific polling came out indicating that seventy-two percent of voters were looking at the current activity as proof of our competence and as confirmation of our intentions on the world stage. When Sam had me out to the Naval Observatory for the promised dinner, he invited his campaign polling people to address the subtle and not so subtle changes in the country.

“The landscape for the next six to ten months, which is how long before the primary really heats up, is looking quite favorable. Mr. Vice President, you need to improve your appeal among young women a bit, without losing appeal among middle-aged males. In short, Sir, you need to learn to walk the fine line between appealing and pandering.” The consultant was smooth and listening to him was as boring as watching a mud fence dry. His data was sound but had a generic feel that made me question as to how hard he worked gathering data and how he worked at preparing a report that looked like he did. Since he was Sam’s consultant I kept my mouth shut.

The rest of his presentation had that same ring to it and Sam figured out that I was dubious about some of his findings by the aggressive way that I stayed out of the conversation. When Sam spoke up, interrupting the consultant, even I was surprised. “We need to take hiatus on tonight’s discussion, Mr. Jensen. The Secretary and I must check in with our key subordinates. Thank you for the data and my appointment secretary will be in touch with your office in the morning to schedule another appointment.” His dismissal was as smooth as I had ever seen it done.

Once we were alone, the consultant having been escorted off the premises by the Secret Service, Sam turned to me and said, “What has you so wrought up over this information?”

“The entire presentation sounded like a canned speech. It’s basically useless. This company could have just lifted data out of a half dozen old reports and fitted it together. There wasn’t single thing that wasn’t common knowledge in his whole speech. Who sent this guy to you?” My suspicious mind was working overtime.

A light seemed to come on inside the Vice President’s head and he gave me a sneaky smile that told me that he’d just realized someone might be trying to jack knife his campaign for President. Whoever it was wasn’t going to be on Sam’s Christmas card list anymore.

China and Japan settled down and life continued peacefully throughout the summer. Sam Brownbock pulled out to an enormous lead as the primaries heated up and one-by-one his opponents dropped out, pledged their support to Sam and went back to their day jobs.

Because he had announced me as his running mate, I became a hot ticket. Invitations were extended from foreign heads of state, CEO’s of multinational corporations and influential organizations like the National Rifle Association and Americans for Prosperity.

The campaign team vetted each and every invitation for hidden agendas, or unspoken intentions. They carefully examined the background of medium and large donors, attempting to avoid accepting money that would come back to haunt us later. My schedule began to fill up with campaign style events, and I took great care to pay the travel costs of those trips out of campaign donations and my own money.