Ballots and Blood Page 15

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Satcha, giggling. They clinked glasses and drank, never losing eye contact. “Alright, can we talk business?”

  “Business before pleasure is my motto.”

  “I want you to help me book all the top U.S. Senate candidates on my show to debate their opponents,” said Satcha. “It’ll be Meet the Press meets El Nuevo Herald. I’ll have a panel of Latino journalists, and I’ll moderate.” She batted her eyes. “Will you help me?”

  “Sure, I think it’s terrific,” said Jay. “But why would they take time away from feeding the local press to do a national Latino cable show?”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Satcha, eyes widening. “I get higher ratings than the networks in Miami, LA, and Houston in prime time. Think about that! Between the Cubans in Florida, the Mexicans in California, and the Ricans in New Jersey, the Hispanics are going to be the swing vote in all three of the top Senate races in the country.” She shook her tush, jutting her hips back and forth. “Latinos are the hottest thing in politics.”

  Jay raised his glass. “And you’re their ambassador.”

  “Not ambassador, baby. I’m the queen bee.”

  “Well, your highness,” said Jay, bowing low from the waist. “I’ll help you get all our guys. But I want something in return.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know,” he said mischievously, leaning into her, their faces no more than six inches apart. He felt her breath on his chin, the smell of the fresh champagne intoxicating.

  “Oh, you naughty boy,” she said, raising her mouth to his.

  “Quid pro quo,” said Jay in a low baritone. Before their lips could touch, Jay’s cell phone went off.

  “Ignore it,” said Satcha, her eyes closed, her lips puckered.

  “I can’t,” said Jay. “I think it’s a reporter under deadline.” He pulled out the phone and looked at the display, rolling his eyes. “It’s worse than that: Marvin Myers.”

  Satcha lowered her chin, speaking in a mocking tone, imitating Myers’ trademark baritone: “Feed the beast.”

  Jay put his index finger to his lips, requesting quiet, and answered the phone. “Double M! Which am I today: the source or the target?”

  “You’re always the source, Jay,” purred Marvin in a syrupy voice. “One of the best.”

  “I bet you say that to all your dates.”

  Myers let out a wheezy, rat-tat-tat laugh. “Listen, I heard through the grapevine Long met with Mack Caulfield when he was in LA and asked him to consider running for the U.S. Senate against Kate Covitz,” said Myers, dropping a grenade in the middle of Jay’s date night. “I’m sure you don’t want to go on the record, but is there anything you can tell me on background?”

  Jay nearly dropped the phone. His mind raced: who was running their big mouth? If it was Caulfield, he would wring his neck. “We’ve talked to a lot of people about the California Senate race,” said Jay. “Caulfield is just one among many. The list is longer than the LA phone book.”

  “I’ve got it confirmed by two sources,” said Myers, holding his ground.

  “He and the president are friends. It was a wide-ranging discussion about Mack’s future. The Senate race came up, but only in passing.”

  “What’s wrong with Mike Hammer?” Myers pressed, referring to the Orange County supervisor who was a favorite of the Faith and Family Federation.

  “Off the record? He’s an Orange County wingnut,” said Jay. “He’ll get the Faith and Family vote and the gun nuts and the Howard Jarvis society crowd, but that’s it. What’s that worth—38 percent of the vote? Besides, Hammer won’t talk to the press, doesn’t take questions at events, won’t do ed boards. Heck, he won’t even work a rope line for fear of getting picked up on a boom mike! They’ve got him in a witness protection program.”

  “But if the goal is for the Republicans to take the Senate, why kick the base in the teeth?”

  “He can’t win, Marvin.”

  “Well, my sources tell me Caulfield is a no go.”

  Jay wanted to scream into the phone: Why are Caulfield’s handlers talking to you instead of me? He was livid but kept his emotions in check. “Don’t be too sure, Marvin. This casserole is not fully baked.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Myers. “Hey, by the way, I hear Satcha Sanchez is in town. That can only mean one thing, which is she’s trolling for an exclusive. You’re not giving her a sit-down with the president, I hope. You promised me the next one, remember?”

  Jay suppressed an expletive. Myers was uncanny—the guy had sources all over town. He put his hand over the receiver and moved his lips silently, mouthing to Satcha: “He knows you’re here.”

  Satcha read Jay’s lips, and her eyes grew into saucers. She frantically waved her arms as though warning a jet off a carrier deck. “I’m NOT here,” she whispered.

  “No, nothing like that,” said Jay into the receiver. “I think the next media avail for POTUS will be in the briefing room or the East Room. No one-on-ones are in the works, at least not to my knowledge.”

  “Well, don’t let her have him or the Senate candidates until I get a chance to make my pitch,” said Myers. “You know my ratings on Sunday morning are the highest on cable.”

  “How well I know, Marvin,” said Jay. “We watch the numbers every week. You’re at the top of the heap, and don’t think we don’t notice.”

  “Good. I want the Senate debates. Forget about Satcha. She’s yesterday’s news.”

  “You’re at the top of the list,” Jay lied. He hung up the phone and turned to Satcha. “I don’t believe this guy! He’s wrapped around the axle with Caulfield, and he’s gunning for the Senate debates just like you. He wants an exclusive.”

  “I hope you’re not going to give it to him,” said Satcha, her mouth forming a pout.

  “Of course not, but I’m not the only one making the decision. Lisa’s going to have a lot of say. So will the candidates for that matter.”

  “Lisa hates me.”

  “No, she doesn’t. She’s just competitive, that’s all.”

  “Jay, she doesn’t even return my phone calls.”

  Jay stared into his champagne. “I guess you’re right. She does hate you.” He let out an uproarious laugh.

  Satcha drained her champagne and set it down on the iron and glass table. A red line from the setting sun silhouetted the skyline as night fell across the nation’s capital. She moved in and pressed her body against Jay, wrapping her arms around his waist. He could smell her Brioni perfume, the scent of which was intoxicating. “Get me the Senate candidates, Jay,” she said. “You won’t regret it.”

  “Now you’re not playing fair,” he protested. “We agreed we wouldn’t mix business with pleasure.”

  “That was before Myers tried to move in on my turf.”

  “So all’s fair in love and war?” Jay asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes. And in the pursuit of higher ratings,” she cooed, rubbing the small of his back with her fingers. Jay felt his lower back relax and his knees go weak.

  “Whatever you say,” he heard himself answer.

  NINE BLOCKS AWAY ON THE second floor of a nondescript gray townhouse on F Street, Sal Stanley presided over a strategy session with some of the most important minds—and wallets—in the national Democratic Party. Dubbed “F Troop” after the 1960s’ sitcom of the same name, the assembled heavyweights gathered over pizza, beer, red wine, and Chinese takeout once or twice a month. They pored over polling data, traded intelligence on candidates and races, and plotted how to beat back the assault of the Long administration and the far right against the Democratic Senate.

  They assembled at the request of Salmon Stanley, who brought a single-minded focus to the task. Among those joining him were Christy Love, the president of Pro Choice PAC; uber-lobbyist and rainmaker G. G. Hoterman, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president, officials from MoveOn.org, and an assortment of Democratic consultants and pollsters. In a happ
ier time the meetings were run by Michael Kaplan, Stanley’s long-time campaign advisor and consigliere. But with Kaplan’s criminal trial scheduled to begin in two weeks, he was otherwise occupied.

  Stanley sat at the head of the table wrapped in a blue suit and striped tie, his reddish hair now blondish gray, his ruddy complexion a mottle of freckles, sun spots, and worry lines. He looked weary but determined, his blue eyes intense. He was thoroughly in his element, issuing directives in crisp sentences, cutting people off when he thought they were getting long-winded, and occasionally falling silent as he listened to the sometimes combatively offered and conflicting views of his advisors.

  “I asked Tom Jensen to join us. He’s one of the smartest guys in the party. Tom, tell us what’s going on in the country,” said Stanley, pushing away a plate of cold pizza.

  Jensen’s face lit up like a fluorescent light, a day’s worth of beard stubble flecking his chin, his face glistening with sweat from a full day of intellectual exertions. A bowling ball of a man with a thick neck and a tiny head, he looked as if he might burst out of his blue button-down shirt and blue blazer. Walking to the foot of the table, he pecked on the keyboard of a laptop until the first slide of a PowerPoint appeared on a screen.

  “The key to this election and the nonnegotiable variable in preserving our majority in the Senate is who does a better job getting their voters to the polls,” said Jensen, darting eyes surveying his rapt audience, with an occasional adoring gaze in Stanley’s direction. “Overall, voter participation in by-elections declines by 30 to 40 percent from the level in presidential elections. Whoever gets more of their presidential voters to turn out two years later, wins. Simple as that.” He clicked the cursor with his hand, bringing up a slide that read: “Long’s Right-Wing Coalition.” People chuckled as it came up. “Long and the Republicans will be focusing on four main voter groups: white men, evangelicals, rural voters, and conservative independents in the suburbs and exburbs.” He clicked a slide over showing the percentages of the electorate. “Obviously, there’s some overlap here, but these four groups constitute about 45 percent of the electorate, all in.” He paused, eyes scanning the slide. “That’s the good news: their team does not make up a majority in the electorate.”

  “What’s the bad news?” asked Stanley.

  “The not-so-good news for us is these voters can comprise a majority if our voters stay home or they turn out in unusually high numbers,” replied Jensen. He clicked the next slide, which listed exit polling data for previous elections. “That’s what happened in 1994, 2002, and 2010. White males, evangelicals, and rural voters went to the polls in record numbers. We lost the House or the Senate, or both, in each of those elections. If it happens this year, the Senate is on the bubble.”

  “What’s your prognosis?” asked Stanley. “What do the tea leaves say today?”

  “Their base is more fired up right now than ours. The current average among the last ten published polls is a twelve-point intensity gap favoring them. If we don’t get our side more fired up, we could have a rough election.”

  “That’s why Andy Stanton and Ross Lombardy are trying to recruit far-right candidates in the model of Don Jefferson in Florida,” said Hoterman. “They’re trying to turn out the church people and the Tea Party crowd. They’re throwing red meat into the shark tank.”

  “That cuts both ways,” said Stanley. “Jefferson wants to privatize Social Security. We’ll kill him with that if he’s their nominee in Florida.”

  “We can only hope they’re that stupid,” joked G. G. to a chorus of laughter.

  “So what’s our strategy?” asked Jensen. He surveyed their anxious faces. His presentation was having the desired effect: they were petrified.

  “Turnout,” said Christy Love.

  “Correct,” said Jensen. “But not just any old turnout. It has to be targeted. They have their groups. We have ours: young people, union households, single women, African-Americans, Hispanics.” He threw another slide up on the screen showing turnout figures for the four demographic groups. “When we have won in the past, those four groups have comprised 52 percent of the electorate. That’s in a presidential year. But their turnout has historically declined during off-years more than conservative voters. We call them drop-off voters. The most important to reenergize is our eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds and minorities.”

  “Don’t forget about union households,” said Dick Puck, the president of SEIU, a thatch of black hair and thick moustache highlighting beady eyes and a bulbous nose that looked like it was broken in three places. “That’s 15 percent of the vote.”

  “Yes, very important,” said Jensen, scrambling to pacify the union chief. “Especially in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California.”

  “How do we turn them out?” asked Christy, lips pressed into a thin line. “They’ve got talk radio, FOX News, the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

  “Three ways,” replied Jensen. “The ground game is key, but it’s only part of the answer. We need better candidates and a favorable issue mix.”

  “We need to be talking about jobs and health care,” said Puck. “Right now we’re talking about Iran, nukes, and terrorism. That plays right into their hands.”

  “How much longer will the sanctions bill tie up the Senate?” asked G. G., his facial expression telegraphing concern.

  “I’m afraid two weeks,” said Stanley, a scowl plastered on his face. “I had hoped to move more quickly, but the Republicans are going to offer a trigger mechanism amendment, and that basically turns it into a military authorization vote.”

  “We still have time,” said Jensen. “But if we’re talking about Iran in October, we’re dead.”

  “Somebody needs to tell that whack job Salami he’s strengthening Long’s hand politically,” said Christy, picking at a plate of cold Chinese takeout.

  “I don’t think Salami is receptive to rational persuasion,” dead-panned Stanley. Everyone laughed.

  “There’s another aspect of turnout that is essential,” said Jensen, pulling the conversation back on track. “Hatred and fear are more powerful in motivating voters than simply enthusiasm for our team. We need to demonize the right and tie Long to the most extremist elements of his coalition in order to excite our voters.”

  Stanley’s face assumed a putty-like plasticity. He seemed ambivalent about Jensen’s brutal honesty.

  “That’s exactly right,” said Christy, always up for a fight, her eyes aflame. “We can’t let Long continue the charade that he’s independent. He’s a religious right, Wall Street, tea-bagger Republican. He’s a fraud.”

  “Tell us what you really think,” quipped Stanley, to laughter.

  “Push him right,” offered G. G. “Morph him and his candidates into Andy Stanton. Hang the extremism and bigotry of the tea baggers around his neck.”

  “In 1946 Arthur Vandenberg told Harry Truman if he wanted to pass a bill giving aid to Greece and Turkey, he’d have to scare the hell out of the American people,” said Jensen, turning off the PowerPoint to eliminate the visual distraction and give his words full impact. “The passage of that bill effectively laid the seeds of McCarthyism. The right is better at frightening their people than we are. If we let them do it this time, Andy Stanton won’t just control the White House and the Supreme Court. He’ll control the entire government.”

  “Now that’s a message my guys can get excited about,” said Puck in a gravely baritone, leaning forward and tapping the table with his finger for emphasis. “This is about having a check on the far right and Long.”

  Stanley stood up and walked around behind his chair, his hands grasping its edges. “Great presentation, Tom,” he said. He glanced at every face. “I think Tom has laid out very clearly what we need to do between now and November. We’ll do our part in the Senate. Once we get past this Iran sanctions vote, we’re going to get the Republicans on record on a slew of tough votes. Christy, I need you and Dick and the minority groups to get
that message out and turn out your people.”

  Christy and Puck both nodded. Stanley walked around the table shaking hands and hugging necks, his body aide hovering at his side. As he departed the room, he signaled for Jensen to walk out with him. “Excellent,” he said. Jensen beamed, walking step for step with Stanley. “Can you do this same PowerPoint at the caucus lunch next week?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jensen.

  “Good. I think every member of our caucus needs to hear this.” He stopped, his eyes boring into Jensen. “What keeps you awake at night?”

  Jensen thought a moment. “A military strike against Iran. It would rally the country the way the Cuban Missile Crisis did for JFK in 1962. The Democrats were going to lose ten House seats. Instead, JFK’s job- approval rating shot up, and they gained two.”

  Stanley nodded. “Me too. And I wouldn’t put it past Long and Noble to do it so it was timed for maximum political benefit.”

  “He won’t think twice,” said Jensen. “First he puts Marco Diaz on the Supreme Court. Now he’s threatening to start another war in the Middle East. This guy has got to be stopped.”

  “I tried, remember?” replied Stanley morbidly. With that, he was gone.

  16

  In a warehouse somewhere outside Newark, New Jersey, one of the CIA’s so-called “black sites” for the interrogation of terrorist suspects, Pat Mahoney lowered the wooden board on which a blindfolded Hassan Qatani’s was strapped, his legs and arms immobilized by leather restraints, and laid a wet towel over his face. He leaned forward, his mouth inches from Qatani’s face.

  “You either tell me what I want to know, or you’re going to drown to death right here and now,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m only going to ask one more time: who else was part of your cell in the United States?”