Executive Actions (2 page)

In the 1800s, Hudson served as a thriving whaling port despite the fact that it was 120 miles up river from New York. Many whalers considered it second only to New Bedford, Massachusetts in the production of whale oil and by-products. But over the years, as whaling diminished, Hudson turned to textile production and cement manufacturing.

At its peak, the city was home to more than 11,000 citizens. This election year there were considerably fewer voters.

McAlister allowed himself to consider what it would be like to live here, to find a coveted colonial home in Columbia County and blend into the surroundings. But it was too small for his safety and blending in required both more cover and fewer neighbors. The thought totally evaporated when his phone rang. He looked at his watch, not moving to answer the telephone. It rang three times and stopped. Thirty seconds later it rang again twice. Two minutes later it rang four times. All from a Pay-As-You-Go phone and a pre-paid calling card, personally untraceable and bought with cash at a Cincinatti 7-11.

The signal. Time to go to work.

He went into the bathroom, put a towel over his sink and proceeded to empty the contents of his vanity kit: Two bottles containing pale liquids, rubber gloves and other accessories.

The last time Hudson hosted such a major political candidate in a motorcade was in 1965 when Bobby Kennedy ran for the U.S. Senate. The high school band, in their blue and gold uniforms, marched to Sousa. It was a spring day, much like today. And Bobby was destined to take the Ken Keating seat as a step toward the White House.

Teddy Lodge was due to arrive by motorcade from Albany at 12:45
P.M.
He would rendezvous at the corner of Front and Union Street with his police escort, just as Bobby had done years before. The local Boy Scouts troop, three high school bands, five fire trucks, and veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraqi Freedom would accompany him uptown.

Lodge needed a good showing. The city, the county and the entire state were extremely important to him.

The primary process recently changed. State officials across the country scrapped the Super Tuesday primaries, which too often catapulted an untested front runner into national prominence. The new approach grouped convention delegates through regional elections, with the East, South, Midwest and West alternating in order every four years.

Iowa and New Hampshire retained their starting gate positions in the presidential calendar. The new plan contributed to a fairer method, whereby “political heat” would have to develop over time rather than on an arbitrary Tuesday in mid-March.

Seasoned candidates saw it as an improvement. Those sprinters lacking staying power, who previously benefited from a quick start, did not.

This year, the East was last to vote. Not all states in a region held their primaries the same Tuesday. Yet, given the fact that there were still many states in any geographic area, bundling still occured. And so it was in June. New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia would cast their votes at various times during the month.

New York and Rhode Island were last on the calendar. Rhode Island held 32 Democratic Party convention delegates, while New York remained crucial to any candidate’s chance of winning the nomination. Its Democratic primary was worth 294 votes.

By all accounts, the only one standing between the congressman and his party’s nomination was the respected and seasoned Governor of Montana, who retained the slimmest of leads. Every handshake counted now and the two candidates were due to face off in a debate tomorrow night. Ultimately Lodge believed he would pull Republican votes in a national election. But first things first. He had a busy day.

At Promenade Hill, a park rising 500 feet above the Hudson River, band members began tuning up. The Hudson High tuba players drowned out the clarinets and the teenage drummers practiced marching, their snare drums bouncing on their thighs. Many of their parents had seen RFK years ago. This was their chance to reconnect with their own childhood.

A mile up the street, Roger C. Waterman walked out of the St. Charles. He crossed to Sutty’s, a vintage candy, peanuts and soda shop and ordered a cherry cola. Waterman had checked into the hotel late in the evening two days earlier. He had visited Hudson once a month since February, buying antiques for his store in Soho and perusing galleries like TSL, Ltd. housed in an old bakery on Columbia Street.

Waterman had a self-assured upper crust manner about him. He looked to be about 40 and spoke in only precise, polite terms. His tweed jacket fit him like he was born to wear it and his thin wire frame glasses completed his look. Waterman was a walking advertisement for Sotheby’s and he was well-liked at all of the Warren Street antique shops where he offered very fair prices.

As Waterman sat and sipped his soda, he casually gazed at the near corner. Workers were putting six bridge chairs in place and testing the microphone.

The honor of introducing the congressman would go to Mayor Tommy Kenton. Waterman understood he was a popular mayor, casual and friendly; the second in his family to hold the job. His full time job was as a real estate attorney. And since real estate was booming in Columbia County as more and more New Yorkers acquired property, most buyers heard that the Hudson mayor was the man to represent their transaction. Kenton was becoming so successful that he was even thinking of a run for Congress himself.

Waterman imagined the excitement Hudsonians would be feeling. So much history coming to their quiet city. He smiled. After finishing his last sip he stood and reached into his pocket. He decided to leave a tip for twice the amount of the soda. “Thanks so much,” he told the old owner. “You’ve got the best cherry cola from here to Buffalo. And I’ve tried them all.”

“Thanks,” was all he got back. The proprietor didn’t speak much.

“Probably see you in a few weeks. Leaving in the morning.”

“Gonna watch today?” It was the longest sentence Waterman ever heard out of the man.

“Maybe a little,” Waterman answered. With that he waved, walked out and returned to room #315 in the St. Charles where he packed the antique picture frames, art deco jewelry and crystal fruit bowls he’d bought which meant absolutely nothing to him.

The President despised polls. They only reminded him of the last election and the wrong way politicians make decisions. As a navy man and a senator he’d seen too many presidents and their advisors stick their fingers in the air to determine which way the wind blew. Now he was beginning to hear the same thing about his stand on Pakistan and India. “We can’t do that, we’ll lose the vote.” “What’s this going to mean in November?”

“Fuck getting re-elected. I’m probably getting too old for these ungodly hours anyway!” he told his chief of staff.

But, of course, he wanted to win again and he had to look at the polls.

Right now, five Democrats were left in the running. Only two counted. Lodge and his old navy buddy, Governor Lamden. Lodge pulled closer to the governor day by day but would run out of time to move ahead. That was a good thing. The truth of the matter was that in a head-to-head beauty contest with the president, Lodge might beat him where Lamden wouldn’t. He was younger, more attractive and tougher. That’s why the president counted on Henry Lamden to take New York and the nomination. That’s why he hated the polls. Especially when they were right.

What did President Morgan Taylor have to show for his first term? More stalemates on the Hill. More terrorist scares. More attacks within America’s borders. Saber rattling between India and Pakistan that threatened to escalate every day. More dead ends in the Middle East. Slow economic growth. Try as he might, he had almost nothing to brag about.

For now, most polls had him leading Governor Lamden by a good twelve points and Lodge by 24. But he had been in politics long enough to know that those numbers would change.

Deep down he was worried. Lodge was a dynamic figure and masterful in debates. Some saw him as a force of nature constantly gaining strength in the political storm. To Morgan Taylor he was more like the storm itself; a Category 5 hurricane building in warm waters ready to reek political havoc at landfall.

Not that the president wasn’t capable of calling up a tempest as well. He had graduated from Annapolis in the top ten percent of his class, served as an F/A-18C pilot assigned to the USS
Carl Vinson
aircraft carrier battle group, and did a Persian Gulf tour of duty with her. He used his military record as an edge in the last election, though he couldn’t officially talk about his missions much. He wasn’t sure his time logged in the single-seat Hornet would hold sway this November.

Following his discharge from the service, Commander Morgan Taylor, USN (Ret.) signed with Boeing, the parent company of McDonnell Douglas which manufactured his high performance jet. Other high tech firms pursued the decorated flier, but Taylor felt allegiance to his hometown Seattle and the company that employed many friends. His experience helped him advance, but business was not his calling. Government was. He used his contacts to wrangle an appointment at State Department as a military strategist. This was another part of his life he couldn’t discuss on the campaign trail. Then a Navy friend–turned combat advisor for MSNBC encouraged him to run for the Senate from Washington State. It was a good year to do so. Support came easily, thanks to Navy contractors and colleagues in aerospace. Twelve years later Senator and Lucy Taylor, the one-time head of the United Fund, moved into the White House.

Morgan Taylor, a fraction under six feet, usually appeared in public wearing a black pin striped Brooks Brothers suit. But actually he preferred loose fitting blue turtlenecks, his leather navy flight jacket and khaki slacks. He maintained a rigorous navy exercise routine, which pleased his White House doctors. As a result his weight hadn’t drifted north of 195 pounds for twenty years. He still favored regulation length hair, which kept most of the gray from being too obvious.

Though he was Chief Executive, his heart remained in the air. Friends said it wouldn’t take much for Taylor, even at age 53, to climb back into the cockpit of his fighter. He always kept the possibility alive by staying current on flight SIMs twice each year at Andrews. More often he played on a
special
game version the Navy department loaded onto his PC; one you wouldn’t find in any stores.

Morgan Taylor figured that if his day job didn’t pan out, he always could re-up for the reserves. And he wasn’t joking.

Reflecting on it all, the president was worried more than he let on. He hadn’t felt quite this anxious since his was shot down in Iraq during a classified combat mission gone bad during Desert Storm years ago. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he considered the possibilities that lay ahead. Maybe it was the damned
McLaughlin Group
that set him off today or the morning security briefing prepared by the CIA. Either way, he was in a foul mood.

“Okay, worst case, Bernsie. Lodge grabs New York in an upset. How do we go after him?” the president asked his chief of staff, John Bernstein, who he always called “Bernsie.”

Bernstein had been with Taylor since his years in the Senate. He was ten years older than Morgan Taylor. The president constantly told him he needed take some pounds off. Some meant 35. But Bernsie wasn’t the type to go to the gym. Instead, he hid his frame inside pull-over sweaters and loose fitting pants. But his appearance was also part of his deception. He was shrewd, knowledgeable, and daring. He ran the White House and had a direct line to corporate leaders across America. Important ones. That made him an influential fund raiser and a good pulse taker. The joke around Washington was that John Bernstein never slept. Just when people thought they were returning phone calls too late into the night to reach Bernsie, he’d pick up.

John Bernstein was the man the Morgan Taylor relied on the most even though they rarely agreed on anything. That was part of the attraction. He would willingly engage the president on policy and philosophy. Their differences made Taylor think twice on every critical governmental decision and three times on political ones.

“Won’t happen. Maybe Lamden’s VP, but I think even Henry doesn’t like him.”

“What’s his position on India and Pakistan?”

“Hands off. At least for now.” Bernsie complained. “He hasn’t gotten into it. Personally, I think he’s just not ready to run the country.”

“You saying we fight him on experience?” the president asked.

“
Inexperience
. Hell, he’s from Vermont. Three electoral votes. Not a big springboard to the White House. Just ask Howard Dean.”

“Correction. He’s transplanted from Massachusetts. And they’ve got 12.,” the president knew political history like the cockpit of an F/A-18. “And Massachusetts has some bragging rights to John Adams, John Quincy Adams and, in case you’ve forgotten, a man named Kennedy.” He was neady to continue, “And…”

“All right. All right. Then if he gets the nomination we’ll hit his inexperience head on. And his age. And build on it.”

“It didn’t stop George W., Clinton, or Carter,” Taylor replied.

“But he doesn’t have much going for him in foreign politics.”

Again the president said, “That didn’t stop George W., Clinton, or Carter. And it won’t fly because he’s getting more vocal about the Middle East and Israel’s tactics.”

“Pretty radical for a Democrat,” Bernstein observed.

The president folded his arms and considered the argument. He recognized it was a personal issue for Bernstein. “You’re right about that. That’s why I think he won’t take New York. Too many Jewish voters and his rhetoric isn’t the typical
‘Rah rah Israel.’
”

“On the other hand, he’s fluent in goddamned Arabic and that gives him a leg up with the Muslim leaders,” the president asserted. “Hell, he gets more fucking airtime than the weatherman in a blizzard. But I don’t know about New York. He could still grab it. If he does we play up his soft support of Israel. America’s not ready to ignore Israel.”