Mounting Fears

45

WILL SAT ON A SOFA IN THE OVAL OFFICE AND GAZED AT HIS POLLSTER. "ALL RIGHT, Moss, let's hear it." His chief of staff, press secretary, campaign manager, and political consultant were very still.

Moss consulted his papers. "In the first poll since Henry King Johnson announced, he appears to have attracted about a quarter of the black vote."

Will made a point of not showing a reaction. "Go on."

"Bill Spanner, as you know, is doing much better than expected, and the combination of those two elements means that if the election were held today, you would lose to Spanner by around five points."

Will turned to Tom Black. "Tom?"

"We have two commercials in the can showing you with civil rights leaders over the years. I want to punch up the voice-overs and rerecord, and we can have them on the air by the day after tomorrow."

Moss spoke up again. "Mr. President, I think you should know that as Reverend Johnson starts to campaign and get press coverage, the bleeding off of black voters is likely to continue."

"That's depressing," Will said.

"Unfortunately, we haven't yet reached a point in this country when voters will ignore race. He's going to get a lot of black votes simply because he's black, just as you're getting some white voters for the same reason."

Sam Meriwether spoke up. "In addition to running Tom's new commercials, we need to schedule more events with predominantly black audiences: schools, churches, wherever we can gather a crowd. Then we need to photograph those events and use them in advertising, particularly in southern states where black voters are a majority or nearly so."

"We can't just let the black vote slide to Johnson," Kitty said. "We have to stop the bleeding and as quickly as possible."

"Why is Henry doing this?" Will said. "I've always had a good relationship with him."

Tim Coleman, Will's chief of staff, said, "I've had word that Reverend Johnson has bought property adjacent to his church and plans to tear down the old building, which is in disrepair, and build a rather grandiose new church and an office building, most of which he will rent out to black-owned businesses. He's counting on the press exposure he receives during the campaign to put him over the top in his fund-raising."

"I've never heard of this plan," Will said.

"He's keeping it under wraps. He presented it to his board of deacons only a few days ago, and it will go unannounced until he feels the moment is right."

Kitty said, "Maybe we need to find him a big contributor, who…"

"No." Will cut her off. "The moment we do anything that smacks of bribing him to get out of the race, we'll take a big hit among voters at large, and justifiably so."

"I tend to agree," Moss said.

"Anytime a reporter raises the name of Henry King Johnson, we will use the opportunity to welcome him to the race and say good things about him," Will said. "If we criticize him, we show fear, and fear is contagious."

"The other polls will have this in a day or two," Moss said. "We're going to have to face that."

"I'll face it by saying that I've been down in the polls before, but I haven't lost an election so far, and I don't intend to start now."

"That's exactly what you should say," Tom Black agreed. "I want to talk to some of the black elected officials around the country and see if we can get them on record as supporting you."

"Don't go to anybody who hates Henry," Will said. "The tenor of any such statements should be that he's a fine fellow and an outstanding preacher but that he knows he isn't going to win this race, so why is he running? Tim, we need to get the plans for Henry's new church to a columnist who can break the story in a way so that it's on every front page the next day, and we don't want this traceable to us. Tom, you could let this slip when you're talking to black elected officials and let them do the leaking. Somebody won't be able to resist."

"Good idea," Tom replied.

"Ideally, the column would run on the day Henry announces his plans," Tim said. "If we can make his running look like a fund-raising ploy, then that might slow down the money to the point where he may wonder why he bothered."

"Maybe somebody could make it a church-and-state issue," Kitty said.

Sam Meriwether winced. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he said.

Will chuckled. "Kitty always wants to go for the jugular."

"Yeah, Sam," Kitty said, "you're way too soft. I think running for president in order to raise money for a self-glorifying church is a legitimate thing to attack."

"As long as the attack comes from just the right person," Tim said. "Every big daily has a black columnist these days; those people might be a good place to get the word out."

"Tom," Will said, "any efforts we make, like the two new commercials, are going to have to be on top of anything else we already have planned. We have to deal with Bill Spanner, win the independents and the few remaining moderate Republicans from him and win by a margin big enough to overcome any votes lost to Henry Johnson. We need people on every Sunday political show talking about that and ignoring Henry, except to answer direct questions."

"I'm doing two," Kitty said, "and so is Sam. I think we can get the message out."

"I haven't heard anything yet," Tim said, "but I'd be very surprised if the Reverend Johnson isn't on Meet the Press this Sunday."

"Then the day before would be an excellent time for the world to learn about Henry's fund-raising plans," Will said. "Russert would enjoy asking him about that. When should I do that program?"

"The week after Henry Johnson," Tim replied.

"Mr. President," Kitty said, looking at her watch, "your next appointment is camped outside the door right now."

"Let's break it up, then," Will said. "You all go out through my study, so that you won't bump into the Republican leadership. They want to talk about tax cuts again, so they can tell the press on their way out that I still won't cut taxes, even though we're running a nice surplus."

Everybody laughed and filed out.