Senator Saunders headed the Republican reelection committee. He held the purse strings to the Establishment money.
'We're forming our own Super PAC,' Jim Bob said.
The senator exhaled heavily.
'Goddamn Supreme Court. We get the law all fixed so we can control the flow of campaign money, then they toss the law out like yesterday's newspaper. 'Unconstitutional,' they said. 'So fucking what?' I said. Never stopped us before. Hell, damn near every law we pass is unconstitutional if you want to get technical about that sort of thing.'
'Why are you coming to me?' Bode said.
The senator sipped his drink.
'Palin.'
'She scares the hell out of you boys, doesn't she?'
A senatorial groan.
'More than you can imagine. She refuses to play ball by our rules. She thinks she doesn't need us, that she can tell us to go to hell. You know what would happen if every Republican politician started thinking like that?'
'Democracy?'
'Chaos. The two political parties keep order in this country. This isn't some banana republic with fourteen fucking political parties. This is America. Voters have to choose: Democrats or Republicans. A or B. Not C, D, or E, none of the above.'
'What about the tea party?'
The senator smiled. 'Oh, they're a little full of themselves and feisty, but one tour through the budget process, and they'll fall in line.'
'So you need me to make sure Palin doesn't win the Republican nomination, force herself on you.'
'Like having to take a fat cousin to the prom.'
'What if I don't play by your rules?'
The senator chuckled.
'You might figure you're a wild horse, Governor, don't need to run with the herd, but you'll learn just like every other politician has learned-you want to make a career out of politics, you need the protection of the herd.' The senator shrugged. 'And, hell, Governor, when it's all said and done, it doesn't matter all that much if we control the Congress or the White House, as long as we control one or the other. Both is better but one is enough.'
'For what?'
'Gridlock.'
'Senator, how long have you been in office?'
'This term will make it an even forty-two years.'
'Back at the beginning, when you first ran… did you want to do good?'
The senator did not seem offended.
'Course I did. I grew up in the coal mines of Oklahoma, where men worked hard and died young. Like my dad. He wanted more for me, paid my way through law school. I was gonna change things, by God, make those folks' lives better… but six months in Washington and reality set in. All I was doing was collecting campaign contributions to get reelected and passing earmarks, because the voters demanded I bring the pork home. Or they'd find someone else who would. Forty-two years later, it's only worse. People might talk limited government, but they want government money.'
He drank again.
'But that's not the worst part.'
'What's that?'
'Worst part is, you start hating your own voters. Like you do the homeless, their hands held out when you walk down the sidewalk, always wanting more, more, more.'
He downed his drink and walked off.
Buying control of the U.S. government is man's work, like coaching football and destroying the economy. White men wearing custom suits and holding the purse strings of political action committees and multinational corporations. Such white men approached the governor of Texas throughout the night.
'Fifty million,' Jim Bob said to the CEO of a major defense contractor.
'What do I get in return?'
'What do you want?'
'More jets, ships, tanks, missiles, weapons-more everything. And no restrictions on our overseas sales.'
'Why?' Bode said.
'War is profitable. Iraq and Afghanistan, three-point-seven trillion so far-that's real money. And we arm the world. Our weapons systems are currently employed in every major military conflict in the world, and most of the minor ones. No one kills anyone in this world without an American-made weapon.'
'Sounds like a slogan.'
'It is.'
'Your missiles kill innocent people all over the world.'
'Missiles don't kill-only bad people with missiles kill.'
'Fifty million,' Jim Bob said to the Wall Street banker.
'What do I get?'
'What do you want?'
'Control of the Fed.'
'Why?'
'Because the American people want to believe someone is smart enough to hold the reins on this economy, that a Greenspan or Bernanke can keep the economy rolling along without ever experiencing a recession. Fact is, no one's that smart. But the people don't want to hear that. They want a guaranteed life. They want their 401(k) and home values to go up, they want to live beyond their means in big houses they can't afford and watch TVs the size of a goddamned movie theater, they want their lives to be profitable and carefree. They want someone-the government, Wall Street, their fairy fucking godmother-to guarantee that they'll live happily ever after. Well, it can't be done.' He pondered his words a moment. 'But, it does give us some money-making opportunities.'
'Such as?'
'By controlling the Fed, we control interest rates and money supply. Which allows us to move the markets. We can make money long or short, if only the markets move. So we raise the interest rate and tighten the money supply, which depresses stock and real-estate values, and we buy up both. Then we lower the interest rate and loosen the money supply, which sparks inflation, and we ride the bubble up.'
'Until it bursts.'
'We sell out before that happens, stick the middle-class with the losses in mutual funds and subprime mortgages. Buy low, sell high.' He shrugged. 'It's not finding the cure for cancer, but it's a living.'
'More drilling,' the CEO of an oil company said. 'More domestic drilling, more offshore drilling, more Alaska drilling… more drilling everywhere.'
'Tough sell today.'
'We're sending eight hundred billion dollars every year to the Middle East for their oil, money to Muslims who want to destroy America. Would you rather drill at home or get killed at home?'
'Done,' the Professor said. 'But we need more from you.'
'More than fifty million?'
'We need some help on gas prices.'
'We're not gonna lower gas prices!'
'I don't want you to lower them. I want you to raise them.'
'Raise them? Why?'
'Because the governor's got to balance the state budget during the next legislative session, and the press is going to beat us up once it gets out that we're looking at a twenty-seven-billion deficit and demand we raise taxes.'
A smile.
'I understand.'
