But he still had to go out to the hustings, a word whose meaning he'd never learned, and campaign for people, or at least give speeches. Or something. The position paper's guidance hadn't exactly been clear on that. Having already shot himself in the foot on the issue of abortion— higher up and more to the centerline, Arnie van Damm had remarked acidly the previous day, to reinforce his earlier lesson—now Ryan would have to make his political stance clear on a multitude of issues: affirmative action at one end of the alphabet, and welfare at the other, with taxes, the environment, and God only knew what else in between. Once he'd decided where he stood on such things, Gallic Weston would write a series of speeches for him to deliver from Seattle to Miami and God only knew where else in between. Hawaii and Alaska were left out because they were small states in terms of political importance, and poles apart ideologically, anyway. They would only confuse matters, or so the position paper told him.
'Why can't I just stay here and work, Arnie?' Ryan asked his arriving chief of staff.
'Because out there is work, Mr. President.' Van Damm took his seat to commence the latest class in Presidency 101. 'Because, as you put it, 'It's a leadership function'—did 1 get that right?' Arnie asked with a sardonic growl. 'And leading means getting out with the troops, or, in this case, the citizens. Are we clear on that, Mr. President?'
'Are you enjoying this?' Jack closed his eyes and rubbed them under the glasses. He hated the goddamned glasses, too.
'About as much as you are.' Which was an altogether fair comment.
'Sorry.'
'Most people who come here genuinely like escaping from this museum and meeting real people. Of course, it makes people like Andrea nervous. They'd probably agree with keeping you here all the time. But it already feels like a prison, doesn't it?' Arnie asked.
'Only when I'm awake.'
'So get out. Meet people. Tell them what you think, tell them what you want. Hell, they might even listen. They might even tell you what they think, and maybe you will learn something from it. In any case, you can't be President and not do it.'
Jack lifted the position paper he'd just finished. 'Did you read this thing?'
Arnie nodded. 'Yep.'
'It's confusing garbage,' Ryan said, quite surprised.
'It's a political document. Since when is politics consistent or sensible?' He paused. 'The people I've worked with for the last twenty years got this sort of thing with their mother's milk—well, they were probably all bottle babies.'
'What?'
'Ask Cathy. It's one of those behavioral theories, that New Age stuff that's supposed to explain everything about everything to everybody everywhere. Politicians are all bottle babies. Mommy never nursed them, and they never bonded properly, felt rejected and all that, and so as compensation they go out and make speeches and tell people in different places the different things they want to hear so that they can get the love and devotion from strangers that their mothers denied them—not to mention the ones like Kealty, who're getting laid all the time. Properly nurtured infants, on the other hand, grow up to become—oh, doctors, I suppose, or maybe rabbis—'
'What the hell!' the President nearly shouted. His chief of staff just grinned.
'Had you going for a second, didn't I? You know,' van Damm went on, 'I figured out what we really missed when we set this country up.'
'Okay, I'll bite,' Jack said, eyes still closed, and finding the humor in the moment. Damn, but Arnie knew how to run a classroom.
'A court jester, make it a Cabinet post. You know, a dwarf—excuse me, a male person with an unusually large degree of vertical challenge—dressed in multicolored tights and the funny hat with bells on it. Give him a little stool in the corner—'course, there isn't a corner here, but what the hell—and every fifteen minutes or so, he's supposed to jump up on your desk and shake his rattle in your face just to remind you that you have to take a leak every so often, just like the rest of us. Do you get it now, Jack?'
'No,' the President admitted.
'You dumbass! This job can be fun! Getting out and seeing your citizens is fun. Learning what they want is important, but there's also an exhilaration to it. They want to love you, Jack. They want to support you. They want to know what you think. They most of all want to know that you're one of them—and you know what? You're the first President in one hell of a long time who really is! So get the hell off the bench, tell the air scouts to fire up the Big Blue Bird, and play the damned game.' He didn't have to add that the schedule was already set sufficiently in stone that he couldn't back out.
'Not everybody will like what I say and believe, Arnie, and I'll be damned if I'm going to lie to people just to kiss ass or get votes or whatever.'
'You expect everybody to love you?' van Damm asked, sardonic again. 'Most Presidents will settle for fifty-one percent. Quite a few have had to settle for less. I tore your head off over your abortion statement—why? Because your statement was confused.'
'No, it wasn't, I—'
'You going to listen to your teacher or not?'
'Go ahead,' the President said.
'Start off, about forty percent of the people vote Democrat. About forty percent vote Republican. Of those eighty percent, most wouldn't change their votes if Adolf Hitler was running against Abe Lincoln—or against FDR, just to cover both sides.'
'But why—'
Exasperation: 'Why is the sky blue, Jack? It just is, okay? Even if you can explain why, and I suppose there is a reason some astronomer can explain, the sky is blue, and so let's just accept the fact, okay? That leaves twenty percent of the people who swing back one way or another. Maybe they're the true independents, like you. That twenty percent controls the destiny of the country, and if you want things to happen your way, those are the people you have to reach. Now, here's the funny part. Those twenty percent don't especially care what you think.' This conclusion was delivered with a wry smile.
'Wait a minute—'
Arnie held up his hand. 'You keep interrupting teacher. The hard eighty percent that votes the party line doesn't care much about character. They vote party because they believe in the philosophy of the party—or because Mom and Dad always voted that way; the reason doesn't really matter. It happens. It's a fact. Deal with it. Now, back to the twenty percent that does matter. They care less about what you believe than they do in you. There is your advantage, Mr. President. Politically speaking, you have as much place in this office as a three-year-old has in a gun shop, but you have character up the ass. That's what we play on.'
Ryan frowned at the 'play on' part, but this time kept his peace. He nodded for the chief of staff to go on.
'Just tell the people what you believe. Make it simple. Good ideas are expressed simply and efficiently. Make it consistent. That twenty percent wants to believe that you really do believe in what you say. Jack, do you respect a man who says what he believes, even if you disagree with it?'
'Of course, that's what—'
'A man is supposed to do,' Arnie said, completing the thought. 'So does the twenty percent. They will respect you and support you even though in some cases they disagree with you. Why? Because they will know that you are a man of your word. And they want the occupant of this office to be a man of character and integrity. Because if things go to shit, you can depend on somebody like that to at least try to do the right thing.'
'Oh.'
'The rest is packaging. And don't disparage packaging and handling, okay? There's nothing wrong about being intelligent about how you get your ideas across. In the book you wrote about Halsey, Fighting Sailor, you chose your words carefully to present your ideas, right?' The President nodded. 'So it is with these ideas—hell, these ideas are even more important, and so you have to package them with proportionately greater skill, don't you?' The lesson plan was moving along nicely, the chief of staff thought.
'Arnie, how many of those ideas will you agree with?'
'Not all of them. I think you're wrong on abortion— a woman should have the right to choose. I bet you and I
