And it was a doozy. "All of you are young people, in your forties. Chances are you'll be around for at least another twenty-five years. One or more of you may even become president during that time. By then, people who are being born today will just be coming into the adult job market, and their success in that market will depend largely on the economic and educational initiatives that are taken during the next decade. These will be most important to the poorest people, who today face the most restricted opportunities. And without putting too fine a point on it, you know and I know that what I'm really talking about here is inner-city blacks. My question is: twenty-five years from now, what will life be like for these people, and what will you have done to make that life better?"
Brandon F. Doyle of Massachusetts went first, and he looked scared. It was easy enough for an old man like Marcus Hale to drag these scary and difficult issues into the limelight. It was a lot harder for someone like Doyle to deal with the resulting mess, especially considering that he was sharing the stage with a black person who could shoot him down whenever she wanted.
"Well, first of all, Marcus, let me say that opportunity - for all people, white or black - is a function of education. This is a message that we have always taken to heart in Massachusetts, which has a long heritage of brilliant institutions of higher learning. It's my hope - and my intention - that twenty-five years from now, a lot of the people you're talking about will be entering graduate school, or law school, or medical school, and they'll be doing it with the full assistance and support of a government that takes these things with the utmost seriousness. Which is not to support big-spending government programs. I prefer to think of education as an investment, not an expense."
Next came Marco Gutierrez, who had a heavy, stolid, calm affect. That and his hair and his clothes had all been developed to make him seem like a cool norteamericano, not the jumpy, emotional Mexican that blue-eyed Duluth voters were afraid of. "Well, I would second a lot of what my friend Brandon said, but where we differ is at the end. Look. Government has a moral duty to educate its children. No matter what it costs. To say that education is a good investment misses the point. Even if it cost every penny in the Treasury, we should educate our kids to the best of our ability, because it's the right thing to do."
It was Laura Thibodeaux-Green's turn. "Kids spend seven hours a day in front of the television. Seven hours a day. Just think about that for a second. That's a lot more time than they spend in the classroom. Well, my opinion is that TV doesn't have to be mind-rotting garbage. It has the ability to educate. And the digital, high-definition TV that's just starting to be introduced to the living rooms of America can be the most potent educational tool ever devised. I advocate a massive program to develop educational software that can run on these TV sets of the future, so that those seven hours a day spent in front of the TV can turn our little kids into little Shakespeares and Einsteins instead of illiterate couch potatoes."
Finally, Eleanor Richmond got her chance. "Look," she said, "Abe Lincoln learned his lessons by writing on the back of a shovel. During slavery times, a lot of black people learned to read and write even though they weren't allowed to go to school. And nowadays, Indochinese refugee kids do great in school even though they got no money at all and their folks don't speak English. The fact that many black people nowadays aren't getting educated has nothing to do with how much money we spend on schools. Spending more money won't help. Neither will writing educational software to run on your home TV set. It's just a question of values. If your family places a high value on being educated, you'll get educated, even if you have to do your homework on the back of a shovel. And if your family doesn't give a damn about developing your mind, you'll grow up stupid and ignorant even if you go to the fanciest private school in America.
"Now, unfortunately, I can't give you a program to help develop people's values. Personally, I'm starting to think that the fewer programmes we have, the better off we are."
For the first time, the live audience broke into applause.
"Amen to that!" Mae Hunter shouted, her voice echoing out across the gray Hudson. A couple of passing joggers glanced at her, then looked away quickly and pretended not to notice the crazy lady.
Cy Ogle saw a screen flare bright green in the corner of his eye, and turned to look. The name at the bottom of the screen was CHASE MERRIAM.
It was amazing. Out of all these candidates, Merriam's clear favorite, so far, was Eleanor Richmond. Between the poor people and minorities on the bottom, and the women and people like Chase Merriam on the top, an astonishing number of people liked Eleanor Richmond.
But on second thought, Ogle reflected, maybe it wasn't so surprising after all. Months ago, when she had confronted Earl Strong in the shopping mall, he had pointed his finger at her image on the screen and pronounced her the first female president of the United States.
45
Eleanor went straight to her hotel room after the debate, talked to her kids in Alexandria, watched some TV, went to bed, and slept until ten Friday morning. When she opened her eyes, she knew without looking at the clock that she had lost control of herself and overslept massively. The red light on her phone was flashing like a police car, the blackout curtains on her hotel room windows were limned with the hot, hysterical white light of midday. She felt wizened and dehydrated and headachy.
She opened her curtains about six inches, letting a slab of arid light into the room, ordered some room service (yogurt, a large infusion of juice, and lots of coffee), and took a shower. The yogurt arrived with a stack of message slips from various journalists, most of whom had deadlines that had already expired. She was still sitting on her bed in her hotel bathrobe, trying to get the coffee into her system as fast as possible, sorting these messages into stacks, when someone knocked at her door. Shave and a haircut, two bits.
It was her girlfriend Mary Catherine Cozzano, turned out in a smashingly professional navy blue ensemble. Mary Catherine was doing some major grinning, showing some serious dimple action this morning.
"I'm not worthy," Eleanor said, placing one hand to the breast of her white terrycloth bathrobe.
"My daughter costume," Mary Catherine explained.
"Well, I knew I overslept," Eleanor said, ushering her into the room, "but looking at you I feel like I am way behind the curve."
"You don't know how right you are," Mary Catherine said provocatively. She groped for the curtain pull and yanked it decisively, flooding the room with light. Then she turned around and sat down on the unmade bed, facing Eleanor, who was squinting between her fingers.
"You have this look on your face like you are in possession of important state secrets that you can't wait to blab," Eleanor said. "So let me assure you that I have a Top-Secret Alpha clearance. Coffee?"
"No thanks," Mary Catherine said. "I had breakfast four hours ago."
Eleanor laughed and pretended to be ashamed of herself. "In Alexandria my neighbor's dog starts barking at five a.m. sharp," she said, "so I never get the opportunity to sleep in."
"Well," Mary Catherine said, "I think you'll find that the accommodations are much quieter on the grounds of the Naval Observatory."
"Naval Observatory?"
"Yeah," Mary Catherine said innocently.
The Naval Observatory was a circular patch of land along Massachusetts Avenue, northwest of downtown D.C., in a part of town that Eleanor had rarely visited while growing up there. Its function was to provide very nice housing to a few important Navy types who needed quick access to the White House. And it contained the official residence of the Vice President of the United States.