Malcolm took another left down another hall. He had actually done one TV ad for aftershave.
Glide made a final turn in the last hall and entered the department’s inner sanctum. He cheerfully waved at a personal secretary and strolled into the director’s office without knocking. The aftershave was Hai Karate.
The director was on the phone. “I gotta go.” He hung up and smiled. “Malcolm!”-practically running around his desk to shake hands.
“Mr. Tide!”
“How many times have I told you to call me Rip.”
Rip detested Malcolm, but Glide held the strings to key votes that controlled his budget, so he loved him.
“Rip,” said Glide. “Hate to ask since you’re so busy guarding the safety of every man, woman, and child in America, but I need a big favor.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to raise the threat level.”
“What? Did you hear some overseas chatter? Is it the ports? Airlines?”
“No. Three of my candidates just dipped below forty in the polls. They’ve unfairly been linked to the latest oil spill in the Gulf.”
“Are they linked?”
“Yes. I need something to take over the news cycle.”
“No problem.” Rip reached behind his desk for the big vinyl threat thermometer. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“We’re already at the highest threat level.” Rip pointed at the top of the thermometer. “Remember? You asked me to raise it last week when one of your candidates apologized to the oil company because they were the real victim.”
“So make up a new color.”
“I can’t. The colors are set.”
“You’re the director of Homeland Security. You can do anything you want.”
“Malcolm, don’t get me wrong,” said Rip. “I’d do anything for you. But my hands are tied. Red’s the top color. There’s nothing scarier.”
Malcolm opened his briefcase. “What about a darker red? I brought some color swatches.”
“You might have something there.” Rip grabbed a sample and held it up for comparison. “This one seems more upsetting.”
“Then it’s done.”
“I still don’t know,” said the director. “Two reds. They’re pretty close in shade. Won’t people get confused?”
Glide snapped his briefcase shut. “Confusion’s scarier.”
“You’re the expert.”
Indeed, Glide was.
His motto: All politics is marketing. And in marketing, there are but two variables: product and salesmanship. Malcolm had the best of both worlds.
He’d cornered the market on fear.
And when it came to sales, Glide could package utter terror like a tit to a baby. During campaigns, it was his hottest seller.
It hadn’t always been that way.
Just a few short years earlier, the firm Glide founded, Nuance Management Group, was renowned throughout the nation’s capital for thorough policy research, unflagging accuracy, strident ethics-and losing a record volume of elections.
It changed overnight.
It was a Tuesday.
Four A.M.
Malcolm Glide sprang up from his pillow in a cold sweat. Heart pounding like a conga drum. Another nightmare about zombies. Except now they’d learned to walk faster.
Malcolm grabbed his chest. “Holy Mother! I’d vote for anybody who could stop that!”
The next morning, Malcolm charged confidently into the boardroom. “Throw away everything.” He walked to an easel and ripped down a chart of international exchange rates. “It’s all fresh.”
Murmurs around the conference table.
“We’ve been going at this completely wrong.” Glide crumpled the chart into a ball and threw it at a secretary’s head. “You know how we excruciatingly track swing voters, the base, independents?”
Various levels of nodding.
“Fuck that margin of error!” Glide grabbed a marker and scribbled rapidly on the washable easel. “Behold, our new business model.”
They stared in blank thought: IT’S THE STUPID VOTE, STUPID!
Furtive glances across the room.
An intern dared raise his hand. Veterans gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Malcolm pounded his fist on the table. “Everyone tries to get elected by leading. Instead we follow.”
“Follow what?”
“The emotions of the people.” Malcolm stood and began pacing. “They’re a massive disenfranchised class out there who feel abandoned.”
“That’s awful!”
“Tell me about it,” said Malcolm, spinning at the wall and heading back. “Millions of people across our great land who want nothing more than to be left alone and pursue their own happiness of believing mean-spirited bullshit. Except society has evolved away from ignorance. And that’s where we come in.”
“How?”
“We make being shitty feel good again.”
More glances and murmurs.
Another hand went up. “What are we supposed to do?”
Malcolm pounded the table again. “We lie.”
A junior partner cleared his throat. “But in politics, everybody else lies. That’s what has set us apart.”
Malcolm smugly folded his arms. “Except they don’t tell the Big Lie.”
“What’s that?”
Glide leaned forward and seized the edge of the end of the table. “We don’t simply say something that’s untrue. We make statements so insane that there’s no possible intelligent response. Like arguing with some old fart in a rocking chair who claims we never landed on the moon. Any educated person can only laugh. Meanwhile, we’ve just won over all the non-moon-landing votes.”
“Example?” asked the same partner.
“Most of our clients are against health-care reform, right?”
Nodding again around the table.
“Get those pens ready and take this down!” said Glide. “Tomorrow we send out this talking point to our top candidates: The government wants to create death panels to kill your grandmother.”
The table laughed.
They weren’t laughing long. Next meeting:
“… I can’t believe they bought it…”
“… Even Palin’s quoting us…”
“… It’s all over Fox News…”
Glide swiveled side to side in his high-backed leather chair and puffed a fat cigar. “Remember you heard it here first.”
“But how did you know?” asked their mass-mail manager.
“There’s a new dawn in America! It isn’t enough just to disagree with your opponent anymore. True patriots hate their fucking guts!” Glide got up and kicked the chair out from under a speechwriter. “Anger is sweeping the country! Tea bags from sea to shining sea! Voters everywhere exploding from frustration!”
“Why?”
“Because the facts don’t support their beliefs. And we mean to fix that.”
“But how?”
“Talk in code.” Glide poured a glass of ice water from a sterling carafe. “From now on, the president is a socialist.”
“He is?”
“No, but he’s black.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Tons of people can’t stand that the president is the wrong flavor.”
“That’s racism,” said a pollster.
“And racism’s not cool anymore,” said Glide. “Even for racists. So we call him a socialist.”
“That’s nuts.”
“The people we’re trying to reach will get it,” said Glide. “ Socialist is the new ‘N-word.’ Have that imprinted on some stress balls.”
Chapter Two
Tampa International Airport
A cab pulled into the departures lane outside Delta.
Two passengers got out with luggage, and the taxi sped off before Serge had a chance to pay.
Coleman jumped back to avoid getting a foot run over. “What the hell was that about?”
“Beats me.” Serge clicked open the handle on his bag. “He was acting weird the whole way, ever since I hopped in the front seat with him.”
“I think we’re supposed to sit in back.”
“And that’s why I always sit up front.” They walked through automatic doors. “It’s about class struggle. You sit in back like King Tut, and you’re saying, ‘Dance, monkey.’ But if you jump up front like equals, it’s a bold statement that you’ll tolerate B.O. to pull our country together.”