In the spirit of this Election Season, I bring you... "Kingmaker"

[Elven Doritos]

The Campaign to Re-Elect Adrian Colden to the United States Senate was going along swimmingly, at least according to the Colden handlers and spokespeople. Judging from the sophisticated apparatus and pyramid structure of the Campaign, it seemed inevitable that the dusty old Arizonian, known for his unabashed and wide-ranging influence in both parties, would retain his long-standing seat in the Senate, not to mention his co-chairs of important committees. What Colden hadn't anticipated was the rising fortune of the dark horse candidate, an independent businessman propped up by a desperate opposition machine. Indeed, Colden's opponent'"John Gamble, friend to small business and enemy of the corporate lobbyists'"had appeared out of thin air, and the small-town grocery store owner was unimpeachable.
   
Early attack ads suggested Gamble's dangerous inexperience would be a detriment. Voters didn't respond well, apparently 'experience' was now synonymous with 'corruption.' The sure-fire return to the Senate suddenly became a referendum on party policy, politics as usual, and the inextricable trends the supposed renegade Colden had failed to buck. Strapped for cash, hammered by demographics, and with mere weeks left to Election Day, Colden's people had run out of options, backed to the wall by a lopsided economy, an embarrassing series of foreign policy gaffes, and an impossible-to-refute attack on Colden's often rambunctious nature. The spiteful and self-aware Colden campaign had to turn to the one group of people they had always hated most: K Street.
   
The lobbyist powerhouses had remained unconcerned and unaligned in the Arizona race, a policy that Society for a Free America thinktank genius and former Clintonista Don Hodges blandly summed up: 'We've never had Arizona before, we've never needed it in the bloc, why should we care now?' Indeed, Colden's long-standing feud with K Street lobbyists had nearly bankrupted them politically during the 90's, and it would take a severe act of humility to reach out to any of those who had been so maligned and ridiculed.

What made matters worse was the utter refusal of the centrist lobbyists, the amoral chessmasters who preferred to play and fund both sides, to get involved; they enjoyed watching a nobody, the upstart Gamble, devour Colden alive with ten thousand dollars and a fax machine. The rightwing hardliners would all expect no-strings-attached immigration reform platforms, which, as Colden campaign manager and wunderkind Rodger Carlson noted, 'will fucking kill us with Hispanics.' So Colden was left with one choice: turn to Hodges and the Society for a Free America or go bankrupt, both politically and financially.

Normally the arrangement would have been orchestrated by third-stringers from both sides, non-entities seeking uniform agreements between the campaign and the lobbyists. But the terse relationship Colden had developed with K Street made the matter far more delicate, something acquiring the skill of an international diplomat coupled with the wile of a political veteran. At Colden's insistence, it was campaign manager Carlson himself that would meet with Hodges, and after a quick volley of communication, the date was set.

The meeting place had been mutually agreed upon, a quiet little café often used for tense but polite meetings for Beltway enemies. Carlson, for his part, was exhausted from the flight to D.C., but was pleased to find Hodges had arrived before him. Indeed, the forty-something-but-could-pass-for-thirty-something Hodges was in his black suit, black tie, and white shirt that seemed so much a uniform for the busybodies of the lobbyist world, playing checkers with a neighborhood boy.

Carlson approached the table, but Hodges waved him away, gleefully enjoying every move on the checkerboard, every belated second that Carlson had to sit in audience. Hodges knew who was in control, and toyed around with his young opponent, going at length to explain the flaws in the teen's strategy. Eventually, growing bored of the dissonance, Hodges captured the last checker, his piece resting on the far end of the board. 'I'd tell you to king me,' he said with a grin, 'but I guess I'm already the king.' Hodges packed the board up and sent the boy along, taking a sip of his mocha.

Carlson cleared his throat, unaccustomed to being so routinely ignored. Hodges offered a firm handshake, and the small talk plodded along. Eventually, Carlson's temper flared, evident only in the bulging vein in his temple. 'You know why I'm here,' Carlson said with practiced poise, 'so let's cut the bullshit.'

Hodges smiled. 'Right, right.' Clasping two perfectly manicured hands together, Hodges leaned forward. 'Your presence indicates that Adrian Colden has had a change of heart.'

'We're up against the wall,' Carlson admitted. 'This Gamble problem is out of control.'

Hodges gave a passing waitress a smile before refocusing his gaze. 'It's a shame the Presidential campaign's been throwing good money after bad into some of this shitholes. They've really lost touch with the demographics, any objective-minded idiot could see.'

Carlson stiffened. 'The Senator's platform differs from the President's, and he only caucuses with the party out of necessity.'

'Your Senator has always been an aberration, post-Reagan at least. You're only supposed to have ideals on election years, for God's sake.'

'He wants to win,' Carlson said firmly. 'He's willing to make concessions.'

Hodges' smile became broader. 'I want full access to every piece of legislation that comes across his desk for the next six years.'

Carlson shook his head. 'No dice. Besides, that's bullshit. You've already got Waters in your pocket for that, you don't'"'

'Waters isn't on the Veterans Affairs Committee.'

Carlson's brow furrowed. 'I can give you some piece of legislation you want. Just tell me what it is. You know I can't guarantee his cooperation for anything long-term.'

'I'm not usually one for compromise, Rodger.'

'What's on Veterans Affairs that you give two shits about?'
   
Hodges chuckled. 'There are some HMOs that aren't happy with the outcome of the last few votes on the Committee. No details, for everyone's sake. But here's the deal'"campaign finance reform dies.'

'Colden's on board with that.'

'I bet. I get full access to the Veterans Affairs.'

'I can talk him into it, but nothing else from his desk.'

'Right. Then one more thing.' Hodges took another sip of his mocha, waiting for Carlson's inevitable question.

Carlson hated playing his game. 'What is it?'

'I get to pick his staff.'

Carlson bristled at the thought. 'I don't have a choice. Done.'

'Then we're settled.' Hodges finished his mocha.

'Not quite,' Carlson butted in. 'What's the Colden campaign getting in return?'

Hodges retrieved a thick blue dossier from his briefcase and tossed it on the table. 'Everything you ever wanted to know about John Gamble but were too afraid to ask. Some real shit in there.'

Carlson thumbed through photographs, certificates, and transcripts. 'This is good,' he murmured.

'I've got ads running in under an hour, soon as I give a call. It's under '˜Citizens to Re-Elect Colden,' plus I've got some tax-exempts ready to gear up for a grassroots effort. You should have three thousand volunteers before the weekend's over, and we can have half the fucking state canvassed with three days left before Election.'

Carlson was in awe. Hodges retrieved his coat, preparing to leave. 'This might work. This might fucking work.'

'I told you,' Hodges said with a grin. 'I'm the king.'

[Elven Doritos]

Oh, there might be more to it, too. Depends on if it's interesting and if I can think of more. There's a whole lot to explore with the whole Colden story alone.

Feel free to comment.

[Elven Doritos]

The streets of Phoenix had been littered with blue and red pamphlets for the last two days, all adorned with festive attacks like, 'Bagging groceries does not qualify John Gamble for the Senate', 'What does John Gamble stand for?' and, more venomously, 'Don't gamble on Gamble.' But Gamble had taken the high road'"or the cheap road, his detractors would claim'"and hadn't retaliated with pamphlets of his own. His ads only ran on public access channels and local networks, and he had barely scraped enough signs together to adorn his campaign headquarters. Yet somehow, the Gallup polls showed him in lead with a whopping twelve point margin.

Gamble used his newfound popularity to great effect. Going on a speaking tour and leaving the store to his wife Lisa, Gamble visited universities, union shops, and any public forum that gave him speaking time. Though early critic and career politician Avery Adams decried his 'populist, utterly banal message,' he wowed opponents and supporters alike with his keen understanding of foreign policy, gleaned from his brief stint in the military. There was a certain earthen quality to the man, reflected in his sympathetic stump speeches, and the sudden support of a party apparatus propelled him to national fame. Three weeks before the election, the very same Avery Adams gave a speech declaring Gamble 'the realest, most authentic person to run for the Senate since Lincoln.'

   But Gamble frenzy was hardly in the air at Wilson Electronics and Manufacturing, the preeminent fading star of Arizona's economy. Having controlled the party machine for years, WEM suddenly found itself ousted from the policy decisions of the candidacy, and Gamble had nothing but contempt and fierce rhetoric for the company that, as he put it, 'cost thousands of jobs in Arizona by outsourcing to China, and for what? So a fat cat corporate bigwig can line his pockets with our money.' Needless to say, WEM President Andrew Carlock grew to quickly dislike the Gamble candidacy, but had poured too many dollars into the previous elections to even consider turning to Adrian Colden.

   'If you can just get that runt to tone down the rhetoric,' Carlock had said to Tom Deck, the party veteran who had taken up the post of deputy campaign manager in the growing Gamble movement, 'I don't think I would have a problem with him. God knows I won't vote for Colden. But he can get more traction by appealing to us fiscal conservatives, because the last thing the fiscals want is another term of Coldenesque tax hikes.'

   But Deck had failed to convince Gamble to extend the olive branch to WEM. The smear campaign against Gamble was out of control, gaining its second wind from a newly mobilized base. When Deck expressed concern over the new wave of volunteers from the Colden camp, Gamble shrugged. 'Who cares?' he replied nonchalantly. 'The polls show me ahead in nearly every scenario. Colden would have to pull a miracle off, the kind that would impress Jesus, to win.'

   And in five days, known to the Gamble campaign as the 'work week from hell,' Colden evened the playing field. Every hour, on every station, a 'Don't gamble on Gamble' ad ran, and Phoenix papers ran stories about an alleged case of fraud Gamble had been implicated in.  It was a smokescreen, but suddenly Colden was everywhere; Gamble remarked bitterly that there had been twenty automated messages on his answering machine, all pro-Colden advertisements. Gallup now showed a dead even race, and for the first time since entering the race, John Gamble had lost momentum.

   The debate raged as to what he could do to regain it. The pundits claimed he needed to toughen on immigration policy, but Deck shot that down. 'We aren't touching that,' he said plainly. Deck suggested that Gamble reach out to the WEM and the fiscal conservatives that Colden had alienated so often, but Gamble flatly refused. For her part, Lisa Gamble suggested that the campaign was in need of an electronic overhaul, that a few dozen volunteers could increase their presence on the web. Cheaply, if possible. But John's idea won out; challenge the incumbent Colden to a televised debate, and get it as much publicity as possible.

   Two hours after giving the first stump speech to include the challenge, a call came from the Colden campaign. 'Senator Colden is more than happy to debate Mr. Gamble,' the staffer said. 'Anytime, anyplace.' The date and venue were set'"both campaigns would have only a few days to vet their candidate'"and excitement filled the air.

   When the debate finally came, it more than lived up to the hype. Held at a community college in Gamble territory, the audience was diverse; one half of the auditorium was packed with Colden supporters, probably shipped in from Phoenix and other Colden strongholds, but the locals were clearly leaning toward Gamble. Things were fairly uneventful, with both candidates trading jabs about taxes, dedication to small business, foreign policy, and education, until the second-to-last question came up.

   The moderator asked in a bored voice, 'What is your stance on the status of immigrants currently working and living within the United States without a visa?'

   Colden was terrified. 'The, uh, the problem isn't necessarily as, well, obvious as it would'¦ these people, rather, these immigrants are indicative of a social norm that, well, we'"' He bobbed and weaved around the question, and, sweating and twitchy, turned to hear Gamble's answer.

   'Well,' Gamble began, 'it's not really polite to say, but illegal immigration is, after all, illegal. The American Government should be taking a step, or, rather, multiple steps to help protect the border, but we should also be addressing the concerns that immigrants have. We should be giving them every avenue possible to legalize their status, because coming to America should be about opportunity, about rewarding hard work, and about sharing values and culture.'

   Watching from a beat-up television set somewhere in Washington, Don Hodges couldn't help but smile. He dialed Rodger Carlson.

   'Rodger? It's Don. He just answered a question honestly.'

   'And?' Carlson replied.

   'And as soon as we spin this, he just won us the goddamn race.'

[Elven Doritos]

Deck wasn't happy about the phone call he had to make. Sitting in Gamble headquarters, he made a call to John.'Citizens for Colden just stirred up a shitstorm,' he said glumly. 'They're taking the '˜values and culture' line out of context, saying'"'

   ''"saying I want mandatory Spanish in schools, I heard. This is libel, isn't it? They can't do this?'

   'We've sent out some people, we're having the ads pulled, but it'll be hard to beat the impression. And there's something else'¦'

   'What?'

   'We're almost out of money. There's still a week and a half left in the election, and we won't be able to run our own ads. Wasn't a problem, until this values shit.'

   'What can we do?'

   Deck was silent for a moment. 'WEM. That's our only choice. The lobbyists want nothing to do with us, the big donors are throwing their money at the Presidential campaign, there's no way around it.'

   'No.' Gamble's voice was firm. Staccato.

   'Look, I don't like it, but if we don't get some cash quick, this campaign is sunk. You'll have come this far for nothing. Carlock's itching to get involved, you'll just have to dial back the'"'

   'We'll lose the base.'

   'We're already losing the base.'

   Gamble hung up abruptly. In a half hour, he would call back. 'Get me an appointment with Carlock,' he said. 'Tomorrow.'

   The meeting between Gamble and Carlock the following morning took place at a golf course just outside of Flagstaff, and the two exchanged polite introductions. It wasn't until the seventh hole that they began talking business.
   'The union guys,' Gamble began, 'they're gonna hate me for it, but I need your help, Andy.'

   Carlock stepped onto the green. 'I could just throw money at Colden, you know. You really pissed off a lot of the fiscals with that '˜fat cat' shit.' Carlock teed up his ball. 'We really ought to be friends, you and me. And you don't have to take back anything you said; I just need to know you'll be our guy in the Senate.' The ball flew into the rough.

   'I'll sponsor anything to help business in Arizona. Even yours.' Gamble hit the ball. Hole in one.

   And in twenty-four hours, the Citizens to Elect John Gamble apparatus was up and running, sponsored by generous endorsements from WEM and twelve other local companies. Repeated assurances from the slightly-modified stump speech of tough foreign policy, 'looking out for the little guy' economics, and clarifications on the 'Latino issue' were coupled with slick new ads meant to dispel illusions that Colden spin doctors had conjured. Gallup showed a dead heat in the race just three days before the election, and it was anyone's game.

   The Colden campaign was taking the deadlock as a bad omen, not wanting to count on urban voters or the newly energized youth base that was barely holding above water. Carlson had orchestrated several potent photo-ops that ran in the new 'Colden for America' ad cycle, but the Hodges people were beginning to cause problems. Their Beltway brand of attack pamphlets had become more acidic and vitriolic in the past week, and polls showed that the Arizonians were responding negatively to the rancor contained in them. When Carlson tried to reign in the smear machine, the lobbyists promised to lighten the attack, only to run even harsher ads the following cycle.

   A call to Hodges proved unsatisfactory. 'Don't worry,' Hodges assured him, 'people always say that in polls, but they still remember the shit you dig up. They'll remember a gaffe attached to '˜Don't gamble on Gamble' better than some soft analysis of issues.'

   Carlson conceded that the ads were likely more effective than the polls showed, but he had to develop an edge, and he had 72 hours to do it. Colden was booked on a talking points campaign around the state, and the President was even supposed to show'"that would probably hurt things more than help, but Carlson couldn't pass up the chance. There needed to be a reversal of fortunes, a decisive moment in the campaign that would tip the polls in Colden's favor. Carlson devoured the Hodges file on Gamble, searching for a glimmer of hope, looking, looking'¦

   He called Hodges at two in the morning on the Saturday before Election Day. 'Fuck the fraud thing, fuck the Latino question, fuck the WEM connections,' he said enthusiastically. 'I've just found the iceberg that will sink John Gamble.'

[Nomadic]

This is awesome, you had me rooting for Gamble all the way. I can't wait for the rest of it. :)

[Elven Doritos]

The Gamble campaign watched in silence as the new attack ad rolled onto every television screen in party headquarters. 'Meet John Gamble,' an ominous voice chided. 'Gamble likes to say he doesn't have ties to Washington. That's true'"his only political connection is to Vance Shock, a former business partner and convicted domestic terrorist. If you can't trust John Gamble in Arizona, can you gamble on him in Washington?'

   John was furious. He had known Shock briefly in '88, when Shock had represented Gamble in a lawsuit against a rival supermarket, but had hardly been 'business partners' with him. Moreover, Shock had only passed along information that led to the terrorist conviction, an inadvertent act that ended up landing him a sentence for conspiracy to commit terrorism; the entire 'Ties to Terror' ad was a convenient lie wrapped in selectively chosen kernels of truth.

   The campaign was flustered. Since 9/11, even mentioning 'terror' was bound to attract attention, but Gamble had only days to grind against a horrible accusation. Carlock and Deck were already working on getting the ad pulled, but reversing the image of complicity with domestic terrorism would be an uphill battle. With just days to go, Gamble was now on the defensive, and Colden could continue to hammer at false-truths and non-issues and possibly win. A new strategy needed to be formed.

   'Dig through his past,' Gamble instructed campaign workers. 'Look at every last vote he made on the Senate floor. I know we've done this, but do it again. Come up with dirt. Anything honest to throw back at him. And run it by Deck, I'm going to be out working on this terror thing, so Deck is now the man in charge. Get Carlock on the line and tell him we're going to need a transfusion here, we're about to bleed out money.' It was the longest list of direct commandments Gamble had given the entire campaign, and it was the fiercest attack on Colden that he had orchestrated yet.

   For his part, Carlock and the other Arizonian business moguls held up their end of the bargain, pouring money and resources into the anti-Colden and pro-Gamble ads. Media magnate Donald Tornback gave the Gamble campaign fifteen minutes of airtime to clear the domestic terror issue up, and Gallup showed that by Sunday evening, only fifteen percent of voters believed that John Gamble had ties to domestic terrorism. Only three percent said that fact would affect the way they voted.

   The crown jewel of the new attack ads aimed at Colden uncovered the Hodges relationship, one Deck took great pleasure in exposing. Juxtaposing fierce anti-lobbyist rhetoric from Colden's decade of campaign finance reform with the Hodges fixture in the Campaign to Re-Elect machine, the new stump speeches and ads focused on the premise of Gamble's argument against Colden. Colden the Washington Insider, Colden the Corrupt Politician, Colden the Dishonest'"all claims that, just weeks earlier, would have seemed disingenuous, now seemed all too real.

   Colden's response came Monday evening. In a passionate speech at a large university auditorium (a speech that both Hodges and Carlson had been vehemently opposed to), Colden held up his record as a titan of finance reform, a champion of welfare reform, a hawk in the War on Terror, and most importantly, a nemesis of K Street lobbyists, which in turn garnered the hisses and boos of a disbelieving audience. Embittered, embattled, and emboldened, Colden offered full disclosure of the Hodges assets and financial relationship, a rash but savvy move that quieted dissenters. Colden knew that it would be impossible to audit the Hodges affairs in time to affect the election, and was secure in his campaign's actions.

   On Election Day, polls predicted a dead heat, offering a slight tip to Colden that still settled well within the margin of error. Both camps gave their Get Out to Vote initiatives a final push, and did everything in their power to energize their respective bases. When the polls closed, both campaigns sat in tense silence, waiting for some sign of conclusion. Colden ignored calls from Hodges, purportedly asking which color he wanted his office painted. Gamble took a call from Carlock, who promised that Donald Tornback had a glowing editorial written, win or lose. 'We can get a recount,' Carlock eagerly said. 'If that's what it takes.'

   But Gamble refused, wanting to win 'the right way, or not at all.' Then, at midnight, a call came in.

'Thank you,' Gamble said quietly, hanging up the phone. He turned to an expectant crowd of supporters, friends, and family, and cracked a smile. 'Looks like I'm headed to Washington,' he said, looking to Lisa. 'But the store's in good hands.'

On the day of Senatorial inaugurations, Andy Carlock, guest of upshot Senator-elect John Gamble, decided to take a walk down to an old Beltway café he had heard about. He ordered a bottle of water and sat across from a brooding man with a checkerboard and a cold mocha.

'Who are you?' a beleaguered Don Hodges asked.

'Haven't you heard?' Andy Carlock grinned broadly. 'I'm the fucking King of Arizona.'

[Nomadic]

I love it, the end made me laugh so hard. King indeed.

[Elven Doritos]

Thanks for the words of praise. Is it telling that we see far more of Carlson and Hodges than we ever do of Colden?

[Llum]

A great story, nicely done :D

However, personally I found it slightly distasteful, the whole smear campaign and spin garbage. But I guess thats politics in america.

[Elven Doritos]

A great story, nicely done :D

However, personally I found it slightly distasteful, the whole smear campaign and spin garbage. But I guess thats politics in america.

Let me state here and now that this story doesn't represent any of my personal political beliefs, and I find American political tactics to be nauseating on average. Which might be a problem, being a political science major.

But yeah, the smear tactics and the dirty twists and turns are pretty reprehensible, if true to life.

[Nomadic]

A great story, nicely done :D

However, personally I found it slightly distasteful, the whole smear campaign and spin garbage. But I guess thats politics in america.

Let me state here and now that this story doesn't represent any of my personal political beliefs, and I find American political tactics to be nauseating on average. Which might be a problem, being a political science major.

But yeah, the smear tactics and the dirty twists and turns are pretty reprehensible, if true to life.

Yep and I will never vote for anyone who uses such tactics. I would have voted for huckabee had he won since he was adamantly against using them. Of course if you don't use them you won't be voted into the finals. Alas I will probably never vote anybody into office. Just stick with the ballot measures, at least they can't lie and slander (just the idiots fighting over them which I ignore).

Though all of this is why I liked your story, it was so very true.

[Jharviss]

Wow, that was really good! It's been a while since something like this has caught my attention and held me the entire way.  Very clever, very clever my friend!

[LD]

I like how this was put together- good work!

[Magnus Pym]

This is good!