by Jason Heller
Craig broke into a huge smile, the look of a trapper who hears the jaws snap shut. She put her elbows on her desk and rested her chin on her hands. “And what if I told you, Mr. President, that you are not alone?”
She nodded almost invisibly toward one of the stagehands. A previously dark monitor, as Susan had called it during their preparation, flared to life. It split suddenly into a square of four images, shifting rapidly from scene to scene.
Each showed a small crowd—in a bar, in a living room, in a church—clad in shirts and baseball caps, holding banners and pennants, chanting loudly. Their refrain matched the single word that adorned all their paraphernalia, and it resounded from the monitor and seemed to be picked up by the in-studio audience. A low rumble began to bubble through the air as if a geyser were about to blow: Taft. Taft. Taft.
“What you’re looking at, Mr. President, is breaking news. A Raw Talk exclusive. Our investigators have uncovered these groups—small, grassroots, spontaneous—that have sprung up across this great nation of ours, and they’ve gathered in dozens of spots today to watch this historic broadcast. Your coming out, as it were. They’re just beginning to blog and network, and they seem to come from all walks of life and political viewpoints. But they have one thing in common: They want a new direction. They want a return to values and tradition. They want new leadership, one driven by reasonable common sense rather than ego or ideology.”
Her voice swelled to a crescendo just as the audience broke into a raucous applause.
“In short, they want you.”
Taft slumped in his tight-fitting chair, dumbfounded. This was not what he’d seen coming. Pauline Craig, on his side? He wasn’t even sure he was on his side. But he couldn’t deny the wash of emotion and adulation that poured over him, how alive it made him feel, even as a corner of his soul screamed out in panic and protest.
“President Taft,” she announced as the monitor flashed image after image of cheering, fist-pumping Americans, “meet the Taft Party.”
TAFT HAD ENDURED greased fingertips and frigid implements inserted into unmentionable places during the battery of medical examinations that followed his reawakening. It had been less than pleasant. None of those intrusions, however, compared to the anguish and indignity of the cameras.
Outside the exit of the television studio had assembled reporters in multitude, a babbling gaggle of ravenous interrogators with a battalion of cameras in tow. They yelled. They cajoled. They pleaded and promised and persisted. Some even threatened. As they did so, the inhuman lenses bore down on him like the sinister, waving eyestalks of some invader conjured by H. G. Wells. The evening air was cold, and a light snow had begun to whirl through the Manhattan twilight. In simpler times, Taft might have been swept up in poetic reverie, just watching it fall, his mind whisked far away from his worries. Tonight, though, his worries were being distorted, reflected back at him, and shoved into his face.
“Mr. Taft, did you know about the Taft Party? Is this all a stunt?”
“Are you announcing your candidacy?”
“What will you tell the GOP?”
“Have you looked into the legality of the situation?”
“Do you really think your politics are pertinent to America today?”
“How big is this Taft Party, and who’s running it?”
“How does the congresswoman factor into your plans?”
“How is your health holding up? Are you on any diets?”
“What about your sex life?”
Taft wanted to roar, to somehow clear this rabble before him like rubbish in the face of a hurricane. But all he could think about was Susan standing behind him, taking shelter from the onslaught of light and heat and questions.
Before he could collect his wits, Kowalczyk was there. Within moments, a contingent of dark-suited Secret Service agents had cleared a path through the reporters. Four of them, led by Kowalczyk, flanked Taft and Susan and hustled them through the throng toward their nondescript sedan. “Everything’s under control,” he yelled, although his voice bore the slightest edge of distress.
They were halfway through the mob of reporters—all of them now baying in protest at being held back from their prey—when a raucous sound like a crashing surf pounded against them.
Those on Taft’s left turned to look behind them. Placards and sandwich boards could be glimpsed among a new, rowdy mass of people descending on the reporters from the nearby parking lot. In the movement and confusion, it was hard to read the signs, but one word, writ large on all, was easy to discern:
TAFT.
Kowalczyk shouted into his headset, but it was no use. Bodies were jostled and epithets hurled, and seconds later the reporters were in a pitched, rabid melee with the Taft supporters. Kowalczyk and his agents pushed through, and, after many nudges to his posterior and elbows to his midsection, Taft was shoved into the open door of the sedan.
“Where’s Susan?” he yelled at Kowalczyk, who was fighting to clear the are of flailing limbs so that he could close the door.
“Susan?” A flash of alarm crossed his face. “I thought she was in front of you.”
“Kowalczyk! She must still be out there!” Taft grunted and strained to haul himself back out of the car.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’ll find her. Stay put.”
“The hell I will.” Exhaling deeply as if emptying his lungs would help him fit through the door, Taft lunged past Kowalczyk, who was nearly bowled over by the swift mass flying past. He could hear the agent hollering in outrage behind him as he ducked his head and plowed forward into the writhing, shouting riot.
Any number of grievances had ignited riots in Taft’s time: labor, temperance, the threat of war. But as far as he’d known, no one had ever rioted over him. He tried to bury the pangs of guilt within his breast as he crashed into the crowd, letting his weight and inertia do most of the work.
As he did, he shouted for Susan.
His voice was swallowed by the mad crush. He couldn’t tell how much fighting was going on; it seemed there were more arguments and pandemonium than actual fisticuffs, although he did notice a fair share of those as well. Occasionally, a startled face, wide with recognition, would catch sight of him, but he paid them no heed and moved forward as boldly as a locomotive.
Then, through the parted legs of a rioter whacking a cameraman with his sign—TAFT 2012!!! it screamed in huge hand-painted letters—he saw her.
Susan lay limp on the grass, her head rolling from side to side. He often forgot how petite she was, and she had never seemed as tiny and fragile as she did now. She was trying to avoid the stamp of feet that hammered all around, but he could see traces of blood on her arms and forehead.
Taft had always been big boned, even as a boy. When he’d grown to adulthood and assumed public office, much was made of his size. But he’d been an athletic youth, and the strength he’d cultivated in his adolescence had never left. That strength came surging back into his limbs as he knifed through the crowd now, throwing aside reporters, protesters, and agents like rag dolls. Nothing stood in his way. He didn’t take his eyes off Susan until he’d reached her and picked her up effortlessly in his arms.
“Bill?” It was the first time, Taft realized, that she’d called him by his first name. Her eyes fluttered. She was clearly dazed, although Taft noted with a heave of relief that she had only one small cut on her face that accounted for the blood he’d seen. “Bill, did you see them? Their signs? I have to get this down. I have to …”
Her body lost what little tension remained. She slipped into unconsciousness.
William Howard Taft raised his great, jowled, whiskered face to the heavens and howled.
“Enough!” His voice thundered across the lot and echoed off the walls of the studio and nearby buildings, amplified by years of making speeches to large assemblies without the aid of electricity or microphones. “I said: ENOUGH!”
Taft was shocked by his own booming authority. His was the v
oice of a man righteously outraged, a human being in full possession of his faculties—in short, a president.
It took only a second for the mob to cease and still, stricken by awe. The few remaining pockets of conflict were squelched by those standing nearby. They all turned to look for the source of that voice.
There stood Taft, the prostrate form of Susan Weschler gathered in his arms, snowflakes falling around him and sticking to his quivering mustache, a sight both slightly comical and terrifyingly elemental.
Just then, approaching from a distance, sirens began to wail.
The Washington Post
Dec. 8, 2011
NEW YORK CITY—A new political movement made a turbulent debut last night as crowds of people bearing signs proclaiming support for a group called the Taft Party mobbed the streets outside the studio of Raw Talk with Pauline Craig, where former president William Howard Taft had just been interviewed in a live television broadcast. The raucous crowd, which police estimated at approximately two hundred, sent five people to New York Presbyterian Hospital with minor injuries and damaged camera equipment of several network news crews.
A spokesperson for Congresswoman Rachel Taft’s office stated that the Taft Party is not affiliated with the congresswoman or William Howard Taft, her great-grandfather. She confirmed that William Howard Taft’s chief aide, Susan Weschler, was among those treated and released from the hospital last night.
Demonstrators described the Taft Party as a loose grassroots coalition of concerned citizens seeking to recapture a more civilized era of American democracy.
“We were just there to root for Taft,” said Brian Talley, a grocer from Virginia. “It was some jerk rent-a-cop who started pushing and shoving, not the Tafties. We came in peace but, man, don’t tread on us.”
As the demonstration descended into chaos, former president Taft refused to take shelter behind his Secret Service detail, leaping into the thick of the confusion to assist his aide, who was knocked briefly unconscious. Taft’s quick move to the center of the throng, where he called for order, was credited by many as the deciding factor in restoring peace.
“He was like an action hero,” said Dee Anderson, a librarian from New Jersey and Taft Party demonstrator. “I had no idea such a big man could move so fast. What’s that saying—that a president should speak softly and carry a big stick? With Taft it was more along the lines of, boom like a giant and you won’t have to bother with the stick.”
The Taft Party United Support Association
About Us
MISSION STATEMENT
The Taft Party came together in fall 2011 in response to the reappearance of former president William Howard Taft, which served as a clarion call to all Americans, reminding us that politics in the United States once attracted a more sensible, more decorous class of participant—and must do so again. Our mission is to gather, inform, organize, and motivate our fellow Americans to achieve a higher quality of political representation across the ideological spectrum in the 2012 election and beyond.
CORE VALUES
1. Common Sense National Policy (read more)
2. Equitable Treatment of Citizens (read more)
3. Care for the Future Shaped by the Past (read more)
EVENTS
New Year’s Eve rallies—Dec. 31, 2011
Primary protests—February–March 2012
Taft Party National Convention—July 12–15, 2012
REGIONAL TAFT PARTY BLOGS & GROUPS
Mid-Atlantic—coordinator: Allen Holtz, [email protected]
Midwest—coordinator: Frank Lommel, [email protected]
South—coordinator: Rev. Todd Osborne, [email protected]
Southwest—coordinator: Linda Beach, [email protected]
Northwest—coordinator: Matt Shelby, [email protected]
New England—coordinator: Victoria Eldridge, [email protected]
MORE INFO
About William Howard Taft—taft2012.com/taft
How to participate—taft2012.com/community
Signs, buttons, shirts & more—taft2012.com/store
Support the Taft Party USA—taft2012.com/donate
TWELVE
“Taft Party? How can they presume to call themselves the Taft Party when we are the Tafts?”
Taft fidgeted furiously in the middle seat of Rachel’s van, wishing by all that was holy that a ham sandwich were to be had as they drove down the highway back to D.C. Susan dozed in the back seat while, up front, Rachel poked intensely at her phone.
“Grandpa,” she said, “I think you might be surprised by some of these blogs. I mean, I don’t agree with everything they’re saying, but they seem sincere. Some of them, well, they almost make sense.”
“How so?”
“Well, some of these people are just disgruntled voters looking for something new to rally around, but some of them sound like they’ve really studied your administration. I’m not the expert that Susan is on the fine points of all your old issues and policies, but it looks to me like a bunch of these Tafties know their stuff. God, I can’t believe they call themselves Tafties.”
Taft scowled harder. “And what does my administration have to do with anything America worries about in this day and age? I had no policy positions on your trillion-dollar national debt, on your nuclear and chemical warfare, on regulating your seven hundred broadcasting channels of television and Internet and cell phones and God only knows what else I don’t know about yet.”
“No,” said Rachel, looking over her shoulder, “but these people know you. I mean, obviously they don’t know you, but I’m kind of impressed at how thoroughly they’re trying.” She stared at the screen on her phone. “It looks like they’re skipping over a lot of the more controversial things from your presidency, over the points that are a little too dated to translate well today. But the gist of it is there: conservative yet forward-thinking, pro-business yet proregulation, principled yet open to compromise. It’s like America has been led to believe for so long that these are polarized ideas, ones that can’t possibly be reconciled, let alone work better together.
“And now here you come,” she went on, turning back to the highway, “straight from a time before this whole empty rhetoric of ‘bipartisanship’ we’ve all overused to the point of being meaningless. They all see something to admire in you. This woman in Florida likes that you were a thoughtful governor of the Philippines … this lawyer in South Carolina admires your negotiation skills, your dedication to diplomacy as the means to world peace … this coal miner in Wyoming, uh, seems to respect that you’re, quote, not afraid to stand big and proud in your resplendent girth in defiance of the impossible Hollywood standard, unquote. Whatever it is, they’re all talking about your return as being the next great inspirational force in grassroots politics. A true icon of the American people. A legacy that should inspire political action today.”
Taft lowered his voice to avoid waking Susan; the last thing he needed was her jumping into the conversation with an opinion on his icon-hood. “Rachel, forgive me for being cynical, but that all sounds a little too good to be true. Did you not three weeks ago tell me that I spent my century of absence being scarcely remembered as the wretched, irrelevant laughingstock of presidential history?”
“I know. It’s turned around on a dime. It’s bizarre. And yet, right there, what you just did a second ago—that’s the other thing: that self-deprecation of yours. These Tafties love it. All those times when you were in office and you spoke openly to the press about how reluctant you were to hold the presidency, how you couldn’t wait to leave it and get back to just being a judge again. Back then, all that talk was probably political suicide on the installment plan. Never mind ‘probably’; it was.
“But in hindsight? From the perspective of people today who have to put up with the twenty-four-hour news networks forcing never-ending political campaigns down our throat for three and a half out of every four years? You’re the most refreshing thing an
y of these bloggers have ever heard of. A president who doesn’t lust for power, or covet it once he has it. Grandpa, it may be a hundred years too late to do you the political good you needed, but, here and now, you’ve really connected.”
Taft wondered if, perhaps, he might find that prospect more comforting if he could grasp any of that connection himself. He peered out the van’s tinted window at this teeming, overbuilt, new America that flashed by. For, as things stood, his own space in this gigantically overwhelming new world still felt … small. Laughably, impossibly small.
Dec. 22, 2011
Dear President Taft,
It is an honor, sir, to wish a Merry Christmas—and, indeed, a Joyous Resurrection—to a long-lost fellow Bonesman. Few are the fraternities of men given the opportunity to see one of their own restored to vitality after what must surely be considered a period of true death! Were we not so humble as we are, surely we must now consider Skull and Bones to have entered an august circle of divine institutions that also includes Christianity itself.
Naturally, you are engaged in your own pursuits. Know, regardless, that you are once again considered a treasured elder brother of this proud society, and that the comforts and community of the Skull and Bones Tomb remain at your disposal whenever you may choose to take advantage.
You represent both Yale and the Bonesmen mightily, sir, and from the freshest undergraduates to the most seasoned alumni, we remain—
Yours,
The men of Skull and Bones 322
THIRTEEN
William Howard Taft had been a son, a husband, and a father; he had been a scholarly student and a robust athlete; he had been a horseback rider and an automobile driver and an enthusiastic solver of logic puzzles. But as he spoke on the telephone with Irene Kaye, a woman who had once been fifty years his junior and was now fifty years his senior, he realized just how long it had been since he’d been in a position to just ask a grandma for some kindly advice.