Admit The Horse

by P. G. Abeles

  2008 became the first Ohio election to permit voters to vote absentee without demonstrating need. But most observers didn’t realize either the scope of the numbers or the consequences of the decisions being made by the courts. And the press did little to clarify the stakes involved, either in Ohio, or nationally. But the facts were straightforward enough. Between January and October, more than 666,000 Ohioans registered to vote for the first time or with changes to their registrations. More than 200,000 of those registrants could not be confirmed as residents of Ohio, having provided either a drivers license or social security number that did not match what was in the system.

  Adding to the confusion, out of Ohio’s 88 counties, a statistically improbable 20% of the suspicious registrations came from one county–Cuyahoga—alone. Cuyahoga had long been considered a Democratic stronghold ruled by ward heelers. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was the site of some of SEED’s greatest get-out-the-vote activities. It was also where SEED was currently under investigation for submitting phony registrations in the names of esteemed local county residents: Jive Turkey, Sr., Dick Tracy, Mary Poppins, and Michael Jordan.

  Would the 200,000 unverified votes make a difference? Someone thought so. In 2004, for comparison, the vote differential for the two presidential candidates in Ohio was a modest 118,599 votes.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Washington, DC

  IT WAS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21ST. The election was fourteen days away. Even knowing what she knew, Adelita was still supporting Okono. As an African American and a Democrat, she felt she had no other choice. But she also knew that the information she had provided would be damaging, potentially ruinous, to him as a candidate. And she couldn’t help but be hopelessly conflicted about her obligations to her race versus what she considered her obligation to her country and a democratic process. Should she have said nothing? What if she spoke out after the election? The Republicans, after all, were famous for dirty tricks. Democrats had long justified their own tactics as defensive and imitative. Maybe they were right? She worried. Maybe there was no other way to win? She’d weighed the pros and cons of her decision a million times on many sleepless nights over the last months.

  She had already seen the anger and hate directed at African Americans who had supported McCracken. If she knew any African Americans supporting Malloy, she didn’t know any brave or foolish enough to say so. It was easy enough, Adelita thought, for the white women supporting McCracken—they were voting for Malloy as a protest vote, easily changing their allegiances (albeit temporarily) from the Democrats to the Republicans. But it was a lot easier to change the name of your party than the color of your skin, and she couldn’t help but realize that vilified as the McCracken ‘dead-enders’ were in the press, her actions would be viewed through an even more critical locus.

  Suzanne Saturnino had promised to protect her identity, but Adelita knew she had to be realistic. Did the director know she’d spoken to the Times? The way she had looked at her when Adelita told her she was quitting to take another job, made Adelita wonder. Of course, that might have been paranoia on her part. But they’d figure it out soon enough. There were only a certain number of people who had access to the information she had provided. Conventional wisdom was that giving a whistleblower a high profile was actually a better way to provide for their safety than changing their name and moving them to a new neighborhood. But it also meant standing up to a lot of abuse. Adelita felt she had reason to worry. African American leaders were not so subtly threatening violence if African Americans thought Okono was ‘denied’ through Republican skullduggery. There was a tension in the air she’d never felt before. What would their response be to betrayal by one of their own: an African American who tarnished the golden crown of their presumptive prince?

  On June 9th, Saturnino and the the Amsterdam Times broke the story that Rauschenberg, SEED’s founder, had withheld information from its board of directors for eight years, that his brother Donald had embezzled more than $1 million dollars from the organization in 2000. Tipped off by friends in the media, Ford Rauschenberg had quietly stepped down as CEO a week before. His brother Donald —who inexplicably was still employed by the organization eight years after the discovery of his crime— left the same day.

  Outraged board members demanded a forensic audit. Rauschenberg’s chosen successor as CEO, Yolanda Jones, refused. Rauschenberg’s influence persisted. When eight SEED board members insisted on the audit, Rauschenberg engineered their removal. In August, the former board members filed suit to obtain access to SEED’s financials. SEED counter-sued. To defuse the matter publicly, the press was told that in future, Rauschenberg would run SEED’s international operations. But since no one really knew what SEED’s international operations were, his role remained a mystery. One thing was clear—he was raising lots of overseas money for something.

  Not that Rauschenberg really needed to, Adelita thought. If the money SEED was raising overseas was for Okono, Rauschenberg had already more than done his part, and not just through SEED and its hundreds of affiliates. Less well-known than Rauschenberg’s involvement with SEED was his founding of the largest and fastest growing union in the country, Service Workers International—with members ranging from janitors to doctors. SWI had contributed more than $33 million outright to Okono. The Republicans were floored. To put it in perspective: fully 38% of the money the Republican Joe Malloy received in total by agreeing to accept public funding had been contributed to Okono by a single donor.

  Adelita’s cell phone rang. She was so anxious that she nearly dropped it. Suzanne Saturnino had told her the story about SEED was about to run. The individual state cases against SEED were starting to heat up, the evidence becoming so overwhelming that even the mainstream press was beginning to cover it. The Times had been investigating for a month, and Saturnino was certain her editors wouldn’t risk being scooped on a such a big story. Typically, the Okono campaign had gone on the offensive claiming on a section on their website entitled “Fight the Smears” that Okono had never worked for SEED. His community organizing had been with an organization called Power Vote, they claimed—but, apparently, the communication between SEED and the Okono campaign had suffered a breakdown from their formerly free and easy exchanges, because a quick web search of SEED’s website pulled up a link to their affiliate, Power Vote.

  Moreover, the states’ attorneys general had now been gathering evidence for months—they had a complete list of SEED’s various names: Power Vote chief among them. Embarrassingly (although not for the Okono campaign, who refused to acknowledge its existence, even petulantly chiding reporters with the temerity to insist) there emerged a photograph of Okono at the blackboard teaching a “Power Training” course for SEED. The woman listening to him eagerly in the foreground was wearing a SEED T-shirt. Internet sleuths soon found an article posted on a SEED subsidiary website where the director of the Chicago SEED talked glowingly about the annual courses Okono had taught for SEED since 1994. Putting one more nail in the coffin, she proudly noted the get-out-the-vote assistance the supposedly non-partisan group had provided Okono in all of his campaigns.

  “Hello?”

  It was the daycare run by a woman from her church. Oh, shit, literally. The baby had had the proverbial scatological “accident.” Adelita needed to bring an extra set of clothes with her when she came to pick her up.

  “There’s nothing in the diaper bag?” Adelita asked. “No, they’d used those last week,” they said. Now Adelita remembered, she’d meant to replace the extra clothes. With so much else on her mind, she’d been distracted. Damn. She’d have to run home early and get the baby’s clothes if she wanted to get to the daycare before she started wracking up overtime charges—a usurious $10 a minute that ensured parents took their responsibility to be on-time very seriously —or paid the consequences.

  “Okay, no problem.”

  Except with rush hour in D.C., that assurance was more hopeful than real. But, Adelita thought, there was a
chance. She found her manager and quickly explained the situation. He was a good guy, with young children of his own. “Go,” he said, laughing.

  Rush hour in D.C. is never pretty, but she was lucky and made good time. She darted up the stairs to her apartment, grabbed a onesie, a few diapers, and a light jacket for the baby and was back in the car in less than five minutes. Traffic was blessedly moving. She got to the daycare with two minutes to spare.

  In all the confusion of other parents arriving to pick up their kids, Adelita spoke briefly to the daycare operator, who gestured her over to the corner with a smile. This was the moment Adelita looked forward to all day, the moment that made all the juggling and the uncertainty and the exhaustion worthwhile. The baby sat on the carpet in her diaper playing with some brilliantly colored plastic blocks. Teesha’s beautiful face lit up when she saw her mother. I am so lucky, Adelita thought, not for the first time, picking up her delighted daughter. Adelita took her over to the changing table and from long practice had her in the onesie and out the door in minutes. As she was strapping Teesha into the car seat, her phone rang again.

  “Adelita?”

  The baby was babbling happily in the background.

  “Yes?” Distracted by the baby, for a second, Adelita couldn’t place the voice

  “It’s Suzanne. Suzanne Saturnino.” Her voice sounded grave, unlike her usual business-like friendliness.

  “Oh. Hey. Hi, Suzanne.”

  There was a pause.

  “Are you calling to prepare me? Is it coming out tomorrow?”

  “No…ah…not tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Adelita waited. Suzanne sounded stressed, unhappy.

  “I guess they can’t wait much longer though, right?”

  “They’re not going to run it,” Suzanne blurted out.

  Adelita was stunned, unbelieving. “What? You mean, not ever?”

  “I don’t know.” Suzanne’s voice was quiet, depressed.

  “They killed the story. They’re reassigning me.”

  “What?” Adelita was in shock. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  She paused: “I mean, I thought you said you got all the corroboration you needed. You said it was ironclad…”

  “I know,” Suzanne replied, “I know what I said. It was, it is. They just decided not to run it.”

  “But why? I mean this is significant! This is subversion of our democracy! This is a huge story!”

  “I know,” Suzanne answered, “I guess…” Saturnino paused, “too huge. It’s not just the caucus fraud and voter registration fraud—it’s the economic angle.”

  “Because of SEED’s links to Fannie Mae?” asked Adelita.

  “Right,” Suzanne replied “It totally ties Okono to the collapse of the banks, everything.”

  There was silence on both ends. Finally, Suzanne spoke.

  “They’re afraid it’s a game changer.”

  “What?” Adelita wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly. The baby was still gurgling happily in the background. Adelita could hear Suzanne swallowing hard.

  “That’s what they said. A game changer. They’re afraid if they run the story, Okono will lose.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  November, 2008

  Chicago, Illinois

  AS HARRISON SURVEYED THE CROWD, patiently waiting at security checkpoints to be admitted to McClellan Park, he was struck by the atmosphere. The crowd was jubilant, celebratory—they’d backed a winner and they knew it. Chicago Transit Authority and Metra had announced that extra buses and trains would be available to bring people to and from the event. No one would be stranded on this night. Stations would remain open and trains would continue to run past the usual 1:00 a.m. closing, for as long as they were needed.

  Organizers announced people would start to be admitted through the Park’s Congressional Parkway and Michigan Avenue entrance at 8:30 p.m. Central time. Ticket holders, advised by an email from the Okono campaign, were instructed to bring their ticket and a photo I.D. No chairs, strollers, coolers, or large bags were allowed. Alcohol was strictly prohibited. Ticket-holding parents could bring children if they could carry them. But the era of equality had not yet arrived in McClellan Park. Those with a ticket would see Okono appear, in person—the architectural splendor of the Greco-Roman Field Museum his Olympian backdrop. There were more practical advantages as well: ticket holders could warm themselves by buying hot dogs, pizza, and hot chocolate on the freezing cold night. In contrast, people without tickets (the overwhelming majority) could only watch the broadcast on the Jumbotron at Butler Field. Only half-frozen bottled water was available for their purchase.

  Whatever the inequalities, Harrison surveyed the set-up with approval. Security was tight. The stage was shaped like a rounded T. Along the back were rows upon rows of American flags (exactly as they had been arranged when Okono “separated” from The Minister, he reflected). Protective bulletproof glass surrounded the podium and the Chicago P.D. was prepared for any contingency. If the worst happened (carefully undefined by the chief, but widely assumed to be violence or terrorist attack) all exits to the park would be immediately opened. There had been generic talk of ‘backlash’ by the Okono campaign if Okono didn’t win. Perhaps prophylactically, the C.P.D. put out a press release that they were prepared for crowd control—and, in the event Okono lost, dealing with tens of thousand of disappointed, potentially angry, supporters.

  Harrison noticed the crowd was not dissimilar from the average population downtown: students, young professionals and African Americans of every age—except perhaps for a higher percentage of nose piercings. The crowd was enormous—estimates put it as high as 250,000, more in the overflow areas. Everyone was standing shoulder-to-shoulder. A huge portrait of Okono dominated the overflow area, towering 24 feet tall. Some joked that the uniform for the night was an American flag, an Okono pin, and a cell phone. Many proudly displayed “Okono-art”—cut-outs, pins, buttons, T-shirts and hats. A man, walking arm in arm with a friend and wearing a sweatshirt supporting gay rights, sported a red, white, and blue feather boa and a tinsel Statue of Liberty crown. A poor, middle-aged woman wore one of hundreds of pairs of Okono sunglasses—the candidate’s name spelled out in plastic directly in front of her iris. Apparently, it didn’t matter that she couldn’t see; after all, she wasn’t going anywhere. They all somehow negotiated miles of yellow police barricades and row upon row of porta potties lined up like bright blue soldiers. There was literally a city of white tents. Vendors hawked Okono paraphernalia of every description—most with a proud inscription “I was there/Okono Victory Night.”

  Experiencing first-hand the crowd’s euphoria, Harrison recognized that this was no run-of-the-mill political rally. They idolized this man, Harrison realized. Over the last few months, Harrison had kept in touch with Connor Murphy. Murphy had been filling him in on his own investigations regarding Congresswoman Carter and Joey Ali. But, Harrison thought ruefully to himself, it wasn’t as if Murphy needed to tell him. He’d been a cop a long time. He could fit together pieces of a puzzle as well as any cop out there. When someone threatened someone powerful and he or she died—all of a sudden—violently, out of the blue? Well, let’s just say—maybe Okono got lucky or maybe he made his own luck. But, for Harrison, the tipping point had been Orchard Park. Orchard Park had made him ill. Because Okono wasn’t just gaming the system, he was taking advantage of people he was obligated to protect. Reverend John was right: those tax credits were made available primarily to minority-owned businesses, not just to give some black people a leg up, but because it was assumed they’d have the most sense of responsibility to their own community. What Okono had done was worse than a sham, it was a violation—it was rape.

  The news organization’s trailers were corralled along Columbus Drive like steers in a kill-pen, a nice, orderly, straight line; their enormous satellite dishes open to the sky like white flowers from a land of giants—stamens facing the sun.

  As promised, t
he gates opened at 8:30 p.m. Central time. As the crowds waited to hear the election returns, thousands of windows in skyscrapers behind them glowed with light. One building’s lights created a pattern: “USA,” it said. People were prepared for a long night; the networks were predicting a nail-biter. The Okono campaign was calm, cool, not worried, they said.

  At 8:54 p.m. the first returns started coming in, flashed on the huge screens tuned to MSNBC. Okono won Pennsylvania, not totally unexpected, but a hard loss for Malloy. When a few minutes later, the networks called Ohio for Okono (surprising, given the Okono campaign’s own polling in the state, which showed Malloy with a slight lead), the race was effectively over. When Virginia swung into the blue column 20 minutes later, any suspense was over. By 10:00 p.m., the networks all simultaneously proclaimed Okono the winner: president-elect.

  The crowd was ecstatic. Tears coursed down many faces. People jumped up and down and hugged each other in happiness and relief. There would be no violence, no demonstrations. The Republicans, who over the past eight years had shamed themselves by their convulsive, vise-like grip on power, seemed resigned, this time, to let it go.

  At 11:00 p.m., Malloy made the obligatory call to congratulate his opponent and concede the election. Whether there were irregularities in the voting in Ohio as rumored, Malloy gave no hint of any hesitation. What discussions he had with his senior staff about the role of SEED or others could only be guessed at.