Vote for Larry

by Janet Tashjian

  “What’s the matter?”

  She sucked on a strand of her hair. “I’m not sure. I think that was too much information.”

  “People need information to make an informed decision.”

  “Just because you’re an information junkie doesn’t mean the rest of us are. Anyway, it seemed like you were losing a few of them, that’s all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The campaign is supposed to be geared toward kids who are voting for the first time and you’re spewing statistics and percentages. Let’s face it—those numbers are boring.”

  “What, you think most people are too focused on their own lives to care about any of this?”

  “It’s just that I was watching these kids up front. They were smiling; they were cheering. Then I saw you lose them. Saw the passion drain from their eyes right in front of me.”

  “Maybe it’s me,” I said. “Maybe I’m a bad speaker. I probably should have stayed in my basement, grinding out sermons anonymously.”

  “It’s hard. How do you take what we care about and make it palatable for everyone?”

  I tried to control the edginess in my voice. “It isn’t palatable, most of it sucks. And no one will be motivated to change things unless they hear about it!”

  She leaned against the wall again, this time sliding down till she was sitting on the floor. “It just sounds so dry. I don’t know if there’s any way around it.”

  Janine found us in the hall and jumped into my arms. “You were great. There are over four hundred kids registering to vote right now.”

  Beth smiled and bounded down the hall. “But then again I could be wrong.”

  Peter called to say he was now making three bank trips a week to deposit the rolls of pennies from the barrels we’d set up at the mom-and-pop stores across New England. We discussed our strategy for going nationwide with our fund-raising.

  “We might even have enough to run a local ad or two,” he said.

  “Really? That would make up for the fact that most people in America still don’t even know we’re running.” (Christina Aguilera’s new video was getting more media attention than our presidential campaign.)

  “Have you seen the Web site?” Peter asked. “Some kid came up with the idea of your supporters spending a dollar on a lottery ticket and sending it to campaign headquarters for you to scratch. If it’s a winner, you keep the money for your campaign, no strings attached.”

  “I’m against lottery tickets,” I said. “They’re just another way to keep poor people hoping their luck will change. The government sells gambling instead of putting effective programs into place.”

  “Well this kid started a trend, and it’s spreading like wildfire. I scratched thirty-nine tickets today.”

  I put my hands over my ears to block them. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know.”

  I had to care about money; we needed it to get our message out. All the fund-raisers we’d had and pennies we’d collected added up to more than thirty thousand dollars, which we’d stretched as far as we could. It was a far cry from the billion dollars the Democrats and Republicans had spent last election, but I still felt guilty about it.

  That night back in Janine’s apartment as I sat on the floor playing with Brady, waves of doubt kept me from sleeping.

  Who was I to be hawking a better way? I did a great job of listing our government’s faults, but could I do any better? One day of tough decision-making might send me racing for the Oval Exit. Was I in too deep this time, even for me? The tug-of-war I played with Brady couldn’t compare to the one going on inside my head.

  Over the next few weeks, my “opponents” turned up the volume on disparaging my candidacy. President Bush said I was wasting my time, as well as the time of the voters. Senator Kerry said he admired my environmental stand, but my lack of political experience made me woefully inadequate for the job. Howard Dean agreed that campaign finance reform was one of the biggest issues facing us today, but he thought my ideas on the subject were naive. Ralph Nader called me to brainstorm about grassroots fund-raising, then wished me luck.

  We hooked up with , which ran our touring schedule on their Web site. They were committed to increasing teen registration too and were happy to endorse our philosophy.

  Lisa had scheduled spots with several call-in radio shows. We talked with listeners about corporate welfare and violence in the schools. Most of the people who called in were thoughtful and made good arguments for their positions.

  The producer put through the final call.

  “I know why you’re doing this,” the caller said.

  I recognized the voice immediately.

  “You just love being the center of attention, don’t you?” betagold asked.

  “Actually,” I answered, “I’d much prefer to be left alone. I’m speaking out because I think the average person’s concerns aren’t being addressed.”

  Beth made a “cut” motion at her neck, telling the producer to stop the call. I shook my head; let betagold speak.

  “You can’t win,” she said. “Even if you were thirty-five, you wouldn’t get enough votes.”

  “Our current president didn’t get enough votes either. Who knows?”

  “Your views are un-American,” she said. “We need to stand behind our government, not criticize it.”

  “Since when is exercising your right to free speech considered un-American?” I asked. “It’s so important, it’s the first amendment they wrote. Can’t get more apple pie than that.”

  “You have no idea what goes on in Washington,” she said. “There are policies and decisions you know nothing about. Your opinions are superficial.”

  I wanted to tell her that in my doubting moments I agreed with her. “People always say that when kids throw in their two cents,” I finally answered. “It’s all about wanting us to keep our mouths shut.”

  Betagold’s voice was barely a whisper. “You’re only going to get hurt.”

  Beth rolled her chair toward the mike. “Are you threatening us?”

  “There are worse things than violence,” betagold answered. “You’ll see.”

  The dial tone hummed into the studio.

  When the producer went to commercial, Beth yanked off her headset. “This isn’t funny,” she said. “I don’t trust her.”

  “Yeah, I’m real worried one senior citizen is going to derail our campaign.”

  “You’re forgetting how long she tracked you down. Finding you was her full-time job. You shouldn’t underestimate how much she wants to ruin this for you.”

  “She’s not violent,” I said. “She just wants to be heard.”

  “Well, I’m calling my cousin Tony and beefing up security. I want to go over every detail of our itinerary and make sure there are no loose ends.”

  “Susie and Tony have it covered,” I said. “But knock yourself out.”

  Beth looked at me with so much feeling, I nearly burst. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I already lost you once. I can’t lose you again.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” As I was just about to try my luck and kiss her, my cell rang.59

  “Our entire system crashed,” Peter shouted. “The Web site, the lists of volunteers, our travel schedute—all of it.”

  I asked him how that could have happened since I’d loaded the security software onto the system myself.

  “Somebody hacked on with some kind of virus. Tim was at the terminal when a red peace sign came up and just exploded like an atomic cloud with this demonic laugh. The guy’s in a frenzy trying to figure out what happened. We might have to start from scratch.”

  I hung up and told Beth the news.

  “It’s not like betagold didn’t warn us,” she said.

  “If she’s behind it.”

  “Like anyone else cares enough to bother?”

  When I called Janine in Boulder that night, she insisted on flying to Boston to help Tim re-enter the data.60 I put
her on speakerphone with Tim to assess the damage.

  “This is information assassination,” Janine said. “It’ll cost us weeks.”

  “The system is completely fragged,” Tim said. “I tried to kluge it the best I can, but it’s gone.”

  “Wormhole?”

  “Yup—I nearly dumped core when I found it.”

  I swallowed the familiar feeling of paranoia tinged with fear, then reminded myself I was running for office on a NON-FEAR platform.

  I kept coming back to a favorite biology textbook. There was a section on rhizomes, plants that spread an elaborate, interlocking root system underground.61 Then suddenly—wham!—new plants sprout up all over the place, connected by roots you didn’t even know were there. I thought about our headquarters back in Boston with dozens of people working so hard and hoped all this backbreaking effort would result in a strong, vital network that would spread and blossom sometime soon.

  ELECTION COUNTDOWN

  MARCH 2: THE MASSACHUSETTS PRIMARY

  We wound our way back to Boston, weary from more than a month on the road. President Bush had his party’s nomination wrapped up, while the Democrats continued to duke it out in the primaries. Thankfully, because I was the only Peace Party candidate, we didn’t have to implement a primary strategy

  We had just finished a rousing three-hour service in a Baptist church in Hartford when Peter called.

  “Are you sitting down?” he asked.

  “No, I’m pacing around outside like a madman. This gospel music rocks.”

  “Four point three million dollars,” he said.

  I sat on the curb. “What are you talking about?”

  “A Powerball ticket a kid from Tucson sent in. You won.”

  I felt the schism begin inside me, between the need for campaign funds and my own anti-materialism. “I can’t accept it,” I said.

  “It was a donation,” Peter said. “No special interests to serve.”

  “I know, but still …”

  “Paid out from the Lottery Commission. The state government will be paying you to compete against the feds. Don’t you love the irony?”

  Peter knew what he was doing; pitching the subversiveness of the situation definitely made the whole thing easier to digest.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s kick around some ideas.”

  “Are you nuts?” Peter shouted. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these months? Check out your laptop; I’ll download some clips. We can blitz Massachusetts for the rest of the week.”

  “I don’t care about the primaries,” I said. “They’re for the Democrats.”

  “Trust me on this, okay?”

  I hung up and called Beth and Simon to the back of the church.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God,” Beth said when I told her the news. “The campaign can finally get some attention.”

  “This changes everything,” Simon said. “We can afford polls and—”

  “No polls. I just want people to hear where we stand on the issues, not see where I rank in some rigged popularity contest.”

  The video clip filled the screen of my laptop. Republicans shaking hands with oil company executives cashing in lucrative Iraqi contracts. Democrats and CEOs making deals on a golf course. Lobbyists racing from office to congressional office. The montage of these heavy-hitters was crosscut with images of overcrowded classrooms, cleaning ladies, factory workers, poverty-stricken children. The whole commercial was set to the song “Money.”

  “I love it,” Simon said. “As long as we don’t have to pay Pink Floyd for the rights.”

  I scrolled through Peter’s e-mail. “It says here they donated them.”

  “Good job on Peter’s part,” Beth said.

  “Looks like Janine negotiated it.”

  It was almost fun to watch Beth struggle to keep the smile on her face.

  Simon asked when we could run the ad.

  “Peter wants to line one up for tonight. Then five times a day all week.”

  Simon packed up his things. “We can visit a lot of cities between now and Tuesday.”

  Beth still wasn’t sold. “We’ve got nothing to win in the primary.”

  “More like nothing to lose,” I said.62

  “Four point three million dollars.” Beth whistled. “Do you know how many people that could feed? Or cover with health insurance?”

  “Spreading the news about government inadequacy is part of the solution too,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  When we saw the commercial during the local news that night in Northampton, we screamed so loudly I expected the motel owner to come pounding on the door. The next day we hit the road even earlier than usual, visiting schools, hospitals, grocery stores, and pizza parlors. We still weren’t getting any press, but we met a lot of great people.

  The night of the primaries, we stopped by as many voting spots as physically possible in one day. From Somerville to Billerica to Leominster to Hingham, we shook hands and answered questions while hundreds of our supporters stood in the cold winter air holding signs.

  It was almost ten at night by the time we left for headquarters. Simon had one of those battery-operated TVs tuned in to the returns.

  “Shhhh!” he yelled as the lead story kicked in.

  The airbrushed newsman gushed about the state’s voter turnout, the highest in seventy-five years.

  “Forty-three percent!” Simon shouted.

  As if the news anchor had heard us, he continued. “Equally amazing is the turnout of voters aged eighteen to twenty-four. A whopping 54 percent.”

  “That’s almost twice as many young people voting as the last presidential election!” Beth said. “And primaries are always much less.”

  “Tallies are still coming in, but—hold on to your hats, folks—underage local candidate ‘Larry’ Swensen has walked away with 12 percent of the vote! It’s not his primary, but a nice percentage of voters wrote him in anyway!”

  Someone might as well have thrown a match into the gas tank, because the bus exploded.63

  “You’re news now,” Simon said.

  “This is incredible,” Beth screamed.

  The image of the rhizome flashed into my head. The fruits of our labor might actually be taking hold.

  “It’s too bad it took so much money to get us this far,” I said.

  Simon barely contained his disdain. “Of course it takes money—is that just dawning on you now?”

  Beth tried to ease the tension. “It’ll cost some money, but not nearly as much as the other candidates are spending.”

  I nodded, knowing she was right.

  The clamor in the bus was so deafening, I barely heard my cell ring. I waved my hands to quiet everyone. “Peter? You did it!” I shouted.

  “Not only that,” Peter said. “We got the ten thousand signatures and the twelve non-party electors like any other candidate.”

  “I still can’t run because of my age.”

  “No, but you can be a write-in. There’s enough momentum.”

  He told me he had another call and he’d get right back to me. Beth jumped into my lap. “We’re at the grown-ups’ table now!”

  “Are you up for this?” I asked.

  “Hell, yes. Let’s work it for all it’s worth.”

  The phone rang again. “Peter,” I said. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “This isn’t Peter,” the voice answered.

  My instinct was to throw the phone out the window at the sound of betagold’s voice. “How’d you get this number?”

  “Don’t celebrate too much,” she said. “The bottom’s falling out soon.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” I responded. “And how did you get this number?”

  “I know more than you think I do, Larry. I suggest you savor this victory, because it’s your last.”

  As soon as I slammed the phone shut, it rang again.

  “Even bigger news,” Peter said. “People are signing up to be Peace Party cand
idates all across the country. Hundreds of eighteen-year-olds are running for senate and representative seats in their home states. It’s a movement!”

  The news was shocking. After all this hard work, we actually were making a difference. People everywhere were picking up the gauntlet.

  But it was hard not to think about betagold.

  I told Peter to cancel my cell and get me a new number no one else had access to. I told him to change all the passwords on our software and check with Tony in security.

  Beth pulled me aside after I hung up. “That was betagold before, wasn’t it?”

  “Forget it. We should be happy”

  “She’s inside, Josh, I swear. And everyone’s been through top-level clearance.”

  I told Beth we’d have a meeting back in Boston with all the directors, try to get a handle on where betagold was getting her information. I slung my arm over her shoulder. “Can we just enjoy this moment?”

  “No, you’re right. You should really be proud.”

  “We.” I kissed her, not caring that Simon was standing in the aisle beside us.

  He ushered Beth away “We’re here. Let’s go.”

  I hadn’t even noticed we were back at headquarters. I sucked up all my nervous energy and readied myself for the reporters’ questions.

  Simon turned to me as I gathered my things. “I suggest you savor that kiss, because it was your last.”

  He was soon swallowed into the pack of reporters and photographers stationed outside our headquarters.

  What worried me more than the interviews, more than being an official write-in candidate for the president of the United States, was how much Simon had just sounded like betagold.

  PART THREE

  “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

  Edward Abbey

  ELECTION COUNTDOWN

  APRIL: FINALIZING A PLATFORM

  Along with the daffodils and crocuses, the campaign began to bloom.

  Our impressive showing in the Massachusetts primary was followed by surprising primary results in Maryland, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. It seemed the campaign was gaining momentum solely by challenging the status quo.