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Overview
What if a country torn apart by ideology turned to a man whose charisma belied a complete lack of governing experience?
What if a country elected a President based not on qualifications, but on hope?
Would this man lead the country into a new era of fortune and prosperity? Or would he lead them into total and complete chaos?
D.W. Buffa has proven himself as one of the absolute best political writers working today, and in THE 45TH he creates a work of compelling fiction that’s as timely as this morning’s news. THE 45TH will leave you breathless, enraged, and unable to forget it once the last page is turned.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781947993532 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Polis Books |
| Publication date: | 05/21/2019 |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
The New York Times called The Defense 'an accomplished first novel' which 'leaves you wanting to go back to the beginning and read it over again.' The Judgment was nominated for the Edgar Award for best novel of the year.
D.W. Buffa lives in Northern California. You can visit his Official Website at dwbuffa.net.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Louis Matson tapped his thick fingers on his desk, regretting before it even started the meeting he did not want to have. For forty years the majority leader had been a member of the House or a member of the Senate, forty years in which he had known what he thought every kind of charlatan and fool, but of all the various categories of shameless, small-minded, ruthless and vindictive men of ambition, there were few he disliked more than the ones who had become party chairmen. He had known them all, every chairman of the national Republican party for the last half-century, and though he confessed it might just be an embellished memory, nostalgia for a past that had never existed, none of them had seemed quite such an embarrassment as the one who was now about to steal an hour of his life.
Matson picked up the telephone. "Send the son-of-a-bitch in."
The majority leader's office was a long rectangle in which the door for visitors was at the other end of the room from the senator's desk. There were two tall narrow windows at the end, with a gray leather sofa below. An oil painting of the White House on fire during the British attack on Washington in the War of 1812 hung above a marble fireplace that had not been used in at least half a century
Matson liked to watch the reaction of first time visitors, the way they walked, the way they held themselves, as they came down the length of the room. He rather liked it if they seemed slightly nervous, a little unsure of themselves. It meant, in most cases at least, that they had a regard for the traditions of the place. Reece Davis came in brimming with confidence, eager to impress. He stopped at the painting and with an evil little laugh, remarked, "Might be a good idea to do it again."
Davis dropped into one of the two blue wingback chairs in front of Matson's desk, reached inside a black briefcase and removed a large manila envelope. "This is the speech we want you to give at the convention."
With his elbow on the arm of the chair, Louis Matson placed his thumb and two fingers against the side of his face and did not say a thing. Davis had a dozen different responses ready but he had not prepared himself for perfect silence and the absence of all expression.
"I know it isn't much notice, but. ... You were planning to be there, weren't you? Part of the Michigan delegation?"
A brief, understated, smile cut across Louis Matson's aging, jagged mouth. "Chairing the Michigan delegation," he corrected.
"Chairing. Yes, of course; I knew that, of course," said Davis, with a quick, nervous grin.
"In any event, you now want me to give a speech. And this suddenly occurred to you two weeks before the convention is scheduled to open? The answer is no."
"No?" cried Davis, startled.
"I'm chairing the Michigan delegation. Don't you think that will give me enough to do? I mean, Jesus Christ!" laughed Matson, "I've never seen such a mess: the a convention in two weeks and no one knows who the candidate is going to be!
Louis Matson was over six feet tall and more than a little overweight. He had a full head of graying chestnut hair, a large, hawk-like nose, and deep set hazel eyes that usually seemed full of suspicion. Even standing still or, as now, sitting at his desk, he seemed to be in motion. It was a reflection of the politician's need, a need grown out of habit, always to be busy with more than one thing. His speech was often abbreviated, sometimes fragmentary, even at times incoherent, and yet, at the same time, seldom disconnected with the subject under discussion. Occupied with something he had to read, or a brief conversation on the side, he would seem to be paying no attention at all, and then, suddenly, as if he had not missed a word, make a remark that settled everything.
"The party has been taken over by people who think the only government we need is a well-armed militia. They want to go back to what they think the country used to be. Well, consider this a first step: a convention that may not be able to agree on a candidate in less than a hundred ballots. We are back in the l920's. Who could complain about that?'
"That is the reason we need you, senator," said Davis with a thin, practiced smile
"You think I can solve your problem with a speech? I'll be interested to see what it says, because if it isn't as good as the Gettysburg Address you don't have a chance." Davis nodded a little too eagerly. "That good! - You must have a speechwriter I've never heard about."
"Not the speech," said Davis, irritated that he had not yet been understood. "It's a good speech; a very good speech, in my opinion. But – if you'll just look at it, you'll understand."
"If I just ...?"
He opened the envelope, removed an eight page double-spaced speech, read the first line and looked at Davis as if he thought him out of his mind.
"You want me ...? You expect me ...?"
"To chair the convention. No one else can do it; no one else can do this without seeming to favor one side or the other. The candidates know you can be impartial."
Matson, as he had just reminded the chairman, knew that there had been convention fights before, and that it had taken sometimes dozens of roll call votes before the party's candidate had been chosen. It had not happened for half a century, however; and, for those Americans who thought history started and ended with themselves, that meant there was no precedent for what had happened in the last few months. Everyone on television said so, and everyone who was asked about it agreed.
"You're in a lot of trouble, aren't you?" asked Matson, suddenly.
It caught Davis off guard. "Trouble? What do you mean?"
Matson studied him through narrowed eyes. He did not like anything about him; he never had. It started with his looks: the slick, black, wavy hair; the eyes that seemed to dart all around; the eager, too eager, smile that followed each well-rehearsed word. Trying hard to underscore his sincerity, he only proved his inherent duplicity. He reminded Matson of a young Dick Nixon, the only difference that Nixon, whatever else you thought about him, had intelligence.
"You were elected chairman because the right-wing – the tea party types and the libertarians – drove out most of the old line conservatives. You were going to become the hero, the chairman who led the party in a successful rebellion against all those, like me, who don't believe you can just shut down the government every time you don't get your way. But now, with a fight – a knockdown, drag out, bloody, take no prisoners fight - a fight that could go on for days, or even weeks, in a convention the whole country will be watching, you are going to be blamed, which is to say hated, by damn near everyone. Whoever wins will blame you for not doing more; whoever loses will blame you for doing too much. The first thing the winner will do is name someone else as chairman." He paused to let this sink in, and then added, "Unless you have already made a deal with one side or the other – or made a deal with each side separately."
With a look of injured innocence, Davis sat straight up. Then he leaned forward.
"My job is to make sure the convention can make its own decision. It isn't my place to help one candidate more than the other. Every one will be given the same opportunity to make their case to the delegates."
"They will all be given the same ...," repeated Matson, with a jaundiced look. "The same opportunity to kill each other! What do you think is going to happen? There isn't anything they won't do. You heard what they said about each other in the primaries. They think this is the most important election in the history of the republic. What else could it be when they're the candidate? They hate each other so much the only wonder if that one of them hasn't had the other one murdered. Don't try to look shocked. Do you know why they don't?" A caustic smile twisted across his mouth. "Because part of them that knows that the only way they will ever win is if the nomination goes to someone else."
Reece Davis could recite from memory the number of delegates each state had, he knew by heart every detail of the sometimes arcane procedures by which each delegate was selected, but he had nothing of the insight of the seasoned politician into the weaknesses of ambitious men and women. Matson tried to explain.
"Because beneath all that shiny self-confidence, the belief that they are, each of them, destined for greatness, they know if they get the nomination they'll lose."
Davis started to object, to insist that Hillary had too many negatives, that there were too many rumors, too many scandals. Matson ignored him.
"Whoever wins, loses; which means whoever loses, wins. It's easy," he said, with a shrug. "Whoever loses can claim the nomination was stolen, that the convention was not fair, that the other side, the winning side, had advantages – had made a deal with the chairman," he added with ruthless amusement, "which was the reason the rules were applied the way they were. And then, the most effective argument of all, the argument to which there is no reply: they stole the nomination and because of that we lost our only chance at the White House. Because of that, thanks to them, we have Hillary in the White House. And what follows from that, if not that the only way to make things right, the only way to take back the country, is to nominate the one who was cheated out of the nomination the last time. Who could resist that argument? – Not any of these self-righteous moralists you and your friends have brought into the party."
"Self-righteous!" sputtered Davis, struggling to contain himself. Matson was one of those who with any luck at all would lose in the next election to someone who understood what the country was all about. He would have given anything to tell him that, but he was one of the few Republicans left that even Democrats seemed to like. He had to become the face of the Republican convention. It was the only way to make what the party stood for seem measured and reasonable.
"Self-righteous?" he repeated, sitting back as if taking it under advisement. "I suppose that must be the way it appears to people who don't follow things too closely. It is what sometimes happens when you have candidates who feel so strongly about what they believe in."
"Or are too goddamn sanctimonious to know their own stupidity. But never mind all that. Just tell me this: which one of them, Cruz or Trump, does better against Hillary."
Davis shifted uneasily in his chair. He began to fidget with his smooth, manicured hands. He started to say something, but then looked away and shook his head. Folding his arms over his chest, he crossed his legs and began to swing his foot.
"It's too early; the polling means nothing," he explained, with the resistance of someone forced to confess an inconvenient fact. The words seemed to stick in his throat. "Hillary is ahead, but. ..."
"Far ahead?" It was not really a question; it was the assertion of someone who already knew how badly the Republican candidates would be defeated.
"Trump runs slightly better."
Matson lifted an eyebrow as if astonished at the chairman's attempt to put a good face on disaster.
"By slightly better you mean what, exactly?"
"Trump runs eight points behind her; Cruz twelve," admitted Davis, without expression.
Matson bent forward as if to share a confidence.
"Do you think the difference is because Ted Cruz looks like Lyndon Johnson's illegitimate son?" Matson burst out laughing; Davis did not know what to do. "I've seen the polls," said Matson, suddenly serious. "Hillary is way ahead, but she isn't yet at fifty percent; she isn't even close. There is still a chance, or there would be if we had a candidate anyone could support."
"And they will," insisted Davis with the mechanical enthusiasm that had become second nature, "once you explain to everyone why whoever wins the nomination is a far better choice to lead the country. No one can do it but you. That's why the speech is so important; why we want you not just to chair the convention, but to give the speech, the keynote speech."
Even had he made up his mind, Matson would not have given him the satisfaction of an answer.
"The convention is in less than two weeks," Davis reminded him.
Louis Matson shrugged. "And you just asked me today," he said, rising from his chair. "I'll let you know."
Davis started to leave, but stopped before he had taken three steps.
"It's the chance of a lifetime. The major address, a speech televised to millions of people. Why would you hesitate, why would you need time to think about it?"
Matson went toward him, put his hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.
"Maybe because I haven't heard more than two or three speeches in the last forty years I would not have been embarrassed to give."
"Well, I think you'll find that. ..." But he could not finish. The look in Matson's eyes, the knowing laughter that seemed to dare a contradiction, would not allow it. "I hope you'll agree to do this, senator," he said instead. "We can come out of this convention more united that we have ever been. I'm sure of it."
Matson shook his hand, and in response to the sense of urgency in the chairman's eyes, promised to let him know the next day.
"But I can tell you right now I won't agree if you expect me to give the speech you brought me."
"You haven't read it yet," replied Davis, confused by this sudden, strange demand. "I think when you do, you'll -"
"I won't agree to give a speech I haven't written myself."
"But no one writes their own speeches – Do you?"
Matson looked at Davis as if he were seeing for the first time the inexperience, the limited knowledge, the inevitable dependence on the assumptions of his age.
"You ever read any of Lincoln's speeches; ever read any of Churchill's? It's a funny thing. Neither of them was too busy to write his own speeches. Of course all they had to deal with was a civil war, which the North almost lost, and a world war that without Churchill Germany would have won – nothing like the things a beleaguered member of Congress has to worry about. But, still, it makes you wonder why what they said remains a permanent part of the language, while the things that these speechwriters of ours write today are less memorable than the graffiti written on a bathroom wall! But you asked if I write my own. No, I don't. And you know the reason? – I'm not good enough; I never had the gift. But I know when something is well-written and when it is not; and I know how to make changes, how to edit, if you will, so that I don't make a complete fool of myself when I speak to the senate. I'm not going to write a speech for the convention, but if you want me to give one, I'll decide – not you, not anyone else – what I want to say and who I want to write it."
"I understand," said Davis, though he really did not. "But if you'll just look over what I brought," he went on, nodding with a quick, superficial smile, toward the speech he had left on Matson's desk, "I think you'll find all the basic ideas that have to be expressed. That is the important point. How you want to say it, who you want to write the final draft – that of course is up to you."
Matson knew he was going to do what Davis had asked. If he had not given an immediate answer it was only to make his eventual agreement seem more difficult to obtain and his conditions, for that reason, easier to accept. The question was not whether he was going to do it; the question was why. He was too old to think about the presidency himself, too old to think of this as the best possible chance to have everyone start thinking of him as someone who ought to run the next time, after the election had come and gone with a Republican defeat. There was nothing in it for him, and yet there was everything in it for him: the chance to set an example, to be the kind of man, the kind of senator, he had always tried to be. It was strange how archaic that now seemed, after so many things had changed.
Standing in the middle of the room, his eyes, following his thought, came to rest on the framed photographs that lined the wall opposite the fireplace. There were not that many of them, nothing like the endless pictured chronicles of the public careers of senators and congressmen that covered the walls, and even the hallways, in offices all over Capitol Hill; no photographs of those happy families that, sooner or later, every disgraced, scandal plagued politician left office supposedly to spend more time with; just a half dozen old photographs of people now only vaguely remembered, if remembered at all. The two in the center brought a smile of nostalgia. One was a picture taken the day he was sworn in the first time he was elected to the House of Representative. It was January, l977, and he was standing next to Bob Griffin, the Republican senator from Michigan, without whom he never would have been elected to anything. The other, taken four or five years earlier, when he was a young assistant on Griffin's staff, was in its way symbolic of how much Washington had changed. In the annual springtime softball game between Griffin's staff and the staff of Michigan's then senior senator, Phil Hart, known as both a liberal's liberal and the conscience of the senate, Hart and Griffin, both in shirtsleeves, were grasping a baseball bat, after going hand over hand to decide which team would bat first. Griffin had reached the highest position on the handle, and should have won, but Hart, smiling at how he had broken the rules, had put his hand over the top. Griffin was laughing as hard as it was possible for anyone to laugh. They had never voted the same way on any issue of significance, and they were great good friends.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The 45th"
by .
Copyright © 2019 D.W. Buffa.
Excerpted by permission of Polis Books, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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