FIRE IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

H. G. ROGERS

Chapter One

Now that no Democratic Party existed at the national level, the big money was scrambling to maintain influence. When one of the party’s king makers invited Senator Sheffield Belmond (Stalactite, MN) for lunch, he was less flattered than relieved. What had taken so long? They’d been a little slow in scrambling to him.

Senator Belmond was unique among his colleagues in that he’d been all the way into the third year of his first term before he discovered that he really should be president. Belmond knew the country would respond to his ability to see the big picture, his sophisticated grasp of the nuances of foreign policy, and his gravitas. He knew that some considered those qualities to be merely journalistic clichés; he regarded them as real and substantial now that neither the Democratic nor Republican Party existed at the national level, the big money was scrambling to maintain influence. When one of the party’s king makers invited Senator Sheffield Belmond (Stalactite, MN) for lunch, he was less flattered than relieved. What had taken so long? They’d been a little slow in scrambling to him.

Senator Belmond was unique among his colleagues in that he’d been all the way into the third year of his first term before he discovered that he really should be president. Belmond knew the country would respond to his ability to see the big picture, his sophisticated grasp of the nuances of foreign policy, and his gravitas. He knew that some considered those qualities to be merely journalistic clichés; he regarded them as real and substantial.

Belmond’s staff had filled him in. Holden Kaltenfeld was no mere lobbyist but a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist and bundler extra ordinaire. He was also a bit of a prodigy; he graduated from high school at fourteen, tried to drop out of Harvard multiple times only to find another area he was interested in. Almost against his will, he accumulated enough hours for a couple of degrees—an AB in computer science with a music minor (woodwind theory), a second bachelor’s in European history, and a Ph.D. in economics with comparative literature as a secondary field.

Kaltenfeld could just be lobbying, seeking to influence his vote on some arcane tax matter, or hoping to beef up patent protections for software, or some such. If so, Belmond would listen politely, maybe intimate that as a mere senator he was limited in what he could do to advance Kaltenfeld’s—okay, their shared agenda—before asking what kind of “independent” political action committee Kaltenfeld planned for supporting Belmond’s next venture. But this transaction could go better if Kaltenfeld took the initiative.

The 35-year-old wunderkind had considered Belmond’s Midwestern palate. He chose one of D.C.’s toniest steak houses, Comme Çá. They met at 1:45. The maitre d’ showed Belmond past a half full dining room into another where Kaltenfeld sat alone. He wore grey trousers, black sports coat, white shirt, and thin iridescent blue tie.

“Mr. Kaltenfeld, thank you for the invitation. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“And I you, Senator. Hey, we may be in formal old D.C., but you should call me Holden.”

“Absolutely. And I’m Sheffield. I think the District could use more of the California ways. Breaks down barriers.” 

Kaltenfeld asked after Belmond’s wife, whom he knew slightly from a Special Olympics event in the Twin Cities a few years earlier. Belmond complimented his memory and promised to pass his regards to Mollie.

The waiter arrived and took their drink orders. The menu offered several martinis that tempted Belmond, but this was a business lunch. He took water.

Kaltenfeld said, “I recommend the tuna tartare for an appetizer. It’s robust. For an entree I’ve chosen the lobster ravioli, but you might want one of their steaks. They’re quite good, I understand.”

Belmond hesitated. It was only an appetizer, couldn’t be too big, but he could hardly choke down sushi and never sashimi. It could be a test. It also could be worse: he’d heard from one of the Arkansas senators that every two years they were expected to participate in a traditional political supper of opossum. He tugged his ear and said, “Then the tuna it is. Thanks for the recommendation, Holden. And I will go with a simple filet.” Then, he was sure without a hint of impatience, he asked, “What can I do for you, Holden?”

“Well, you can tell me if you’re in agreement with my view of the situation.” He noticed an Asian man seating two his young children across the room. The kids were pasty little things, not healthy. “I think you people are as surprised as the country about how your party experiment, excuse me, ‘The Great Realignment,’ is going.”

“The Great Realignment,” hardly were those words out before Belmond again saw MBC’s last election night set: a vast image of all the Congressional elections across a national map filling the screen, percentages duly shown, but numbers of votes almost as small and pitiless as a school board election everywhere. A measly twenty-five million votes scattered across fifty states—for 435 House seats plus thirty-three Senate seats. Humiliating.

The commentators had been at a loss to explain it—only eleven percent of eligible voters bothered to vote for a senator or representative. They’d voted for president, fifty-seven percent of them. But few voted for Congress. Exit polls showed only twenty-six percent of those who voted even liked the candidate they voted for. One late night host noted that the number of people liking their own candidate was about the same as the number of Californians celebrating their sneeze fetishes.

“We thought we owed it to the people to try something different. Change the partisan atmosphere.”

“You owed it to yourselves to keep your jobs.”

“Well, there’s that.”

“I can understand rebranding, likely a good idea. People tire of the old labels, and they tend to expect uniformity—should I say, party discipline. But you guys went random.”

“We wanted to free our members to be true to themselves and align more closely with their constituents.”

“Yes, I know—a la carte liberals and cafeteria conservatives, pick and choose what plays at home and forget about the country.”

“Holden, I have a grand vision, but I’m not about to run on it or a party platform that’s even grander. With the new parties, I don’t have to.”

“So you’re a Tite now. My apologies, a Stalactite. Doesn’t that feel somewhat foolish?”

“Tite’s fine. Compared to a donkey or an elephant? No. It resets us. Do business without ideological straightjackets. The old parties are pretty evenly split between us and the Stalagmites. And, yes, it’s perfectly fine to call them ‘Mites.’”

“And the colors you’re making the media use—teal and sage. . ..”

“I thought the majority leader and the speaker explained that quite well at their December press conference. We don’t want anything to remind us of the old ways—all that gridlock.”

“The rationale is not unreasonable. You were a mess.” Kaltenfeld glanced across the room—those kids were very well behaved. “You, the Congress, were about as functional as a floppy disk. Now, suddenly you’re beginning to function. It’s just May, and the budget is out of the House and everything, but Defense and Intelligence have cleared the Senate. That’s pretty impressive.”

“I think we’re doing well.” The downside was that it made the president look somewhat competent, even if the White House had almost nothing to do with any of it.

The kids across the room were motionless. Kaltenfeld watched. They looked sick and were looking directly at him, eyes wide open and ears seemingly cocked. Kaltenfeld said, “Don’t worry about the president; he hasn’t been able to enact any of his promises and has nearly reached the end of what he can do with executive orders. He can continue a bit with regulatory changes, but they rarely make headlines and take time to have an effect.”

Belmond said, “That’s true. But his popularity is off the charts.” Should have said, “and his popularity is off the charts.” What kind of partisan hack wants a new president to fail? Or at least, fail in the first year.

“Sixty-five percent approval. Daunting. The irony is. . .you guys in Congress are responsible for it. Eloel.”

Belmond said, “The legislative movement has been a pure team effort.”

“You don’t do irony, do you, Sheffield?”

“No, we send it out.”

Kaltenfeld sipped his sparkling water. “Okay. A pure team has no stars. To be president, you must be a star. And that’s tough with Tigger.” The media’s shorthand for The Great Realignment. They had used an image of Winnie the Pooh’s pal until the Milne Estate threatened to sue. “How do you see it?” Belmond had an uneasy feeling that he was getting drawn into analysis. “Sure, you betcha.”

Belmond grimaced. He didn’t like thinking on the fly; he liked his staff to do the intellectual heavy lifting. Not that he lacked intelligence. He was quite sure that in his own way he was as smart as most of his colleagues. He started to check them off: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Calif.... Oh, where was he? Knowing he wasn’t as smart as Kaltenfeld.

The appetizers arrived. Belmond studied the tuna. It was definitely tartare. A pretty little cube with sprinkled greenery, in a sauce that might kill the flavor some, something to appreciate aesthetically. He’d think while he chewed. Belmond plunged his fork into the fish, sopped up as much sauce as he could gracefully, subtly held his breath, and placed it in his mouth. The flavor was not as bad as he’d feared, but it sure was chewy; he was going to have more than enough time to think. He grunted what he hoped would be taken for appreciation, “Mmmh.”

Kaltenfeld gave him a knowing look: we are enjoying some of life’s best, my friend. A moment later, Belmond swished a little ice water around his mouth and decided to get so caught up in the conversation that he’d just, darn it, forget to eat. Kaltenfeld spoke, “Well, based on my fifteen years of being politically active, I surmise you want to be president? Don’t answer. It’s implied by your office, Eloel.” Kaltenfeld didn’t smile, hadn’t smiled since the handshake, Belmond observed to himself. Then he disciplined himself to the conversation.

“Well, that’s true. The Great Realignment is serving the people well.”

“How long do you think this green, non-ideological, primordial soup that the members agreed to is going to last? I’ll tell you, six years at the most. Some visceral, contentious issue will come along: it will enrage all the interest groups, and some members will see that nothing has changed. Most members still have their policy principles or at least their re-election interests, they’re just distributed randomly between the parties. When that happens—and it will happen—a few Tites will become Mites and vice-versa. Then some true believers back home will primary the less ideological, House members at first. Anyway, it’ll break down before your term is over.”

“Interesting analysis. And prophecy.” Belmond knew the deal the members had negotiated: no party switchers for eight years. Even the wired-in Kaltenfeld didn’t know that. That was a key proviso agreed to at the panicked mid-November meeting. Only afterward did Belmond find out it had been held at Mammoth Cave. He wondered if the location inspired the names. A meeting held in Kentucky by parties very unlucky. . ..

“And your best chance will have evaporated.”

“Assuming I want a chance, why would my best chance be gone?”

“Do you think in a robust partisan environment anyone is going to nominate a Minnesota triplet: Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Sheffield Belmond? Elem-mayo, no. You people have lost the Super Bowl almost as many times as the Vikings.”

“That sounds like superstition, magic. I don’t think politics is like that.”

The waiter was at Belmond’s elbow. “Does the tuna meet your approval, sir?” “Oh, yes, absolutely. Lovely, quite lovely.” True, a colorful and well-designed dish. “I’ll be eating more, but I need to leave room for the steak.”

“Very good, sir,” And the waiter withdrew.

“Holden, you were telling me why now is my best chance, or rather why I have no other chance than now. Am I right?”

“Precisely. Did you ever consider this: The first Illinois US senator to be president, Lincoln, provoked a civil war; the second, Obama, was heading the same direction; it just stayed under the surface. Hillary reaped the whirlwind from that. You think there’s going to be a US senator from Illinois elected president this century?”

“What about President Stafford, he’s from Illinois?”

“He was just a state senator, and the answer is ‘no.’ Obama’s the last until we’re all quite dead. And by the way, as you should know, I loved Obama and supported him. But if he could run today, I’d find other interests. And by the way, if I pushed it, Hillary was a U.S. senator and she was once from Illinois.”  

Belmond said, “Okay, I’ll stipulate to your analysis. So do you think, given the cat rodeo we had at the Democratic convention last time, that the new parties will be more disciplined?”

The entrees were delivered. Belmond slid his appetizer to the edge of the table. Kaltenfeld didn’t appear to notice; he seemed eager to continue his lecture. Fair deal.

“Not more disciplined, less stratified. You don’t have the structures of loyalties and obligations yet. The lack of a strong structure leaves the field vulnerable to a candidate who establishes herself or himself early.”

COPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, companies, places, and incidents portrayed are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance, if any, to actual person living or dead, locales, businesses, companies, or events is entirely coincidental.

To the memory of Brenda Eden Rogers, my late wife, who inspired this book and gave me valuable advice during its creation.

Acknowledgments

The publication of this book would not have been possible without the constant encouragement and love from my wife, Anne Ray Rogers. Her sensitive reading, incisive questioning, and meticulous editing saved me from countless mistakes.

I also celebrate the contributions of my daughter, Jennifer Eden Rogers, a sympathetic reader and a gifted writer. She has taught me much about writing but more about life and love.

Numerous readers contributed to the many revisions of this work.

The brilliant work of cover artist Ginger Ngo is of immense value. Her artistry and creative insight are exceptional.

Finally, I must acknowledge the debt I owe to the insanity of some American partisans, elected and unelected; they made this book necessary.