The Candidate Read Online Free Page B

that. Yet still Mike felt a responsibility; a sense that he failed her by grasping at escape and not being able to take her with him.
    “Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I’ll get someone to check up on her and make sure she’s okay.”
    His mom seemed satisfied with that and Mike glanced at the TV. The screen showed a panning shot of the seven or so top candidates in the party, all of them, save Harriet Stanton, were men dressed in dark blue or gray suits. Hodges and Stanton stood next to each other, neither looking at the other, their heads down, reading their notes.
    “The debate’s about to start, Mom. I gotta go,” Mike said, and he put down the phone.
    Mike darted across the hallway and knocked on the door to Dee’s room. She opened it quickly and ushered him in. A tight knot of campaign workers were already there, huddled around the TV like it was some sort of religious shrine. The atmosphere was tense and no one spoke as the on-screen moderator began introducing everyone. Dee smiled at Mike but he could tell she was feeling the strain. The lines around the corners of her eyes were pulled taught like fishing line on the end of a big catch — perhaps too big — and her forehead was deeply furrowed. She ran a hand through her close-cut graying hair, grasping for locks that were not there. For the first time, Mike thought, she looked every single one of her 52 hard-living years.
    “I’ve done all I can with him,” Dee said. “Now we let him fly.”
    She need not have worried.
    The first exchanges were dully educational. Each candidate made a beginning statement and then the talk drifted between issues. Stanton and Hodges never looked at each other, though neither seemed ill at ease. Stanton, in particular, appeared relaxed and happy enough to let the debate go through the motions. After all, it was she, as one of the most well known figures in national politics, who stood twenty points up in the Iowa polls. It was she who assembled a fund-raising machine that out-raised every other candidate, combined. She stood by Hodges and did not even glance across at him. He was not there to her.
    At least not until the final question.
    It was about national security and each candidate gave a boilerplate answer. Stanton had just finished speaking when it came to Hodges. He was quiet for a moment — his usual trick to focus an audience’s attention — and then he seemed to stretch himself taller. He cleared his throat and his voice was crystal clear. For the first time, he looked directly at Stanton and Stanton’s face froze. She looked puzzled. Just a little. Just enough to indicate that underneath that calm visage, the ice was creaking a little.
    “Unlike my fellow candidates, I am not a career politician,” he said, keeping his eyes on her and letting the implication hang just a moment in the air. “I don’t think of politics as a job. Seeing it that way makes every decision about polls. It makes every move you make about the next election. You fail to understand that there are problems in this country that need fixing and that are far more important things than any one politician’s popularity. I view my candidacy the same way as my time in the army. I am here to serve my country. I’ll take the hits for it if need-be. I’ll stand in the line of fire.”
    He left the words hanging, the subtle reminder of the week’s past events. Then he turned away from Stanton and back to face the cameras.
    “I would ask the people watching at home: how many of my fellow candidates really know what it’s like to serve their country? Or are they just serving themselves?”
    In the hotel room Dee, Mike and the other staffers leapt to their feet. Hodges’ attack was so unexpected but so perfectly delivered that no one saw it coming. Dee grabbed Mike and hugged him.
    “Did you prime him with those lines?” he asked.
    Dee shook her head. “I primed him with a bunch of others, but he didn’t use them. I tell you, Mike, this