any of the people in these pictures the man you shot earlier tonight?”
Wire shook her head, “No. He wasn’t in Kentucky.”
“Too bad,” Mac answered. “That might have given us another way to get at these guys.”
“But I did get a picture tonight.”
Mac looked at Wire quizzically.
“What? I’m not the only one who knows how to use a cell phone.”
She showed everyone the picture.
“We’ve got to move this show downtown,” Mac said. “We need to figure out who this guy is and if he’s still alive.”
* * *
CNN was the first cable network on the scene with breaking news, but MSNBC and Fox News were now zeroing in on the events as well. The coverage was alternating between reporters at the home of Thomson deputy campaign manager, Sebastian McCormick, and the scene of a drive-by shooting outside a bar in St. Paul, one in which it was alleged Judge Dixon, Thomson’s campaign manager, had possibly been a target.
Connolly just sat in his hotel suite in Cincinnati and pensively watched.
This was starting to get out of control.
Then when the coverage broke for a commercial and, of course, there was another attack ad on Governor Thomson, as there had been all night. Connolly knew the vice president would be coming to his room shortly.
The chattering class had been analyzing the final days of the campaign, the massive rallies, the big speeches, the final push and the advertising, all of the negative advertising. It was always a complaint every campaign season, the seemingly relentless barrage of negative ads at the end of the race. By the time it was all over, most people wouldn’t want their senator or representative to watch their kids, let alone hold office, given how bad the ads tried to make them sound. But this season and the last few days in particular, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
All of the GOP Super PACs were operating as Connolly had conceived, hitting Governor Thomson again and again and again, for two straight days now, in the four key states left to be contested. The negative ads just keep coming and coming, one after another, an unrelenting fusillade. The money being expended was almost unfathomable. That had been the lead story of the night, the tsunami of negative advertising, at least until the shootings in St. Paul.
Governor Thomson wasn’t just taking it lying down, nor was the Democratic Party. They were pushing back as much as they could, but while the Dems owned Internet fundraising, the amounts that could be raised in that medium for the standard voter simply paled in comparison to the largesse held by the GOP and its big money donors. In this environment, the Democrats couldn’t go toe-to-toe, round after round. They simply didn’t have the depth of wealth. Connolly knew this, he knew when they got to this point in the campaign the vice president would have the ability to buy spot after spot to savage Thomson.
Armageddon was promised in every negative ad if Thomson were to win. Your 401k would collapse, your job would disappear, gas prices would skyrocket, your taxes would go through the roof, your freedoms would be curtailed, Christmas would be no more, socialism would run rampant, America would become Europe, illegal aliens would flow across the border, there would be no end to the assault on traditional American values. It was the worst fears coming to reality of those who argued that the Roberts Court’s decision in Citizens United was an unmitigated disaster.
This had been his plan back when he met with the donors in the Florida Keys. To take advantage of the unlimited amounts that could be raised and spent by GOP Super PACs. Now that plan was simply being used as cover for their new plan, the one that was causing bodies to drop all over St. Paul.
There was a knock on his door and then the vice president and his son Donald Jr. entered the room.
“Heath, have you seen what’s been happening in St. Paul?” the vice president asked.
Connolly nodded.
“Sebastian McCormick is dead. Someone tried to kill Judge Dixon in a drive-by shooting. What the hell is going on?” the vice president asked as he sat down into an arm chair.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I can’t fathom why someone would be going after McCormick and Dixon like this. Why? Why them? It’s irrational. It makes no sense.”
“It’s as if someone is trying to decapitate the Thomson campaign a few days before the end here,” Donald Jr. added with a