ocean just beyond that shore.”
It was the empty rhetoric expected of an introduction. If he didn’t offer the platitudes, his critics assailed him. “Well, he only mentioned the word ‘America’ fifty-nine times, so he must be losing his patriotism.” All part of the process.
His kids were back home in Ohio. About now, they would be sitting down for dinner. Maybe they’d have the TV on, but probably not. Daddy was just giving another speech.
“I come to you tonight as a…”
Kathryn Hightower stood off to his left. He could see her out of his peripheral vision. She had been with him since his first mayoral race so many lifetimes ago.
“I come to you tonight as a…”
This was the paragraph where he would segue into his bit about partnership. It was the build-up to the body of the speech. It was the beginning of his announcement of General Archie Phillips to be his running mate. General Phillips was waiting inside the house, just on the other side of the curtained French doors. He was in full dress uniform. He was a good man. He’d been a benevolent, erudite debater during the primaries. But the people hadn’t wanted erudition. They’d wanted homespun. They’d wanted Bob.
The kind of man they could take to church on Sundays.
“I…”
He felt a sideward glance from Kathryn. Loyal, hardworking Kathryn. He wanted to hold her close and kiss her on the forehead and apologize. But that would have to wait. Somewhere in this country, in his country, a man was committing horrific acts of violence in his name. It had to stop.
“Two hundred years ago, when Thomas Jefferson ran for president, there was a great deal of opposition to his campaign. It was the first true bipartisan election, and his opponents realized that since they couldn’t attack his thoughtful policies or his impeccable reputation, they had to resort to different tactics.”
The large white words on the teleprompters scrolled up, then down, then back up again, as the operator tried to locate this part of the speech.
“This was one of the architects of our democracy. This was the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. How do you defeat a man like that? You go after his character. And they did. Thomas Jefferson, you see, was a skeptic. He was a scientist, and the scientific pursuit of truth demands evidence, and he looked at the universe and he didn’t believe we had it all figured out. So the muckrakers called him an atheist. The label dogged him all through the campaign, but when the time came to vote for the president of the United States, the American people in their wisdom overwhelmingly chose Jefferson. They put into office a man whose ambitious curiosity helped shape our beloved country.”
Bob could see it now, past the lights, in the faces of the crowd. He had gone off script and they knew it. He could feel the awkward tension vibrating in the air. This wasn’t what they’d expected, and so they weren’t prepared with an appropriate response.
So he rolled the boulder farther down the hill.
“You would think, after that tumultuous election, political operatives would have learned their lesson. A man did not have to be pious to be a patriot. Patriotism is itself a religion, isn’t it? Our country is one grand cathedral and our Constitution is our hymnal. Our sacred commandments come numbered one through ten, only we call them the Bill of Rights. You would think after that tumultuous election, political operatives would have learned their lesson, but they didn’t. Several decades later, they saw another man rise up, a man of ferocious intellect and boundless compassion, and they had no way to stop him so they attacked his personal beliefs. Once again the labels were bandied about. ‘Agnostic.’ One muckraker even called him ‘godless.’ But once again, the wisdom of the American people had been underestimated, and in 1860, they voted this ‘godless agnostic’ to the highest office in the land. Can you imagine what our country would have been like had those small-minded muckrakers won? Can you imagine what our country would have been like had Abraham Lincoln not been elected?”
The awkwardness passed into murmuring. Bob was always amazed how little people knew of their own history. But he wasn’t here for a history lesson, not really. This was about the future.
“What makes our country unique is its plurality. We are the United States of America. Not one state, but many. Not one race, not one religion, not one