Romney Meets Dad

CHAPTER SIX

Candidate Romney stands assessing the perfection of his hair in front of a three-sided mirror, then walks to the front living room to greet his waiting campaign staff. They're in one of his many residences scattered about the country, this one in Michigan, outside Detroit.

"Good morning!" the candidate exclaims, presenting his trademark rigidly fixed smile.

"Not so good," his sober-serious professional staffers tell him.

They're more sober serious than the candidate. Mitt Romney is the life of the party in comparison. These are a pack of ruthless young Republican attack dogs. Of course. That's why he hired them. To their uniformly serious expressions, his smile wilts.

"What's happened?" he asks.

"Bad news on two fronts. First, the President is planning a worldwide TV extravaganza right before the election, featuring other world leaders, designed to show him as a hit in the media circus of international politics. It'll broadcast on every cable channel, including the shopping network. Much Obama paraphernalia up for grabs, we gather. Every channel, that is, except Fox.""

"Extravaganza?" Mitt asks.

The candidate's cartoon square jaw drops.

"Second," a staffer continues, "we've discovered that the Obama campaign has secretly hired, at great expense, the best."

"The best?" Mitt asks.

"Yes. The best. Not just the best, but the Best. The Best. Namely, Karl Rove."

The candidate staggers. A strand of his perfect hair drops a millimeter.

"But, but, this is simply awful. Guys and gals, this is terrible."

Suddenly he reminds himself that he's the candidate. He needs to appear stoic. Strong. The impassive front-- which anyway is his natural persona. He adopts a granite expression. But his troubled eyes betray the pose. He feels like dropping to the floor and pounding the floor and crying. But he doesn't! Keep the backbone steady, he directs himself.

"What do we do?" the entire staff asks him, in chorus.

"What do we do? What do we do?" he gasps, exasperated. "YOU're the experts. It's why I hired you."

They stare at him like a wolf pack about to lose faith in the head wolf. They could desert him and go to work for his opponent. No doubt a multi-channel worldwide extravaganza full of political leaders and, likely, also Hollywood actors and rock stars sounds like fun. What to do?

"If we've lost Rove, we've lost the election," one of the staffers says. "After all, he's the best."

Mitt raises his hands to them, palms out, as if to say, don't leave. Don't panic. Then an inspiration comes to him. He slams a fist into his hand.

"I know," he tells them, his eyes brighter. "I'll ask Dad."

Without another word he turns on his heel and marches to the nearby study. He enters the study and closes the door. He locks it. The campaign staffers look at one another with puzzlement.

Mitt stands alone in the dark study. The maroon drapes in the room are closed. His eyes slowly adjust. Mitt feels like a small child. There, before him, larger than life, on the central wall is an enormous oil painting of his father, George Romney. He of the ultimate square jaw and granite expression, in comparison with which Mitt's are a rather weak knockoff.

Mitt stares at the gilded frame and glowing portrait within, attempting to summon the ghost of his father, who of course died many years ago. But in Mitt's world, all things are possible. He begins talking to the impossibly stoic and upright figure.

"Dad, things look bleak. The other side has secretly hired the best strategist of them all, Karl Rove. A brilliant chess move, if I say so myself. The odds were tough as it was, going against an incumbent President who's also more likable than I am. Now the odds become all but impossible. In business, you know, I always knew the odds. I knew when to cut and run. Might be too late to hand the ball to someone else. Santorum wouldn't mind losing. He's used to it. But I don't like it, Dad. I hate to lose. You know I've always wanted to be first. I really really did want to be President, you know. I've done everything else. I thought the job might be fun. The White House is about the only large residence in the country I don't already own."

The portrait glowers down at him. The eyes show disappointment.

"That was a joke, Dad," Mitt adds.

The image in the moody painting looks intense. Probably an expression of Mitt's relationship with the man. The candidate thinks back on that relationship. The image of his father vibrates, just a trifle. The portrait doesn't change, but a voice now comes from it. Mitt realizes the voice might only be in his own head. He accepts the voice nevertheless.

"You always were a stupid kid," the voice says. ""Steadfast. Straightforward. Plodding. Reliable. Relentless. But all-in-all, rather dumb. Now, don't throw your Harvard grades at me! More important than book learning is simple common sense. I built a business empire on rugged common sense-- the common sense to see a solution that's directly in front of you. You say the Democrats have hired the best. Poppycock! Horse hockey! Great Brigham Young's ghost! The best hasn't been called. If you think hard, very hard, you'll know who he is. Someone shrewder, tougher, more evil than Karl Rove could imagine becoming-- someone who'd make Rove wet his Depends and run away in terror! Think about it. A clue: W knew."

As the voice fades away, Mitt unlocks the door and bounds from the room, nearly into the waiting arms of his campaign staff. The candidate is exuberant. There's no other way to describe it.

"I've got it!" he yells. "A eureka moment. Here's the solution, kids. The answer to our problems. The missing piece to the puzzle. We ask Dick Cheney to help us."