The Fires of Orc

The people who cast the votes decide nothing.

The people who count the votes decide everything.

Joseph Stalin

Idon’t know what form society might take when I’m gone. I hope it’s a shape better suited to the natural human condition than was my society. Perhaps in your time you have settled the disputes and organized the affairs that kept the world so imbalanced in mine. Perhaps for you society spreads itself evenly around an abundant world, sustaining tens of billions. In your time, does our kind streak the cosmos, folding space before us? Do we dot the galaxy in green-blue settlements? Are we governed at all and if so by what dominion? Does anything unite us or are we so many upright apes, each fending for itself in some revolutionary jungle?

However it is for you, in my time corporations ruled the earth and nations were their elements. The nation state was the fundamental political unit. Two dozen nations held dominion over six-dozen others and the corporations were suzerain of them all. Corporate rule was not codified. No confederation ever formally yielded national autonomy to the global trade empire. The rule of corporations came about through a silent coronation and the whimpering submission of presidents and kings to boards of directors and chief executives who were more powerful by far than mere politicians. The world’s nations still puffed and swaggered and rattled the occasional saber but they were all vassals of the Lords of Capital.

Like true emperors, the corporate rulers were little interested in governance. They extracted their tolls from the nations of the world and left them otherwise free to govern themselves. The corporations held government in plain contempt. They accepted the need to govern without any interest in governing. And thus they employed politicians to run the affairs of nations and keep the profits flowing. Only when an upstart politician believed he could challenge for the right to govern independently did the corporations get involved. When they did it was with shock and awe. A corporate war was a terrible thing.

But nominally, if not actually, there were still nations and at their helms politicians, men and women who governed millions and even billions, with or without the consent of the governed. So basic a concept was the nation that anyone, when asked to identify himself, would have said, “I’m and American,” or an Irishman, or an Uzbek or a Turk, and so on. We were a world of national peoples, some more akin than others, some such distant cousins that we hardly recognized our sanguine ties.

The ultimate titular political power in my time resided in the person who headed a nation. Presidents, prime ministers, kings, sultans, emirs and governors general held supreme political power over their people. All lesser politics and administration was subordinate to national governance. As such, nations were the principal units of analysis for economists, political theorists, social scientists and other investigators of their ilk.

They all studied the wrong thing. Nations were no more real than religions. No two people agreed about what they were and there was no way to say for certain what made a nation a nation in the first place. Nations were the wrong unit of analysis for anything other than speculation and unfounded journalistic babble. Nations weren’t real, but cities were. The name of the first man to rule a city is lost to history. Whoever he was, somewhere in Mesopotamia, he founded a line that stretched unbroken down three hundred generations to my time, a line of politicians, all of whom could trace their origins to the emergence of the city as the preferred organization of human beings.

Consider the Classics:

City – noun, from Latin civis, a townsman, and Late Latin citatem. See also civil, civilize.

Politics – noun, from Greek polis, city, and Aristotle’s politika (“affairs of state”), literally the science of city management. See also police, policy.

It all began with the city, that most basic meaningful unit of human affairs. Families, clans, towns and villages are too small to govern. Small groups are erratic, inefficient, and unpredictable. But cities obey rules on a large scale. People are manageable if you know how they feel, what they believe, and what motivates them to action. Figure out what makes people do what they do and you have the only indispensable tool for succeeding in politics, and all politics was, at root, the science of city management.

We were citizens. The hundred most populous cities in the world were home to one-sixth of all people. Eight out of every ten Americans lived in cities. A man who could rule cities could rule the world entire, answerable only to the supreme authority of the corporations and they had no interest in the affairs of state, just the flow of profits.

He asks, “What was your favorite place in the old world, Old Timer?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, what was your favorite place?”

He really is an obtuse man, The Landlord. More affable than I thought, but still obtuse.

“Do you mean did I like the beach or the mountains or the tropics?”

“No,” he explains. “I mean did you like Old San Diego or some other place or what?”

“You mean what was my favorite city.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“All of them,” I say.

“All of them?”

“Yes. All of them. I never visited a city that I didn’t fall for. I loved the cities of the old world each in its own right. They were splendid. The finest of all places.”

“So which ones, for example?” he prys.

“I suppose in an all-around sense San Diego was the finest of all. But there were so many others. New Orleans, San Francisco, St. Louis, Denver, El Paso, you name it. I loved them all.”

“What about cities in other countries? Were they better than American cities?”

“If you polled the world,” I said, “people probably would have said New York and London were the best of all. But I disagree.”

“You went to London?”

“I did, and Paris, and Milan, and Munich, and Brussels and all the other great cities of Europe. I went to Tokyo, a spectacular place, and to Shanghai, a treasure of the East, and Hong Kong and Seoul. I went to Istanbul and Cairo, to Sydney and Johannesburg, Manila and Bangkok.”

“I’ve never even heard of those places,” he says. “They were all cities?”

“That they were, and fine ones. But none of them were the equal of America’s cities. America was essentially a country of great cities spread around a great wheat field. Our cities were the best in the world. They weren’t as well built as Amsterdam or as well planned as Helsinki. They didn’t have the great infrastructure of Zurich or the great public systems of Berlin or Singapore. American cities grew up around people, not the other way round.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we made our cities; our cities didn’t make us. An American city was what it was because its people built it in their own likeness. Cleveland, ribboned through by the Cuyahoga, pushed against Erie’s north shore, was a city of strong backs and deep breaths. It was the place for Clevelanders, while Savannah was a city built and rebuilt by the genteel heirs to a heritage kept defiantly alive just beneath the courteous surface, a city for white-gloved tea parties and men in suspenders and straw boaters. Our cities were ourselves on a large scale, the grandest parts of us, built to show our best faces and honor our best nature. There was no place finer in the old world than an American city.”

“Wow,” he says. “I never heard anyone go on like that about a city.”

“Then you’ve never met anyone who knew how great our cities were. The old world never reached any other achievement so handsome, so broad-shouldered, so confident or so profound. I miss the cities. Of all things I miss them the most.”

I was told to be prepared for a meeting with the candidate and his senior staff at one in the afternoon one Wednesday in January. At one-thirty I waited to be called in. These things were notoriously behind schedule. It wasn’t Markus’s fault. He didn’t especially enjoy meetings but he insisted on clarity and with all the obfuscation around him, each staffer pimping his own cause, there was little chance of staying on task.

Eventually the phone rang and I was beckoned to the conference room.

“Thank you for joining us,” said the Campaign Director.

A sanctimonious, prim and bothersome man, he gesticulated wildly, effeminately, pointing me to a chair as if I mightn’t have noticed the only available seat at the table.

Markus nodded at me, a silent welcome that reassured me all was well. I was there to offer counsel, not to be counseled, which was quite a relief. I had wondered all morning what my meeting would entail. At least I knew I wasn’t getting fired.

“We’ve asked you here,” said the Campaign Director, “to invite your input on some talking points we have prepared for the candidate’s town meeting this evening.”

“I’m happy to provide whatever sound opinions I might have,” I replied, “but speech writing isn’t really my thing.”

“No,” said Markus. “This isn’t about speech making. It’s about talking with a room full of people and having it come across to the viewers at home as if they’re part of the conversation.”

“That sir,” I said, “is something I can probably help with. I’m sorry I haven’t looked at your schedule for today. Who will you be speaking to?”

“An audience selected by a local network affiliate,” said the Campaign Director.

“A station here, in San Diego?”

“No,” he replied. “We’ll be in Reno in a few hours.”

“Reno, Nevada?” I asked, confusion on my face.

“Is there any other Reno?” asked The Soldier from the back of the room.

“No, I guess not.”

“You seem dismayed by the choice of venue,” said the Campaign Director. “Could you explain why?”

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t see why you would use the candidate’s time, the one thing he has less of than anything else, to speak to a group of any size in Reno. I mean, what good does Reno do us?”

“Reno, sir, is the second-largest city in Nevada,” said the Chief Pollster.

“So?” I replied.

“So what?” asked the Campaign Director.

“Exactly,” I replied. “So what? Who cares about the second-largest city in a state that doesn’t matter?”

“Are you suggesting that Nevada doesn’t matter?” peeped a bureaucrat I’d never met.

“No, I’m saying Nevada doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, fuck Nevada.”

There was a moment’s silence. The Soldier looked my way wide-eyed. Suit pants shifted uneasily in seats. Manicured fingers tugged at stuffed shirts. Markus stifled a giggle. The preening sycophants around him couldn’t accept, apparently, that a man worth more money than God appreciated plain language.

“Excuse me…” said the Campaign Director.

“Oh you’re excused,” I said, “but still, fuck Nevada.”

“Sir, you’re talking about an entire American state…”

“No, I’m talking about three million people out of three hundred fifty million. I’m talking about less than one percent of the U.S. electorate.”

“And you’re suggesting we shouldn’t care about those three million people?’

“Not at all. Care about them all you want. But you’re not doing them any good if you’re talking to them and not the other three hundred forty-seven million.”

He snorted his contempt, “We‘re trying to talk to everyone. That’s part of your job, sir. Those three million are just as important as all the rest and this campaign cares about the American people.”

I couldn’t help myself. I blurted, “If we care so much about the people, then why don’t we try to win? You’re talking about heading off to a PTA meeting in Mayberry and if you get votes from everyone in town, you don’t even budge the needle. We can get Reno and a hundred towns just like it and still finish dead last.”

“Well I think we’ve heard enough,” said the Campaign Director.

“Hold on,” said Markus. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I’ve looked at it very closely and I think the case I’m trying to make will be obvious if we can all just look at it with clear heads.”

“Very well then,” said Markus. “Everyone clear your heads and let’s listen to the young man.”

Given the floor, I introduced what I called the Twenty-Five Cities Campaign. In broad strokes, it called on the entire campaign to focus on twenty-five key cities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia with the objective of winning at least eight of those states that together would give us enough votes to win the election outright.

The strategy was simple, involving only three basic principles: First, where you’re sure to lose, don’t fight; second, where you’re sure to win, do just enough to make doubly sure; and finally, spend everything you have left on twenty-five choice cities where it’s a close fight. If it worked, it would give us California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Texas, with enough combined votes to take the White House.

It happened that Bradley was from Massachusetts, taking Boston off the table. The Boston metro area was the tenth most populous in the country and the state’s eleven electoral votes were hard to walk away from. But the strategy was sound. First rule: Don’t fight where you can’t win.

Smith was from Philadelphia, meaning we would concede that city plus Pittsburgh, two of the country’s largest metro areas, and thereby write off the twenty electoral votes in Pennsylvania.

For me, these were not hard choices. To the Markus political apparatchiks, they were heresies.

“How can you seriously suggest that we just walk away from two critical northeast states?” asked the bloviating Campaign Director. “You can play with figures all you want but do you really believe we should put up no fight in either Philadelphia or Boston, two cities that stretch back to the birth of this country? You cannot hope to be P\president if you don’t shape opinions in this country’s political epicenter.”

“I don’t hope to be president,” I shot back, “but the candidate does. It’s my job to make the candidate’s hopes real. If you mess around in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts you’ll waste time and money and worse, you’ll pull the candidate away from where he should be.”

“Where he should be,” said the strategy director, “and just where might that be?”

“If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you precisely where he should be. The candidate should be in…”

New York City – thirteen million people, two-thirds of the entire state, twenty-nine electoral votes,

and

Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego – half the population of California, fifty-five votes,

and

Miami, Tampa and Orlando – Enough population to carry Florida with its twenty-nine votes,

and

Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas-Fort Worth – Almost sixteen million people in the combined metropolitan areas, more than half of everyone in Texas, with thirty-eight votes,

and

Cincinnati and Cleveland – Two cities that can get you all eighteen votes in Ohio,

and

Atlanta – Win in Atlanta, you take Georgia and pick up all sixteen votes,

and

Detroit – Same thing. One city gives you Michigan’s sixteen votes,

and lastly,

Chicago – The third biggest city in the country. Half the population of Illinois lives within an hour of Downtown. Get them and you get the prize, twenty electoral votes.

“Now do the math,” I said.

“We can add, young man,” snapped the Strategy Director, desperate to make himself relevant, “and what you’ve just laid out gives us two hundred twenty-one electoral votes. That won’t win. To win we need two hundred seventy.”

“No. For a majority we need two-seventy. We don’t need a majority. Am I the only one who realizes we’re in a three-way race? We don’t need half. We just need the most out of three.”

Markus himself weighed in. “But I thought you were calling this a Twenty-Five Cities Campaign. I only count fifteen.”

“That’s correct sir,” I said. “These fifteen metro areas in eight states will win for you. They’re all you need, but they’re not sure wins. Therefore I would add nine others to the list beginning with San Bernardino. A close call in any of the other four major metros in California could cost you the state. I would shore up that risk with San Bernardino. You’re in LA and San Diego already. San Bernardino is forty-five minutes away by helicopter from either.”

“Very well,” he said, “and where else?”

“Well sir, for different strategic reasons, I recommend Denver, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle-Tacoma, Portland, St Louis and Charlotte. Polls and history suggest those are tougher wins than the rest, but they’re still up for grabs and they’re all significant players in the Electoral College.”

“That makes twenty-four. Where is the twenty-fifth?” asked Markus.

“Since your team is already committed to it, Nevada, sir. Las Vegas and the rest of Clark County are home to almost one-and-a-half million people. That’s half of Nevada. Nevada is worth a paltry six votes, but six votes could, hypothetically, make a difference. If the whole strategy works, those six votes should be overkill. But if we miss anywhere else they could save us.”

“Las Vegas,” he said.

“Las Vegas, sir.”

“And you think this will work?” he asked.

“Sir,” I said, “it has to work. To be perfectly blunt, sir, letting these men spend your time in places like Reno certainly will not work and although we picked up some widespread support following your first national broadcast, lately we haven’t moved in the polls at all. Your campaign as currently designed is not working and doing the same old thing never will work. The men in this room telling you what they learned from reading about the kiss-the-baby days, the kind of tactics that pulled votes from the obituaries for LBJ, they’re part of history, not the present and certainly not the future. You will never be President of the United States if you do as these men ask. I’ve done the math and math doesn’t lie. Math has no stake in its own outcome. It’s just numbers, sir, and playing these odds with these numbers is the only way to get you to the White House.”

The Campaign Director was livid. “You’re asking us to go with a hunch, to follow some statistical model that can’t be proven…”

I interrupted, “But it has been proven.” Turning to Markus I said, “In 1992, a Texas billionaire entered the presidential race as a third party candidate. He ran a sloppy campaign. He bought nationwide air time and ran a coast-to-coast campaign. He finished last. But because he was in the race, the Democrat in that contest carried thirty-two states with three hundred seventy electoral votes, a virtual slaughter of the Republican incumbent. That Democrat was Bill Clinton and he won only forty-three percent of the popular vote.”

“That was an isolated case,” the Strategy Director protested.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But would you rather our candidate become the next president or the next Ross Perot? And besides, there’s nothing isolated about it. In 2000, the Republican candidate carried Florida by five hundred thirty-seven votes in what is now an acknowledged fraud. With Florida, George W. Bush won the general election with two hundred seventy-one electoral votes, despite losing the nationwide popular vote by half-a-million.”

“We all know what happened in Florida,” said the Campaign Director, “but we’re not talking about dirty tricks here.”

“Aren’t we?” I asked. “If we’re not, then we most certainly ought to be. It’s not dirty if it’s how the game is played. I’m talking about how to play the game and win. Florida was no aberration. What about 2008?”

“What about it?” asked Markus. “That was a clear and decisive Obama victory.”

“Yes it was, sir,” I acknowledged, “in the general election at least. But in the Democratic primary there were more of those ‘dirty tricks’ that some of us don’t want to discuss. In that primary, both Florida and Michigan had their original delegate counts cut in half. Hillary Clinton won handily in both those states but whereas her margin over Obama would have been ninety-six delegates, that total got reduced to just forty-eight. There were also thirteen delegates between the two states pledged to a third-place candidate. Those would originally have been twenty-six. That candidate ultimately endorsed Obama, giving him those thirteen delegates and one other, quite a trick given that Mrs. Clinton carried both those states by a wide margin. At the convention, Clinton lost to Obama by a hundred and twelve delegates. A clean count plus a resultant shift in some super-delegates could have given Clinton a hundred and twenty-two votes and made 2009 to 2017 the second Clinton Era.

The Soldier muttered, “Or the McCain Era.”

“Right,” I said. “The point is that history turns on a few votes, not a few million. Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the primary season by three hundred thousand popular votes and she did not win the nomination of her own party.”

“So party politics is dirty politics,” said the Strategy Director. “We don’t play party politics.”

“You’re right, you don’t. But they do. And playing in that arena under those rules has honed their skills and sharpened their instincts. They’re so far ahead of us we can’t hope to catch them in the race of their choosing.”

“You’re saying it’s hopeless?” asked Markus.

“No sir,” I answered. “Not hopeless. Not if we play the game of our choosing, one we can win.”

“Forgive me for intruding here,” said the Media Relations Director, “but why are we talking about cities when electoral votes are allotted to the states? You’re talking about individual cities as if the rest of a state doesn’t matter.”

The Chief Pollster answered for me. “Because the rest of the state doesn’t matter,” he said. “I see what he’s talking about. Why campaign in DeKalb, Illinois, when the entire city counts for little more than a square block of Downtown Chicago?”

“Precisely,” I agreed.

“You campaign in DeKalb because every vote counts,” said the Campaign Director.

The Chief Pollster laughed. “Every vote most certainly does not count. The kid is right about that. Illinois is actually the perfect example. The polls are steady. We’re around twenty percent state-wide, no significant variation in any part of the state. We’re getting twenty percent in DeKalb doing nothing at all. Smith and Bradley are polling around thirty percent each. That leaves twenty percent undecided and those are the votes we ought to be fighting for.”

“Correct!” snapped the Campaign Director. “We should be fighting for that twenty percent everywhere.”

“No,” said the Pollster. “We should fight for them where they actually matter. If you get another twenty percent of Greater Chicago, you get enough to carry Illinois. Just add it up. You’d be talking about forty percent of Metro Chicago. We’d still need to bring our numbers up a few points everywhere else. But forty percent of Chicago in a three-way scenario almost assures you a win in Illinois. That’s a fact. On the other hand, even a hundred percent of DeKalb gets you practically nothing.”

Markus interjected, “But then I might as well be running for Mayor of Chicago.”

“Actually sir,” I said, “That’s sort of what I have in mind; except I’m suggesting you run for mayor in twenty-five cities at the same time. Those twenty-five cities are home to forty percent of all Americans and I want them to think of you as a candidate they want as their next mayor.”

“Okay,” he said, “But then there’s the other sixty percent. I got in this race to help the people, all the people.”

I gave it to him as straight as I could. “If you want to help the people, then win this thing. You can stand on principle, listen to your old-school advisers, campaign like it’s 1968 and spend your life wishing you’d had a chance to make a difference, or you can win by the only available means and spend the next four years making the difference you’ve dreamed about. You can’t help the people if you lose.”

Two weeks later, the Chicago Bears played the Minnesota Vikings on a Monday night. Five minutes after kick-off, fans in Chicago watched an advertisement that ended with the words, I’m Tom Markus and I approve this ad. Go Bears! At the same time, four hundred miles away, in Minneapolis fans saw a nearly identical ad that ended Go Vikings! We were running for mayor in twenty-five cities.