We had come off the plane at a quarter past noon, but the sun was muted in the haze of the nearby city, and low-flying clouds kept a constant strobe skimming across the faces of the constituency gathered in the newly cleared wheat field.
Hayworth was taking the stage, and the hush that always occured when he did fell over the crowd.
"I didn't start this campaign to lose", he was saying, and the applause interrupted him. "But if we're going to take back our government, I need your help- I need you on my side." More applause.
Liddeman turned to me with his wolfish grin."He's got it today- he's got them on the moral high."
I rolled my eyes. "When doesn't he?"
The mob seemed to agree with me. This was the last stop before heading to California, and Hayworth seemed to have a serious turnout from the rural blue collar crowd, as well as their children and wives, which meant that they saw Hayworth as a man that could stand for their families. What did Sarah say was the number of farmers in this county? It couldn't be much more than this, and there was no sign of a dissident group present. So in all likelihood, many of these people had come from the surrounding counties and towns. A good sign for our country following, and if California was half as good as this, and it would be, we had a lock on the nomination.
I had worried since the get- go that Herbert was going to be too left for the rural folk and too right(or just countryish) for the city liberals. There was, I had feared, and I voiced it to him often, a dangerous recipe apparent for a vicious campaign suicide- the candidate ending up being seen as apathetic in the middle, like Joe Biden or Harry Reid. This wouldn't, of course, be true, for Hayworth was anything but apathetic, but neither was the Democratic leadership, and they had managed to be seen as such, by both sides of the spectrum.
But I was beginning to feel more confident that this was not the case with my man. He had the prescence of Theodore Roosevelt and the cunning of FDR. He seemed to be able to combine country moral values with an attitude of pious tolerance that did not in any way seem "soft" or endangering of children's upbringing. He carried a big stick, and even when he spoke softly the area reverberated with his voice. It was impossible, I thought, to hear this guy, even on TV, and not get a mental image of protecting strength. This key trait allowed him to steer clear of the nationalist rhetoric that ruined Joe McCarthy, made Nixon sound like Goering, and would later make George Bush sound plain dumb.
But enough of this contemplation, I thought.We knew what we were doing. I was gaining confidence indeed in this wily bastard, and my previous assumption that he would, like all the others, turn into a rat when the ship sank, was fading quickly, and turning into something I hadn't felt in a long time- a lump in my throat when I thought of the possibilities.