administration will be a living hell."
"Yeah, thank God for six year terms and the power of incumbency. But, what difference does it make at this point? The question is, how can we get back in the game?" asks DeWitt.
"Basically, we turn the tables. We still own the Senate, most of the bureaucracy, the media and a lot of judges. We can sabotage anything he tries to do. We make him fail then we pick up the pieces."
"Yeah, but I don't think that will bring our brand back into style very soon," say DeWitt.
"So, we get a new brand. Time to start a new party, or, rather, maybe revive an old one."
"What do you mean?" asks Salazar, his interest perking up.
"When the Whig party collapsed in the 1850s, the Republican party was created overnight and took the White House four years later."
"True, but what do you mean by reviving an old party? Not the Whigs, for God's sake!"
"No, something more recent, the Progressive Party."
"Explain."
"At the beginning of the twentieth century, the progressive movement got started in this country. La Follette, Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, they were all progressives. Later on, Henry Wallace, Margaret Sanger, Charles Davenport and a lot of others."
"Wasn't Wallace vice-president once?"
"Yep, FDR's VP until FDR replaced him with Harry Truman. Otherwise, Wallace would have become president in 1944 when FDR died. Believe me, things would be a lot different now if he had! As it was, Wallace ran against Truman in 1948 on the Progressive Party ticket."
"Didn't exactly win. No electoral votes, as I recall," mutters Hillary. "A lot of good that will do us!"
"No, he didn't get any electoral votes, but he did get more than a million votes. That was also the year the Dems split and Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat. Thurmond got the same number of votes as Wallace but Thurmond got 39 electoral votes. For that matter, La Follette got nearly seventeen percent of the popular vote in 1924 but he ended up with only thirteen electors. There's an important lesson here. With the current system, it isn't how many votes you get, but it's where you get'."
"So how does all this help us?"
"The Progressive Party faded away in the 1950s. We bring it back. It's got a catchy name, tests well in focus groups."
At that moment someone cranks up the music and the roadies march in to start hauling off the stage setup. As they begin disassembling the risers, the noise level becomes deafening.
"Lets go up to my suite," says Hillary. "It's impossible to talk down here now."
They nod, rise and file out to the lobby and across to the elevators.
Bader pauses at the entrance and tells the maitre d' to send up some trays of cold cuts, vegies, dips, chips and whatever else is available.
Walking across the lobby to the private elevators he spots billionaire insurance magnate Warren Table.
"Hey Warren, come on upstairs and join us. We've got some talking to do."
"After tonight, drinking might be more apropos than talk."
"We'll be doing that too. We're meeting in Hillary's suite. You need to be there."
"Might as well. There's no party down here, that's for sure."
The two men head for the private elevators where the operator recognizes them and asks, "Senator DeWitt's penthouse?"
"Yes, thank you."
The elevator door glides shut and the small private car swiftly rises to the penthouse floor and a large, $10,000 per night, suite of rooms that DeWitt has taken for the week. As they cross the small lobby to her door, the service elevator dings and the door opens. A liveried waiter wheels out long white cloth draped cart on which are an assortment of hors d'oeuvres. In the center are bottles of scotch, rye, gin, vodka and bourbon, wine and champaign.
Bader and Table enter the suite first followed discretely by the waiter.
Inside the suite, they find themselves in a huge living room, fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. The room itself is arranged with several areas of sofas, tables, and crystal lamps. One wall is all glass with a central sliding door that leads to a room length balcony overlooking the glittering lights of Georgetown below and the illuminated Capitol monuments in the distance.
The waiter goes about his business swiftly. Placing the serving table at one end of the room, he opens two bottles of wine, one white, one red, lights several little candles under the hot trays, arranges the cutlery, and departs unobtrusively.
Bader sees that DeWitt and the others are out on the balcony taking in the view and calls out to her through the sliding door. Turning, she sees Bader and Table and waves. She and the others return to the main room where they avail themselves of some wine along with little plates of food and take seats.
"I've also asked Steve Black to join us. He's on his way over right now," says Bader.
"Admiral Steve Black? From NSA?" asks Cutter.
"Yes," replies Bader. "I think he may have something to contribute."
Just then the door opens. It's Admiral Black.
Admiral Black is crisply attired and usually silent. He listens and takes notes. People who get on his bad side seem to disappear. All Washington fears him and what his spies know and they know everything. He understands how to use the vast NSA spy data trove to accomplish whatever his masters want.
"Stevie! Come on in. We've been expecting you. Get something to drink and sit down," squeals DeWitt.
He takes off his coat, sets his briefcase next to a chair, pours a small glass of sparkling water and joins the group.
"Ok, so, Bader, what's your plan? What's this about a new Progressive Party?" asks Salazar.
"Here's the way I see it. First of all, the Democrat Party is dead. The brand is worthless. Trying to rebuild it is a waste of time. It has too many elements that are out of touch with reality."
"Ok, I think tonight more or less proved that," interjects Table.
"The Democrat Party was definitely trending progressive under Wilson but in 1932 Roosevelt changed it all. He built a new coalition that altered the direction of the party. His coalition was unstable. It was too sensitive to pressure groups from within, a lot of groups that really had little in common with each other. It held together for thirty years but, from the mid 60s on, it's been breaking up. This year, it's gone. No one is going to put it back together again. It's over."
"That seems glaringly obvious," says DeWitt. "So, what do we do now?"
"Now we need a new coalition of groups loyal to our values. With them, we can take back the country. We build a new Progressive Party, a coalition of connected groups, groups with common interests across the economic spectrum. A coalition that can last."
"Well, since 1860, the Republicans have hung together for a hundred sixty years, and elected eighteen presidents to the Democrat's ten," says Black.
"And three of those Democrats got the job because the incumbent died in office, I might add," says Bader.
"So, if you were putting together a new party, who would be in it?" asks DeWitt.
"Well, those that already call themselves progressives, along with socialists, welfare people, the newly legalized immigrants, the greens, environmentalists, climate change people, government unions, minorities, university faculty, naive students, and the big city political machines."
"Doesn't sound like a coalition that can take Congress. Sounds more or less like the demographic rundown of most big cities," says Cutter.
"Skip Congress. Congress is an anachronism. It's just a debating society. We don't need it. It's on its way out. What we really want is a permanent lock on the presidency. That's were the action is. The agencies and commissions. They run the country now. Not Congress."
"Well, they do have a lot of influence on society. And, I guess you're right, over the past hundred years, Congress really has ceded most of its authority to the bureaucracy," agrees Hillary.
"Correct. And it's the president who appoints the agency bosses, senior staff, the commissions and regulatory boards. That's where the real power is,
the real tools of government. The president also appoints the judges, they validate the power. The president manages the bureaucracy, they execute the power. Screw Congress. Personally, I'd rather control the EPA, IRS, NSA, SSA, BLM, FBI, CIA, DoD, DoE, Homeland, TSA, and all the others any day! That's where the real authority is to remake society, not the damned Congress!"
"Well, I guess we've certainly seen some of that for the past eight years. Just about everything Obama did after he lost his lock on the Congress was through an agency controlled by his appointees." says Cutter.
"But I still don't see how we win at the presidential level? How do we take the Electoral College when all we really control is just a bunch of big cities in the Northeast?"
"Well, don't forget Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and most of California," says Salazar.
"Here's how. Remember that National Popular Vote law from a few years ago?"
They look to one another and nod.
DeWitt says, "I thought that was long since dead?"
"No, it's still on the books in those states that passed it years ago. At the moment, it only needs one more state for it to come into effect. Either Iowa, Connecticut or Oregon will do. Once it passes, then the candidate with the most votes wins the presidency, the Electoral College is effectively out of business," says Bader.
"And what are the prospects in those states for it to pass?"
"With enough money and media support, very good. That's where Salazar and Cutter come in."
"We'll do whatever you want at the networks, you know that," says Cutter.
"Money is no problem," says Salazar.
"Count me in