Sweetness in the Dark (21 page)

“I can’t very well kick her off the delegation now. It would appear obvious and our opponents would jump on it. They would accuse us of demeaning women and there goes our argument with the women delegates,” the Montana governor offered. “Besides, if you haven’t noticed, our side is decidedly top-heavy with men. There are more women in the other delegations, especially those neutral members. We need their votes.”

“The governor is right. If I may suggest…” the Idaho governor stopped in mid-sentence. He had noticed that Paul had raised his pen beside him to inject something. “Er, I think Dr. Kendall might have a solution.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but my assistant, Ms. Amanda Savage, informed me she has a solution.” Amanda had jabbed him in the back to get his attention. By the force of the jab, he assumed it was relevant to the discussion and not a love tap. He turned to face a smiling Amanda. “Ms. Savage.”

“Thank you. I believe I could meet with Rebecca and have a one-on-one with her. Maybe a little woman-on-woman time can provide a solution. If that would meet the group’s approval, I’ll get on it right away,” Amanda said.

By the nods and murmurs of the delegates, they were happy to turn the Rebecca problem over to anyone willing to take it on. The Idaho governor read the reaction. “Amanda, I think our group has concurred. Thank you for taking this on and good luck. You’ll need it. And don’t forget, the future of our country is riding on what you do.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” Amanda said.

“Just kidding. Do your best as I know you will,” the governor said.

Amanda stood to leave, but made a point of bending over Paul to ostensibly hand him a note. Paul felt her run her hand down his arm as she passed on the paper.
Just a small reminder of her presence
, he thought.
I like the gesture
.

“Now, let’s get down to business. We have this afternoon and tomorrow to swing some of the neutrals into our camp. What are our strongest arguments for a new Constitution?” the Montana governor asked.

The group settled into a brisk discussion on their issues. Paul sat and listened as each item came up. It would be a long weekend with countless meetings to gather more support.

* * *

Monday morning arrived much too early for Paul. Between all the late-night meetings, he was exhausted. He grabbed some coffee from the counter outside the Convention Hall then receded into the background to try and gain some strength. Amanda walked up all perky, carrying a coffee and two bagels.

“I grabbed a bagel for you. I figured you might need it this morning.”

“Thank you,” was all Paul could say. The coffee did its job of jump starting his system. He closed his eyes to let the caffeine work uninterrupted.

She stood close to Paul, looking out over the gathering crowd of delegates. Paul could smell her freshly shampooed hair. The smell stimulated him as much as the coffee. He leaned slightly toward her to get a stronger dose. She mumbled something that Paul was too tired and distracted to comprehend.

“I’m sorry, too many late meetings trying to move more states to our side,” Paul uttered.

“Are you sure it was the late-night meetings with those other states? Or maybe it was the other late-night activities that you’re complaining about?”

Paul knew that it was his trying to keep up with a younger woman as well as his political horse trading that had gotten to him. He leaned for support into the woman that certainly had changed his life.

Amanda smiled as she leaned into Paul. Now both their bodies were firmly squeezed tight against each other. From a distance they looked like two individuals jammed side by side together in a tight space. Except there was no one else around them.

Paul said, “I need to get some sleep tonight. Ben Franklin might have been up for this, but I’m not.”

“Ben Franklin? What are you…” Amanda was cut short.

“Did I hear someone mention Ben Franklin? Great American. They don’t make them like that anymore,” the Utah governor spoke as he stepped in front of the couple.

Paul and Amanda slowly moved apart to a more respectable distance.

“Yes, Governor. Ms. Savage and I were just discussing that you and your fellow governors are the Founding Fathers of our new nation. We were wondering if your names will one day be spoken with the same reverence as when we speak of the original Founding Fathers,” Paul offered. He was fully awake now. The coffee and shampoo had fired up all his synapses. He was ready.

“Hardly likely. Those men in 1786 were giants. True giants. If we can offer half the wisdom today that they provided back then, we can count ourselves deserving,” the Utah governor said. Luckily he was quickly led away as everyone began to enter the Convention Hall.

“Boy that was close. We need to be careful,” Paul said.

“But not too careful,” Amanda said as she turned to leave.

Paul was met by the Idaho governor as he entered the room.

“Well, we’ll soon find out if Amanda did her job.”

Paul stopped short.
What job is he thinking about?
he thought.

The governor noticed his hesitation and continued. “The Rebecca dilemma. Remember? Are you getting enough sleep? You’ve been having a lot of late-night meetings.”

“I’m fine, Governor. Thank you for your concern,” Paul answered. “Yes, we’ll find out soon if Amanda did her job.”

The Convention moderator called the delegates to order. Everyone settled in for the first round of writing a new constitution. Lacking the required two-thirds vote for adopting the existing U.S. Constitution, the Convention was now committed to a new document.

“Mr. Moderator, I move that we open the floor to a discussion of using the existing U.S. Constitution as our rough draft and that amendments be proposed to it, rather than starting with a wholly new document,” the Louisiana governor said.

Paul motioned to his governor and his caucus that this would be acceptable. The real battle lay in the changes. The U.S. Constitution had been a sound document for over 200 years. Whether the member states could agree to major changes remained to be seen.

By acclamation, the old document was placed into discussion. The Canadian members sat quietly and watched. Paul nodded to the Alberta minister to assure him that the action was acceptable.

“Mr. Moderator, I would ask for the floor so that Idaho may present our proposed changes. Dr. Paul Kendall has been selected by our caucus to present our case,” the Idaho governor said.

Receiving permission to take the floor, Paul turned on the overhead projector so that he could offer a visual presentation. With every computer chip burnt out by ‘the Pulse’, life reverted back to old technology.

“Fellow delegates, thank you for the opportunity to present what has become known as the Idaho Plan. The proposed amendments to the way we will self-govern ourselves can easily be incorporated into the old Constitution,” Paul said. The bagel Amanda had given him was now adding its carbohydrate load to his blood stream. He was ready to argue his case. He continued, “The United States that we all knew had reached an impasse of insolvency and cronyism when the sun resolved our problems. It would be folly to just pick up where we were, and continue on as if nothing was wrong with our government in Washington D.C.”

Paul continued his talk. Many in the room had heard it before. Many others had read his numerous books and articles on the subject. Paul had been a strong advocate for a major change to the U.S. government for some time.

“Everyone needs to understand what happened in our country over the last fifty years. Capitalism as we studied it in the history books was based on capital, or money saved for investment. The United States had devolved away from capitalism and had slid into ‘debtism’; a system based on debt. The two are profoundly different,” Paul stated.

“What difference does it make where the money comes from, as long as we have money to run our economy?” Horst demanded. The Texas delegation all nodded in agreement.

“The difference is like night and day. When we were on a system based on capital, it was the late 1800s and the United States was the fastest growing country on the planet. Switch to our recent past borrowing scheme and our GDP barely grew,” Paul answered.

“And we’re a different country now than 100 years ago. Seems simple to me,” Horst threw back.

“Not so simple. While we created debt out of thin air, China runs on capital and has the kind of growth rates we used to enjoy. The differences in each economy is profound. My fellow delegates, if we want a robust economy that can employ all our citizens in well-paying jobs, we need to reject a debt-based economy,” Paul said.

“I suppose next you’ll say we need a monetary system based on gold,” the Oklahoma governor stated.

“Exactly. Return to a gold standard and deficit spending by government is curtailed.”

The Convention broke down into small groups discussing the merits of the topic. Paul wanted to get them back on track, as he had a number of items to cover.

The Idaho Plan was the formal proposal by twelve of the members of the Union of American States. Paul continued the work of selling the Plan to all the members.

“Let me put an overhead on that might explain the profound problems we were experiencing. Before we settle on a new government, we need to understand the problems of the old,” Paul said. He placed an acetate sheet down.

United States - Profound Problems

Elections

Citizenship

Middle Class

Taxes

International Trade

Debt

“Let’s look at each one. First and foremost issue is voting. For too long, voting irregularities had cropped up. The examples are too numerous to name them all. The most notorious was John F. Kennedy’s win in 1960. Many believed that Mayor Richard Daly manufactured sufficient votes in the City of Chicago to assure Kennedy’s carrying the State of Illinois. With those electoral votes, Kennedy won the Presidency.”

A Florida delegate added, “Don’t forget the ‘hanging chad’ fiasco in Florida that the U.S. Supreme Court finally decided in George Bush’s favor. Funny how it was the Democratic Party of Dade County that tried to manipulate the ballots to the benefit of Al Gore.”

A Washington State delegate jumped in. “Our State of Washington election for U.S. Senator was a joke. The Republican candidate won in a close race, and the recount still gave the Republican a victory. Since the gap had closed on the recount, a second recount was ordered. Amazingly, the Democrat controlled King County found even more votes, this time making the Democrat the victor.”

“A similar situation occurred in the State of Missouri. When the early count looked bad for the Democrat senate candidate, the poll hours in the Democrat controlled City of St. Louis were extended until enough Democratic votes were collected to assure victory over the Republican,” a Missouri delegate added.

“Then there was Minnesota's problem with new voters showing up just before the election for U.S. Senator. Along with absentee ballots that were questionable, that Democratic idiot Al Franken won a narrow victory,” a delegate from South Dakota chuckled.

“Don’t forget Oregon’s vote by mail. Or ‘vote by fraud’ as its affectionately called. No attempt at proper identification was ever made to determine if people in Oregon were even still alive,” an Oregon delegate responded.

“Oh yeah, someone even showed up at a polling place saying he was someone he wasn’t. The worker was ready to hand him a ballot when he stopped them saying he was making a public demonstration of the failure of the system. Turned out he was impersonating the Attorney General of the United States,” the Virginia governor said.

“That would be the same Attorney General that sued the State of Florida for requiring an ID to vote. He said that checking ID’s was tantamount to denying minorities the right to vote,” the North Carolina governor said. “The man had gall, that’s for sure.”

Paul broke in before more state delegates recalled problem votes. “You all have stories of questionable votes and I know that there are many more. That’s why we need to establish a new standard for voting.”

Paul outlined the changes in the new constitution he felt were needed to assure that national elections would be honest. In the future, all national elections would be by paper ballot at polling places with registration limited to 90 days before the election. A picture ID would be required before voting.

No computer software could be manipulated to compromise the vote as well. Further, all ballots would be numbered so that they could be accounted for against unused blank ballots suddenly showing up to swing a close election.

Paul reminded the members that under any new constitution, member states would be free to conduct state elections any way they chose. The new amendment would only apply to national elections.

Paul pointed out that the key to the Idaho Plan was reinstalling a republican form of government where each member state was sovereign. Just as the original Constitution attempted, each state would choose the powers it would assign to the central government.

The Idaho Plan offered stronger language throughout their proposed constitution to limit the size of any national government. He explained the United Sates had lost its way and had become the end-all of large governments.

When he made this statement, he was gratified that almost all the delegates nodded their head in agreement. He hoped that if nothing else, the common government they all would choose would be significantly smaller than the one in the recent past.

The governor of Virginia offered a request, “I would ask that the delegates take a vote to confirm that we are providing a republican form of government, and that we will work to that end.”

The moderator asked the question and had Paul offer the language to strengthen the original constitution. Over three quarters of the delegates showed approval for the measure.

Next Paul raised the second issue; the question of who was a citizen of the new country. He described the misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution that defined a person as a U.S. citizen. He pointed out that the United States had been unique in the world in conferring citizenship on anyone who happened to be born in the U.S. It was a profound problem when anyone stealing into the U.S. could have a child born here and then get full rights.