No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson Page B

Kerry resisted following his advisers’ blueprint by rote, he drew their admiration and frustration in roughly equal measure.
    “What about the economy?” Kerry asked. “With all these issues, the whole idea is we’re not leaving anyone out. I need to emphasize job security.”
    “The economy is critical,” Mick answered. “You should hit that closer to election day, like Saturday and Sunday, and with ads. But Clayton says you may need to squeeze in a debate.”
    Kerry nodded. “So Dick Mason told all America last night. I don’t think I could duck it if I wanted to.”
    Mick paused for a moment. “That brings up one more problem, Kerry. Abortion. Mason means to stick it to you.”
    Kerry raised his eyebrows. Softly, he said, “If you want me to endorse fetal-tissue research, I’ve already done it.”
    Jack Sleeper put down his coffee cup. “Dammit, Kerry, the vote in the last primary ran about fifty-eight percent women. It’s women who reelected Ellen Penn, she keeps reminding me, partly because she’s so pro-choice.”
    “I know that.” Kerry’s voice was so patient that Clayton could hear the effort this took. “But Dick Mason’s wasting his time. Even with all that’s happened, abortion’s about the fourteenth issue most people care about; no one ever won just by being pro-choice unless the alternative is some born-again who runs around waving photographs of aborted babies.” Kerry’s tone took on an edge of irony. “Voters seem to find that in bad taste. Anyhow, what I said the other day about ‘life’ isn’t all that new—people are just listening closer. And it didn’t hurt me in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
    “Kerry’s right,” Nat Schlesinger put in. The others turned; Nat spoke seldom, and when he did, they listened. “Anguish isn’t such a bad position,” he went on, “as long as the candidate’s unequivocally pro-choice and uses words like ‘painful’ instead of the word ‘life.’ Who in their right mind loves abortion?”
    “Anthony’s Legions,” Mick replied. “And any other pro-choice group that believes words like ‘painful’ grease the slippery slope to back-alley abortions.”
    Clayton saw Kerry’s eyes harden. “Three percent,” Kerry said. “If that. I’m pro-choice too, remember? All I’ve ever said is that an abortion isn’t like an appendectomy.”
    Jack Sleeper frowned. “Before these Boston shootings, Kerry, you were right about the three percent. Maybe four percent in the Bay Area—well-educated white women who see choice as a litmus test.
    “Dick Mason’s not a fool, and he can read polls as well as anyone. My tracking poll last night has him winning by two percent. Okay, who really knows? But your base in California is women—fifty percent, steady for the last five weeks—and you’re losing among men. All Dick wants to do is steal enough of that three percent to win.”
    “And your advice?”
    “Have a ‘pro-choice’ position you could write on the inside of a matchbook, then run on
your
issues. And
don’t
let yourself get drawn into a debate about abortion, for God’s sake. Otherwise the media will turn your thirty seconds into guerrilla theater starring the scariest pro-choice women they can shove in front of a Minicam.” Jack shook his head, as though in wonderment that he needed to explain this. “You’re home free, Kerry. Maybe if there were some character issue Dick could hang this on, like you screwing other people’s wives, Dick could use what you’ve already said to make you look like a phony moralist. But he’s got nothing, so he can’t. Unless you continue to help him.”
    For the first time, Clayton saw Kerry’s face close, his thoughts drift. Kerry looked at his watch and then around the sterile conference room: art from Sears; artificial flowers; light-cream wallpaper.
    “Doesn’t someone else have this room reserved?” Kerry asked. “Maybe for an Amway meeting?”
    “Anthony’s Legions,” Kit Pace said