“Where’s Senator Penfield?” Dot asked, her eyes sweeping the room. How could they have lost him?
Fletcher heard a pounding on the bathroom door. He rushed over and opened it. The older man bolted out of the john.
“That punk locked me in, damn it! Out of my way!” Penfield pushed Fletcher aside and sprinted to the stage.
“Wow, he can move!” Harper said.
The senator, with green skittle tint on his tongue, mopped his brow as the second half of the debate got underway.
“Please tell me someone got that on video.” Mary imagined it going viral.
“I hope not!” Dot was alarmed.
Kitty wouldnothave liked that.
With the candidates back in position, the moderators pressed on, and the crowd got more aggressive in cheering and booing the answers. Toward the end of the second hour, it became a free-for-all, with all the candidates pandering to dairy farmers and talking over each other, and the moderators failing to get a handle on it.
The control room finally cut everyone’s mics so that they could wrest back control. It was time to wrap it up. They gave each candidate another thirty seconds for a final statement.
State Senator Lopez was passionate and gracious.
“I ask you for your vote.” And then more quietly, in her deep stage whisper, “I ask you.”
She flashed her smile and looked confidently straight into the camera.
“Gorgeous,” Mary said.
Then Governor Stone of Kentucky explained how he was clearly the only one who could beat the incumbent Republican president.
“I’m the only one who has what it takes to beat him—and, unlike others up here tonight,” he said as he glanced up and down the row of candidates, “I have a record to prove it.”
Lopez gave him side-eye and a lift of one eyebrow.
“Wow! Shots fired,” Fletcher said, rubbing his hands together.
The Wisconsin senator got a round of polite applause and talked about deer hunting with her boys. She hadn’t lit the room on fire.
Rose shrugged. “She’s nice. But even I know she’s boring and safe.”
Theo Maddox reminded everyone he was the only billionaire who could self-fund his race. Then he asked the audience to donate through his website.
“This guy’s killing me.” Fletcher put his head in his hands.
Senator Penfield told the crowd, “It’s your last chance to have me as your president. I hope you don’t screw it up like last time.” That got a laugh.
Governor Cal—it’s in the name—Ashby went last. He chose to say he was launching a brand-new website that would go live as soon as the debate finished. He gave the address out several times in rapid-fire.
As the debate wrapped up and family members swarmed the stage to congratulate their loved ones and pose for the cameras, Dot finally exhaled.
“What do you think? Who’s the winner?” Fletcher asked, catching up with her.
“Well, I’d put green arrows next to Stone and Lopez.”
“Not Penfield?” Fletcher pulled a face and made Dot laugh.
“Touché. He’s going nowhere. Except maybe Substack,” she said.
FOR THE WINvolunteers cleaned up the greenroom while they watched the spin room on the big screen.