Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 84 - 62: Peacemaker

"Enough!"

Montoya slammed his hand on the table.

"Stop trying to sell me that nonsense you peddle to amateurs!"

He stood up, rounded his desk, and walked over to Graves, looming over him.

"I’m the Whip, Harun. I know the price of every deal made in this building. I know the dirty work behind every single bill."

"What I don’t know is why, at a time like this, we’d go out of our way to provoke that crazy old man, Sanders."

"That 14th Amendment was passed just three months ago. Hardly anyone even fully understands its scope of application, and you people go and use it on some kid from Pittsburgh?"

"Tell me the truth, Harun. Whose idea was this? What’s the goal?"

Under Montoya’s intense, oppressive gaze, Graves’s composure finally crumbled.

He sighed, slumping back into his chair.

"Fine, Kod, since you insist on knowing."

Graves pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"You have to understand our position. Things are looking grim for next year’s midterms."

"Our poll numbers in the Swing States look terrible, and the Republicans are relentlessly attacking us."

"They’ve latched onto the talking points of some of the Progressives in our party—’defund the police,’ ’open borders,’ ’universal healthcare’—and they’re slapping those labels on every single Democratic candidate."

"They’re trying to paint our entire party as radical socialists."

"If we can’t get the situation under control during the primaries, if we let too many Progressive candidates win their nominations, then come the general election, we’ll get completely wiped out in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania."

Graves looked up at Montoya, a ruthless glint in his eyes.

"We need to clean house, Kod."

"We need to make sure that every candidate we run in the Swing States is as safe, as moderate, and as palatable to centrist voters as possible."

"We need to prove to all our donors and to the centrist voters that the Democratic Party is still a rational, responsible party—not some crazy-leftist faction hijacked by Sanders and his crew."

Montoya’s brow furrowed deeper as he listened.

"So, you chose Pittsburgh?"

"Yes. Pittsburgh is the perfect test case." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Graves nodded and continued.

"That young man, Leo Wallace—his momentum is too strong. He’s using populist slogans to whip up the workers in the Rust Belt."

"If he actually wins the primary and becomes the Mayor of Pittsburgh, it’ll send an extremely dangerous signal to other Progressive candidates across the country."

"They’ll start thinking that the radical platform is viable in the Rust Belt."

"That would trigger a chain reaction, causing us to lose control in even more districts."

"So, we have to take him down."

"We desperately need to make an example of a few people, to prove that Sanders’s brand of radicalism can’t survive in a traditional industrial city like Pittsburgh—that it only creates chaos and division."

"Once we prove that, once Wallace is soundly defeated, we’ll have a legitimate reason to strip the Progressives of their resource allocation rights for the primaries at the official Rules Committee meeting."

"Then we can funnel our limited funds to the more stable, more compliant centrist candidates."

"That’s our plan, Kod. It’s a necessary operation. It might be painful, but it’s to save the patient’s life."

When Graves finished, he looked at Montoya, as if expecting the Whip to understand a decision made for the greater good.

But all he received in return was a cold sneer from Montoya.