Free Miranda's War by Howard; Foster Page A

residences on Beacon Hill and the waterfront and Nantucket.”
    â€œThat’s right, she’s the discerning visionary. She wants development, just the right type.”
    â€œI think it’s not a bad idea, Karl. Why can’t we kick it around at the next meeting?”
    â€œTell me why we need to sell that beautiful mansion? It’s not like Lincoln needs the cash.”
    â€œWe do.”
    â€œTo do what with?” he asked and slammed his pipe down into a big ashtray.
    â€œTo buy up more land. Isn’t that our mission?”
    â€œOur mission is to conserve, not sell.”
    â€œI’m just saying I see some merit in the idea. Fourteen million is three times our annual budget. How about an objective cost-benefit analysis?”
    â€œThe charter says we hold the Pierce in trust. There is no cost-benefit analysis.”
    â€œI don’t think selling it with the strict conditions on use is inconsistent with that.”
    â€œI cannot pursue this conversation graciously.”
    He got up and just left the room most ungraciously. After a few minutes she just saw herself out. And that was as close to using profanity as Karl would come. Julia sensed she was a pawn in someone else’s game.

Chapter Thirteen
    Stephen made it to the campaign office by 6:00 a.m., before anyone else. It was still dark, giving the place a feel of lifelessness and inertia. The polls hadn’t budged. He was fourteen to seventeen points behind Cronin-Reynolds in everyone’s view, including his own pollster. The money wasn’t coming in, and he had to put in another $100,000 of his own to make it to the primary three weeks away. Every piece of advice had been wrong. All of the memos he’d received about the “atmospherics” of the Third Congressional District were consultant-driven drivel to give him the impression his candidacy could catch on. He didn’t like campaigning, and what unempathetic person would? Investment managers could choose their clients and render cold, hard judgments based on the numbers. Candidates could not. He had to talk to and care about everyone who approached him: the single mothers who weren’t making it, the Obama haters, the Bush haters, the hard-core left, the overweight and hard-core unemployed. Ninety percent of them had nothing original to say, yet he was required to lend an attentive ear and ask for their support. His father had enjoyed the crowds, the attention, the thrill of election night. Stephen now believed him to have been suffering from some sort of personality disorder.
    His largest contributor in the last month was someone named Hamilton Greeley from Wellesley Hills, seventy-four years old and retired. He’d given the $2,500 limit for the primary. His wife, Pamela, had given $1,500 a week earlier. Stephen went on Google Maps and found their stately brick house with awnings hanging over the windows and well-tended flowerbeds around the lawns. It had a market value of $2 million. And that was the Rokeby constituency in this primary: people with $2 million-plus houses. Whether he spoke about green jobs or China or Obamacare, the people who were sending in the trickle of contributions that paid for half the campaign were people like himself. He had failed to reach anyone else.
    An hour later Diane showed up and stopped outside his office.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?”
    â€œTake a seat, Diane,” he said and swiveled his chair away from the computer toward her.
    â€œAre you dropping out?”
    â€œNo, but I’m changing my strategy. I’m going to win this, or not get my butt kicked without a fight.”
    â€œThen you can find a new manager.”
    She left his office. He heard the pounding of her shoes on the floor and then her office door slamming.
    He called Alicia and hung up before she answered. He thought of calling his father. He thought of calling his consultant. But then he rummaged around his desk for