Chapter 14
The Dullest Campaign That Ever Waned?
As we move into the dog days of summer, it’s becoming difficult to shake the feeling that the Democrats in the presidential race are a pack of dogs who won’t hunt.
Unseating a fairly popular Republican in the White House is no easy feat, and most of the highest-profile Democrats in the party have chosen to sit this one out, waiting instead for the open election four years from now.
The exception, of course, is Senator Andrew Wheeler (D-MD), whose formidable lead in polling and fundraising seems to make him all but predestined to sew up the nomination. But is that a good thing?
“Democrats are restless about Wheeler,” one Beltway insider tells me.
“If you dig deeper in the polling data, people are voting for him because they’ve heard of him, not because they actually like the guy.
The donor class would love to throw their money somewhere else, even to hedge their bets, but the rest of the field is a joke. They don’t have any viable options.”
I also spoke to a member of Maryland’s House delegation, who expressed frustration with Wheeler’s campaign.
“Wheeler was riding high after his last Senate race. He won that election with the biggest vote margin of his career. Everyone was bullish on him running for president, but his campaign has been a disaster. Completely uninspired, one unforced error after another. It feels like he’s not even the same candidate! It’s a mess. Something has to change.”
That’s the prevailing sentiment among Democrats: Something has to change.
There are fourteen months until Election Day, which is more than enough time for any number of massive shake-ups.
But who will do the shaking, and which apples will fall from the tree?
We’ll know soon: Summer is almost over, and the harvest is coming.
WhatsApp message transcript: Anya Katz and Simone Humphrey
August 19, 9:53 a.m.
Simone: Breaking news: Area best friend too dickmatized to respond to her texts
Anya: Omg SORRY I AM SORRY I totally missed these last night
Anya: Which dress did you pick? They were both so good!!!
Simone: I got flustered and went with a blazer
Anya: Had to do it for the butches
Simone: Again, I will take your tumblr
Simone: How are things on love island?
Anya: We’re not using that word
Anya: (Well, we’re kind of both pointedly trying not to, I think? Idk)
Simone: Which word? “Island”?
Anya: I hate you
Simone: False, you looooove me
Anya: UGH
Anya: But things are good? Like, nauseatingly good?
Simone: I’ll take a Dramamine, go on
Anya: He just like
Anya: I don’t know
Anya: He always wants to be where I am, so like, if I’m canvassing, he’s with me, if I’m doing things at our fake little office, he’s with me
Anya: And he gets kind of cranky if he goes too long without touching me? Not even sexually, just like, he’s happier if he can sit next to me so our knees can touch or he can put his arm around my waist or whatever
Simone: Brb getting another pill
Simone: No I’m kidding this is very sweet
Simone: But also, having met you, you’re not feeling kinda suffocated?
Anya: SIMONE, THAT IS THE WEIRD PART
Anya: I don’t at all
Anya: If anything I feel really comforted that he’s always around?
Anya: It’s possible I did not properly account for how much being so isolated this year affected my mental health
Simone: Correct, you did not
Simone: But I’m REALLY glad you feel this way now
Simone: Have you guys talked yet about what happens after the election? Also is election day next week or the week after, I forget
Anya: Next week, which is crazy
Anya: We haven’t talked about what happens after, but I’m also like, not even that anxious about it?
Simone: The word “that” doing a lot of work in that sentence
Anya: Ha
Anya: I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine being anywhere but here, which is so weird, I’ve only been on the island three months
Simone: Sierra is thrilled to have you
Anya:
Anya: She’s the absolute best
Anya: Omg wait I didn’t tell you, Sierra’s friend Bobbie is SO MAD about me and Gabe
Anya: She has such a big crush on him, she’s furious he doesn’t flirt with her anymore
Simone: Gabe? Not flirt with a human being?
Anya: Fair, he doesn’t flirt with her as MUCH
Simone: Lol
Simone: And you’re okay with that part? Him being, idk, how he is?
Anya: Yeah, totally
Anya: I mean obviously this is all extremely new, so who knows what could change
Anya: But he never gives me any reason to doubt him
Anya: It’s like, for the last ten years, all Gabe and I ever had were questions
Anya: And now we’re finally at the part where we tell each other the answers
Simone: Not me getting emotional over the behavior of a straight man
Simone: But genuinely like
Simone: I’m so so so so happy that this is how it’s going
Simone: (And selfishly quite relieved that my partner’s best friend isn’t a total douchebag)
Anya: At most an intermittent douchebag with occasionally questionable taste in music
Simone: Tell me that man doesn’t listen to country
Anya: I would like to, Simone
Anya: I would really like to
There had been a few moments when Anya almost said it.
When Gabe was taking a shower and playing music on his phone while she was working in the living room, and he was singing “Friends in Low Places” at the top of his voice and getting a majority of the lyrics loudly, confidently wrong, and it was all she could do not to run into the bathroom and get in with him fully clothed.
When they were having sex and he wanted to try out some complicated position, and it was so awkward and awful for both of them that they ended up collapsing in hysterical laughter.
When he came home from the island bookstore with a stack of fantasy novels she liked, and when she asked him why, he told her he was going to read them so he could understand “the weird vampire stuff you’re always saying.”
But every time, something stopped her—she wasn’t sure what.
Maybe she just liked this easy space they were in, on a faraway island tucked in the northernmost corner of the country, where they didn’t have to think about what came next.
Until the Friday before the election, when they decided to take a hike after they finished phone banking.
“It’s not a hike-hike, right?” Anya asked Gabe suspiciously. “I’m not cute when I’m all red-faced and huffy.”
“If I wanted you red-faced and huffy, I’d keep you right here in this cabin.” Gabe gave Anya’s ass a friendly squeeze as he pulled on a T-shirt.
“Well, I don’t hate that plan,” she teased.
“Do you want to stay?” he asked. “I’ll take this shirt off right now.”
“Can that please always be our thing instead of ‘I’ll turn this car around’?” she laughed. “You bail on any given plan by taking off your shirt?”
“You’ll do literally anything to see me topless,” he chided.
“No! It works for every occasion. Parties, the opera—”
“I get bored at the opera and take off my shirt, this is what you’re suggesting?”
“As a subtle cue to me that you’re ready to leave, yes.”
“If I take you to the opera, will you wear those long gloves?” He skimmed his fingers up and down Anya’s arms. “I really like those long gloves.”
“You’ll be shirtless, I’ll wear the gloves, we’ll be the weirdest couple at La Traviata.” Anya beamed.
“Couple,” Gabe repeated, and then he leaned down and kissed her. “I like when you call us that.”
—
The hike was more of a nature walk, to Anya’s relief—and an unbelievably beautiful one.
They took the dogs through a dense forest until they finally reached a path that wound along the island’s shore, with endless views of isles, seas, and mountains.
They walked along the path for twenty minutes or so until they got to a little inlet with a soft patch of grass, and they decided to sit for a bit to let the dogs run around.
“So, about the opera,” Gabe said. He sounded nervous—he was picking at a piece of grass.
“Wait, do you actually like opera?” Anya asked. “Do you want me to learn about opera like you’re learning about vampires?”
“No, I know nothing about opera,” Gabe said quickly. “I was thinking, if I were to get us tickets, for any sort of event, did you have thoughts on what city might be good?”
Anya took a deep inhale, then slowly let it out. “You’re asking where I want to live? After the election?”
“I am, but I thought it might feel like a less heavy question if I asked it really cryptically.”
“A perfect plan,” Anya agreed. “I guess I’ve been avoiding thinking about it? Because that also means thinking about getting a job, and I don’t…really know what that would be.”
“You don’t want to get on a race?” Gabe asked.
“I’m not sure.” Anya frowned. “After my mom died, and Kincaid lost anyway, it kind of made me feel like…like maybe I’ve been lying to myself?”
“About what?” Gabe leaned forward, his gaze fixed on her.
“About why I love campaigning, or whether it even matters.” Anya shook her head. “Like, is the work actually important, or do I just like the work because it makes me feel so important, you know? The constant emergency of it, the high stakes, putting the rest of my life on hold.”
“The rush,” Gabe added.
“Exactly! But like, I’m thirty-two, and I have no place to live. I have four hundred dollars in my bank account and a check from my mom’s life insurance that I can’t bring myself to touch.”
“Really?” Gabe rubbed Anya’s knee. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It’s not a huge amount or anything, I just— I don’t want it.
” Anya shrugged. “I don’t know. My mom was so proud of my work, but this year I’ve kind of been feeling like, did I make all these sacrifices for my work because it mattered so much?
Or did the work have to matter so much because otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the sacrifice? ”
“We put Jo Sessego in the Senate,” Gabe said quietly. “That matters, doesn’t it?”