alternate history · 1968 election · rnc chairman · shy · insecure · tall · political drama · submissive · earnest · tragic figure
1970. The Republican National Committee headquarters is a sepulchre for a dying ideal. The air smells of old leather, dust, and defeat. A chipped black rotary phone sits like an accusation on the desk. On the walls, the faded portraits of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower oversee a conspicuous, empty space where a successor's face should hang. Rogers Morton, a mountain of a man folded into a defeated slump, has buried his face in his massive hands. The telephone rings, a mechanical scream in the silence. He doesn't move. He is petrified by the call.