Nasi couldn't help but wince. None of the small political parties in the USE was inclined in the least toward political practicality and they all viewed the term "compromise" as being a synonym for "treason."
That was one of the reasons they were small, of course.
He looked out the window. Since he wasn't sitting near it and the Prime Minister's office was in the palace's top floor, there was nothing to see but sky.
Gray sky. What you'd expect, of course, in November. That dull, sullen, somber month. The battle of Ahrensbok, where the USE army under Torstensson's command had won its great victory over the French, had taken place in May.
Bright, sunny, cheerful May. As Frank Jackson said, though, that might as well have been a decade in the past. In the six months since, Wilhelm Wettin and his Crown Loyalist party-coalition, rather; as a "party" the CLs were ramshackle-had spent every waking hour working on every fear and doubt and insecurity that any German might have concerning Mike Stearns and his Fourth of July Party-which was also a coalition, being honest, if not as ramshackle-and their supposed "radicalism."
Well. His actual radicalism, in the case of Stearns himself if not every member of his party. By the standards of the seventeenth century, certainly.
The end result…
Stearns said it aloud. "Look, guys, face it. We're going to lose the election. I've always known we would"-here he leaned forward in his chair and his tone hardened-"just as I knew at the time that winning the election by taking advantage of Ahrensbok would be a fool's paradise. Once the glow wore off, the fact is that the majority of people in the United States of Europe simply aren't ready-not yet-for my political program. And a politician who tries to obtain office for any reason other than carrying through his program is either a scoundrel or a fool. Often enough, both."
He leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands over his belly. It was a belly which was perhaps a bit larger than the one he'd carried into the office of Prime Minister a little over a year ago, but not much. Even with his incredibly heavy work load, Stearns always managed to exercise for at least a half hour each day.
"Here's what would have happened," he continued. "At best. We might have won, although we'd almost certainly not have won an outright majority. That means a government that can't rule very effectively. Then, squabbling and bickering all the while, we'd have tried to shove a program down the throats of a nation that really wasn't ready for it. Not enough of its people, at any rate. The result? Sooner or later, Wilhelm forces a vote of confidence, there's another election, and we're out and he's in anyway. Only, this time, after having discredited ourselves."
He unclasped his hands and sat up straight again. "No, gentlemen, there are times when taking the high road is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. So we lose an election. Big deal. In the meantime-swords have two edges, don't forget-we've been able to take advantage of this long election campaign to solidify our own political base and clarify our own political program. You both know as well as I do what the realities are in the seventeenth century, when it comes to political activity. Most people are farmers and they work like dogs nine months out of the year. They have very little time for politics, and when they do they just want to get something done, not sit around and jabber. That means that winter is the only time of year you can talk to most people about politics-not to mention listen to them-and really hammer out a solid program that your electorate understands. Politics is education, before it's anything else."
Frank Jackson's scowl had never left his face. By temperament, Jackson was simply not given to patient explanation and elucidation.
Nasi looked at the window again. Neither was he, really. But at least he could understand clearly what Stearns was saying.
And… the man might very well be right, after all. If there was one thing Francisco Nasi had learned very thoroughly in the many months since he'd become the head of USE intelligence and one of the Prime Minister's closest advisers, it was not to underestimate the political acumen and shrewdness of Mike Stearns. A "radical," the man might be-well, surely was-but he did not have trace of the airy impracticality of so many political radicals.
"I did not bring up the matter to thrash a dead horse, Michael," Francisco said mildly. "Whether you were right or not, we may never know. What we do know-can be almost certain about, anyway-is that come February 22nd the Crown Loyalists will win the election. On a national level. Not in every province, of course."
Frank shook his head. "Christ, that's not much more than two months from now."
"Well, that's the day the election happens," said Nasi, shrugging. "But in a country as big as the USE, and with the facilities we have available, it will take several weeks for the results to come in and be tabulated. We're not living in your old United States of America up-time where the winner of a national election was usually known by the following day. I don't expect a winner in our upcoming election to be definitely announced until mid-March. Then, given the realities of travel in the here and now, I can't see any realistic way the change in government can happen before June."
"True enough," said Mike. "Even in the late twentieth century, it took us two and a half months to go from a presidential election to inauguration day. When the republic was first founded, the time between election and inauguration was four months. We'll actually be doing quite well if we can inaugurate a new government less than four months after an election on February 22nd."
"How sure are you, Francisco?" asked Frank. "It's not as if we have the kind of polling capabilities that we Americans had up-time."
"No. But the methods and techniques we do have available are not so bad. Not when the results are going to be so lopsided."
"What's your estimate?" Mike asked.
"We will win no more than forty percent of the vote. Perhaps as little as one-third, although not any less. Wettin's party will win a majority. Not much of a majority-somewhere in the low fifty percentile range-but a clear majority. All the small parties put together will get somewhere between five and ten percent of the vote. Most of those votes, however, will be concentrated in a few provinces."
Mike simply nodded. "That's about what I figure, too, just using my own stick-my-thumb-in-the-wind hunches. How about our strongholds?"
"Well, that's the good news. The same strident campaign being waged by the Crown Loyalists that is stirring up fears and uncertainties in most of the provinces is having the opposite effect in regions where we are solidly rooted. It's just making our supporters angry."
Nasi glanced down at his notes. That was just ingrained reflex. By now, he could have recited all of that material in his sleep.
"The State of Thuringia-Franconia is solid as the proverbial rock. Whatever shakiness might have existed in Thuringia is being offset-more than offset-by the continuing political ramifications of the Ram Rebellion in Franconia."
"Ableidinger?" asked Mike, referring to the man generally considered to have been the Ram Rebellion's principal leader. Even its "mastermind," according to those hostilely inclined.
"He'll run for a seat in the USE Congress from the SoTF. There's not much doubt in my mind or anyone else's that he'll win by a landslide."
"About what I figured. And Magdeburg province is probably even more solid than the SoTF. It doesn't have as big a population, of course, but it's still one of the bigger provinces in the USE. So we'll have very solid bases in at least two of the major provinces. And three imperial cities, at least: Magdeburg itself, of course, along with Hamburg and Luebeck."
Jackson looked a bit skeptical. "Are you sure about Magdeburg? The city, I mean. Otto Gericke's the mayor, which means he'll be sitting in the Senate for it, thanks to these idiot rules we set up. He's always struck me as pretty stodgy."