The Space Program
by Jerry Oltion
“Issues are the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
It was the cocktail party from hell.
Curtis Brannon, independent candidate for governor of the state of Wyoming, had been to a few bad ones during his three months in the spotlight, but this definitely took the prize. The room overflowed with out-of-work miners, out-of-work cowboys, out-of-work oil-field hands, and dozens of other economically disadvantaged voters, none of whom had any business trying to look comfortable in a suit and tie.
There were even a few out-of-work accountants in attendance, but none of them looked particularly comfortable either. Nor did the two employed ones in charge of Brannon’s campaign. Contributions were obviously not coming in the way they had hoped. Everyone here supported Brannon’s candidacy, but none of them had the discretionary income to help him pay for it.
Another uncomfortable-looking fellow near the punch bowl didn’t fit any of the standard profiles that Brannon had learned to recognize. Unshaven, unkempt, and woefully under dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he had been watching Brannon like a hawk for the last twenty minutes and sweating like a pig the whole time, but he hadn’t yet worked up the courage to make whatever move he had come here to make. Brannon wondered if the guy had a gun, and if so whether or not he should let him use it. Right now the only sure way to jump-start his failing campaign would be to survive an assassination attempt.
The notion that the mysterious stranger might actually kill him hardly entered Brannon’s mind. This guy didn’t look like the sort of person who could hit the broad side of a bam with a bazooka. He looked, in fact, like the sort of person who would unwittingly hide inside the barn while someone more capable shot at it from outside. Yet he had come tonight to the fund-raiser, which meant that he had at least heard about Brannon, which was more than most of Wyoming’s three-quarter million residents could claim. He had to have something going for him.
Brannon decided to confront him directly and see what it was.
“Excuse me,” he said to the group of timber workers who had gathered around him to complain about the environmental laws. He stepped around them toward the hors d’oeuvre table, and as he drew close he said, “Hi, welcome to the party.” He always greeted new acquaintances that way because it implied that the person had not only joined the cocktail party but the Independent Citizens for Brannon party as well.
“Thanks,” the guy said. Now that he was closer, Brannon could see that his T-shirt had a picture of the Galaxy on it, with an arrow pointing from the words “You are here” to a spot about two-thirds of the way out. Not bad, Brannon thought. If the guy had to wear a T-shirt to a cocktail party, he at least had the sense to make it a good one.
“I’m Curtis Brannon,” Brannon said helpfully, just in case the guy didn’t know for sure.
“David Morrison. Systems analyst for Bighorn Bell.”
“Ah,” said Brannon. Bighorn Bell had started out as a fifty-customer coop twenty years ago, and had since grown to become the biggest phone company in the western states. From there they had expanded into practically everything: retail marketing, banking, real estate—anything that made money. If they got behind Brannon’s campaign, his funding woes were over.
Morrison must have seen the dollar signs in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m on my own time here. But I do have something you might be interested in. Something that’ll go a lot further toward winning you the governor’s seat than any amount of money.”
“Oh?” said Brannon. Did he have some dirt on Paxton, the incumbent? Brannon hated the thought of using that sort of thing, but it could come in handy if Paxton started slinging mud first.
But Morrison said, “I’ve got a program that can run your campaign for you. It can tell you what to do, where to go, what to say. It can put you in the governor’s mansion, guaranteed.”
Brannon snorted. “Right.”
“I knew you’d say that. So I brought this.” Morrison reached for his hind pocket. Brannon backed up a step, ready to leap over the hors d’oeuvre table if the guy came up with a gun, but instead he pulled out a thick wad of paper and unfolded it. “This is a forecasting sheet for our last ad campaign. You remember it—two guys fishing while their car phone took care of all their business for them. Here’s our projected two-week sales figure for the autocell XT.” He pointed to a figure, and Brannon stepped closer so he could read it: 23,418.
“So?”
“So here’s the actual sales figure.” He pointed to a line farther down the page: 23,417.
“One of our potentials inherited twelve million bucks and bought the model SX instead,” Morrison explained. “Turns out his aunt’s sightseeing plane caught a downdraft over Machu Picchu and crashed into the Peruvian Andes.” He laughed softly. “We hadn’t counted on his sudden windfall.”
Brannon laughed aloud despite his manager’s coaching never to make fun of anyone’s misfortune. “Impressive numbers, if they’re true,” he said. “But what does that have to do with my campaign?”
Morrison held his paper out for emphasis. His hand shook a bit, Brannon noted. But his voice was steady as he said, “Bighorn Bell has the hottest forecasting program in the business. I know, because I wrote most of the code. It can tell you what someone will have for breakfast six months from now if you give it the right data. Or, conversely, it can tell you how to make everyone have green eggs and ham if you want them to.” He shrugged. “Or vote for Curtis Brannon. For instance.”
For a fleeting moment Brannon enjoyed the fantasy, then he laughed and said, “I don’t need a program to do that. I just promise everyone what they want, starting with free money and a winter home in Arizona. Problem is, if I want to stay in office more than one term, I have to actually deliver.”
“That’s what the program is for. It’ll tell you what you can deliver, and what it’ll take to do it. And it’ll correlate that with what people actually want. We’ve already got the database for that.”
“Sure you do,” Brannon said. If they knew what people wanted—really wanted—they would be… hmm. They’d be one of the biggest companies in the western states, at the very least.
Morrison nodded. “It’s amazing what you can learn by analyzing people’s calling habits. And buying habits, of course. And then there’s data transmission, bank records—you name it.”
“That kind of surveillance is illegal,” Brannon said.
“No, actually it’s not. Turns out that any information gathered during the course of normal business activity can be used to compile customer profiles. And Bighorn Bell does practically every type of business nowadays.”
That much was certainly true, and their success at it was undeniable. Still, even though Brannon had always heard never to argue with success, this was a bit hard to swallow.
“What does your forecasting program say I should promise people in order to get elected?” he asked.
“The same old stuff everybody’s been talking about for years,” Morrison said, smiling. All traces of his nervousness were gone now that he was in his element. “Reduce unemployment, stimulate the economy—you know the line. But the program can tell you exactly what to propose, and how to accomplish it within your first term of office.”
Brannon nodded. He’d heard many a special-interest group offer to put him in office if he’d just support their pet project. “So what kind of public feeding trough am I supposed to establish?” he asked. “And how am I supposed to pay for it?”