The Presidents' School: The New Way Forward

By Caldwell Andrew

America's first Jewish President Byron Weiss stuns the nation when he declines to run for a second term and instead promotes a new cadre of men and women to replace the old guard in Congress. The first candidates of the newly established 'President's School' start churning out creative ideas for geopolitics and diplomacy, like offering the natio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685156367

Book preview

THE BEGINNING

THE FINAL PART OF the State of the Union address made by President Weiss was initially met with skepticism and disbelief. Here's yet another failed President on the way out making empty promises was the general view of the pampered, bloated Congress, many of whom had been in government for more than thirty years. They had seen several Presidents come and go, while managing to convince their constituents back home that they themselves were doing everything they could for them. But in the weeks after the President's announcement, the Nation began to see recruitment centers for this new way forward spring up around the country, funded exclusively by President Weiss’ private funds. And suddenly a wave of optimism and trust in this new concept swept through a population that had been in a state of slumber for almost a half-century of sterile politics and self-serving politicians. The President began using his decision not to run for another term to steamroll over the legalese and the many arguments put in his way by the media, professional politicians, and their lackeys, the lobbyists, who naturally opposed any new creative idea that could harm their personal cash cows.

President Weiss looked forward to interviewing and personally selecting the first candidates his trusted recruiter had identified. Prior to this concept the standard rule for a nominee for Presidential office in the United States was that a candidate must be at least thirty-five years old, which automatically discouraged young people with real creativity and initiative, such as the initial founders of Facebook, Google, and Apple. But curiously, while the rest of the country was encouraged to retire at sixty to sixty five years of age, Presidents and members of Congress could have their arthritic hands on the cash register and nuclear buttons late into their seventies, eighties and even beyond as evidenced by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. Even the most successful leader of recent times, Margaret Benson, was nearly eighty years old when she finished her second term as President Weiss replaced her. The Congress was even worse, with many senators such as the legendary Robert Byrd, who was still somehow active in the Senate at the age of 92 after being in office for over 50 years.

The conventional route to political power in America for many decades was a few years working in grassroots communities, or small-town government, propped up by several years as an attorney, vital so they learned not to ever answer a straight question with a straight answer. It also helped to be good-looking, essential for the TV cameras, then spending the majority of one's time assembling the right fundraising structures to move to higher office. But all this came at a price of always being beholden and obligated to the money men who offer backing initially, but are always there to collect their rewards the higher their investment climbs. By the year 2014, the majority of members of Congress were millionaires, and by 2018 all of them were, with many of them well on the way to becoming billionaires. How could people coming to office with no real assets, with salaries of $150,000 a year, become so wealthy while working for the people? How could these same people living on such a disconnected plane be expected to have any understanding of the needs of the constituents they’d left behind, that they were actually elected to represent?

They are in fact aided by the fact that the biggest employer in the country has become the federal government itself, who runs a military budget ironically called The Department of Defense. despite having more money at its disposal then the next ten most powerful military forces on the planet combined! Life was good for Washington politicians. They took pork projects home to their constituents, got re-elected, and were returned to Washington by the 40% or less of the populace that still cared to vote, most of them being dependent on federal aid, or military-related work themselves. So the gravy train went on and on. Did America really need a sixteenth aircraft carrier group when it's only supposed real opposition on the high seas, China, only had two old rehabs? Of course said the members of Congress of the steelmaking states. Of course said the representatives of Florida, California, Maryland, and many of the other weapons-producing states. And so the stagnation continued. Trillions of dollars that could help look after what was now the largest homeless population in the developed world went to create even more missile systems that would never be used. Since the atomic attack on Japan in the mid-1940s, America had never used even one nuclear missile in its many subsequent conflicts. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the numerous various spats that constantly erupted around the Oil States had come and gone without their use, but still their numbers had grown steadily into the thousands, with horrendously costly nuclear submarines and billion-dollar bombers being built to launch them. As these machines aged, even more were built to replace them, and the cycle of spend, spend, spend continued. Already having the power to easily destroy the planet ten times over was apparently not enough, but who was going to stop them? Where were the voices of reason? The weapons industry enabled the politicians to buy votes in their home states and keep themselves ensconced in the corridors of power. The sheer amount of the true costs to keep the military juggernaut ticking were mainly hidden from the common folk under the deceitful guise of claiming it was in the interests of national security.

President Weiss had not had it easy in politics. His honesty and straight talking alienated him from most of the so-called elites that inhabited Washington. The first Jewish president the country had ever elected was only made possible in truth with the help of his famous actress mother's Irish heritage and wealth, which pivotally locked up most of the East and West Coast vote for him. But the rare opportunity and unique power his election had given him, along with the huge historical significance of his position, had inspired him to think outside the box more than any of his predecessors. Weiss had become uber-famous as a charismatic, politically incorrect, philanthropic founder of an airline and an apparel company, who donated half the profits of his fortune to fight global pandemics before entering politics. He was also a widower who lost his wife to cancer one year into his Presidency. The Presidents’ School was the least he could contribute, he reasoned, as he now firmly believed that he could achieve more outside of the Oval Office than in it. In fact, the more he thought about that fact, the more excited he became.

Eventually boarding Air Force One and flying to Phoenix, Arizona, to interview the first selectees his team had identified in the last few months, he found himself beginning to appreciate that this was real, it was not politics as normal. But instead it consisted of finding real, hard-working, dedicated Americans wishing to help heal and rebuild the nation. Forget the obscene libraries the previous occupants of the Oval Office had erected as shrines to themselves, much like the Egyptian pharaohs and their pyramids, this simple idea he had dreamt up could change the direction of the whole United States, and perhaps with it the world.

Suddenly finding herself thrust into the responsibility for getting The School up and running was Andrea Robinson, 46 known to her friends as ‘Anj’, who was initially going to be stepping down after four tumultuous years as White House Chief of Staff. Robinson was a bright, idealistic African American who had initially headed the president's election campaign with wit, talent, and humor. A former model and TV journalist turned political operative, she ran Weiss’ successful bid for the Republican nomination and then the Presidency. Her desire and willingness to win at almost any cost made her lots of friends, and lots of enemies. Washington, DC also led to her divorce when her work schedule and her commitment to President Weiss left little time for her marriage. She’d bonded from her first interview years before with the likable candidate, but both were unprepared and taken aback by the cynicism and corruption that greeted their arrival in Washington. She had stood with the President through every battle with a do-nothing Congress that looked to deflect blame for their collective failure onto the first decent man the U.S. Capitol had seen in a long time.

Knowing his best friend and ally had reached the end of her tether, the President took her on a weekend escape to Camp David, where he outlined his plans to her in detail. The motivated, super-charged person that left the retreat bore little resemblance to the rundown executive that had entered it. Andrea had regained her old drive to help make a difference for the country that had helped her come from a broken home to the heights she had reached. Now instead of being virtually impotent she was being given the tools to help take down all the old boys’ clubs and cliques that were running the country backward with an arrogance rarely seen in over two thousand years of democracy.

The President's idea was simple but brilliant, working within the current legal system. The Presidents’ School would effectively become a third political party, recruiting and training a talented core of motivated candidates. Then, one year before every election cycle, the class would choose which member would take on the establishment, much as the cardinals in the Vatican choose the Pope. The candidate, whoever he or she was, would then be presented as a strong viable alternative to the existing status quo.

Each state has different requirements to get on the ballot and receive that state's electoral votes. President Weiss would provide the financing to promote the candidate. To compensate for the unfair TV and media advantage that the regular politicians would have, Weiss called on his good friend Alan Peacock 60, a veteran of TV syndication, to create a reality-type show that would watch and record the School's members as they went about their tasks, thus keeping their progress and names in the public consciousness. This show would highlight their achievements to date in comparison to the scandal-ridden professionals of the public circuit, and their thirty seconds of made-for-TV sound bites.

Peacock was a massively successful producer of syndicated reality TV shows. He was slightly overweight and disheveled but a perfectionist about his craft. He can create drama on screen and tends to create a lot off-screen too, especially when he "treats’’ his OCD with too much alcohol. Peacock had been married to Olivia Tan, 26, a brilliant and beautiful Singaporean of Chinese descent, who’d found marriage to him too challenging but who nevertheless had left Facebook to work for him, as the social media and PR director for The Presidents’ School. While there, she had developed an intimate relationship with Denise Young, who was vehemently against all red tape, and had been assigned to the opening of The Presidents’ School to streamline the organization from the get-go.

The remainder of the group that wasn’t selected to run for the Presidency of the United States would then provide a potential loyal talent pool for the candidate's Cabinet, and be offered permanent positions in the fledgling third party organization.

At 64 years old, and only denied a second term in office because he’d chosen to step away from the constant rounds of fundraisers and empty promises that the Oval Office demanded, Weiss felt much like Andrea, and he was now completely revitalized for the challenge ahead. Left a fortune by his family's exploits in the diamond industry in South Africa a century before, and his deceased wife's monies he could now use that wealth and the financial gifts donated by countries like Saudi Arabia, and the other habitual influence buyers, for his library, for the real betterment of the country.

Andrea had been busy, given a huge budget and a mandate, she had quickly set up ten mobile recruitment sites that had toured across the country. The ten sites quickly doubled in number, then doubled again under the weight of the interest. Initially going into such a new and unknown area the expectations had been light, but very quickly she and her team were amazed at the quality of the people who applied. Much like applicants for shows like American Idol in years gone by, she realized that America did have talent, and was prepared to volunteer it. Her main task was to separate those that were looking for a shot at fame, or a quick payday, against those who truly understood and bought into the aim of the project.

As she greeted President Weiss on his dismount from Air Force One to escort him to the Marriott in Scottsdale to meet his first potential enrollees, she felt quietly confident he’d be reasonably pleased with what she’d found so far. Using her knowledge of self-taught history as a barometer, she was acutely aware that in the past leaders such as Alexander the Great had conquered the known world on horseback while only twenty years of age, Columbus had first set sail at fourteen, while Einstein was already a prodigy at seventeen. The creators of phenomenal social networks such as YouTube and Facebook were barely out of their teens, while many of the explorers and cowboys that had opened up America itself were only young uneducated men, backed up by equally young families heading westwards behind them in their wagon trains. When the spacecraft Apollo 11 returned the first men from the Moon on July 24, 1969, the average age of the scientists and engineers that had masterminded such a momentous event from the NASA control rooms was less than twenty-eight years old. When did America begin to equate age with knowledge and the ability to perform? A youth of eighteen could fight and die for his country, but was unable to buy a beer in many of the States that had recruited him for battle, and even serving his Nation with distinction he was then barred from even trying to be a senator until he was at least thirty five years old and backed by deep financial pockets. As she saw the President walk towards her, Andrea felt a deep sense of pride that perhaps the ideals and dreams for the betterment of the country that had bonded them together from the beginning could finally reach fruition.

Andrea and her team had worked tirelessly to enroll people from all walks of life, while at the same time she was working as the President's Chief of Staff, using old World War one posters projecting Your Country Needs You! themes to people, that in some cases were actually giving up affluent lifestyles and incomes to join this new cause. With Washington already bloated with lawyers and lobbyists, her brief was to change the way the country would perceive its candidates so they could vote with confidence for people that were honest