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: : : CLARK AND OLIVER ARE IN a motel, at the end of Day One of their three-day weekend in Michigan, working with the Michigan Democratic Action Committee. They spent the day standing outside of Halal groceries in Dearborn with clipboards, handing out voter registration cards to Arab-Americans. Clark's sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing her feet, thinking about the beers they've stashed in the cooler. Her face feels greasy and grit-sprinkled. Oliver stands in front of the mirror, giving his hair a vigorous toweling. He stops, looks at the resultant fright-wig, and smiles.
—It went pretty well today, says Oliver. —Don't you think?
—I don't know, Clark says. She guesses they got maybe forty cards signed. —I mean, yeah, I guess—but I just still feel like there's basically no hope. Like Bush has basically got this next election.
—That's not the way I look at it, says Oliver.
—How do you figure? says Clark.
Oliver opens his mouth as though he's about to explain, then pauses. —Do you want a beer?
—Yes.
—Good, he says, —me too. He pulls one out of the cooler, sets it on the table. He gets a second one out, looks at it for a second, and frowns. —Shit, he says.
—What's shit?
—Do you have a—he makes a prying gesture with his hands—whatchamacalit, a church key?
—No.
He tries to twist off the cap, just check that it won't work. —Um, he says, —I've got some bad news—
He holds the bottle up to his mouth, bites down on the cap with his back teeth.
—You're going to hurt yourself, she says. —Give it here.
—You know how to do it with a lighter or something?
—Something like that, Clark says.
She opens the door partway and turns the deadbolt. She presses the edge of the cap against the top of the bolt, and then sharply brings the heel of her hand down on it. The first try totally fails. On the second try she sort of half-mangles the cap, enough to get more of the bolt underneath it, so that she can knock it fully free on the third try. Some surplus froth begins escaping from the bottle; she uses the edge of her palm to flick it down to the carpet.
—Wow, says Oliver. —Hard-core.
—Yeah, Clark says. —That's me all over. Give me the other one.
She bangs hers open too and takes a long draw. It tastes incredibly good.
—So anyway, she says. —You were saying.
—I was saying, Oliver says, —oh, yeah, about the election. Look at it this way.
—I'm listening.
—OK, let's look at 2004 as like The Rematch from 2000. OK?
—Sure.
—So, in 2000, we know that, even with the Nader Factor, the Democrats still had more votes nationwide; it was just a—let's call it a distribution problem.
—Sure.
—So you look at the swing states. Michigan. Wisconsin. Ohio.
—Florida, Clark adds.
—My fine home state of Iowa. So whatever. Let's think. Pretty close in those states last time. Now: do you think there's anybody in those states who voted for Gore last time who won't vote for Kerry this time?
—Probably somebody, Clark says.
—OK, probably somebody, Oliver says, —but not large numbers. The Democrats are recommitted to standing behind their guy. If 2000 did anything, it pointed out the importance of getting out there to the polls. You gotta figure that mostly the Dems are pretty geared up for the rematch.
—Yeah, I guess, says Clark.
—So you've got that. You've got numbers, from the Democrats alone, that are at least as high as last time, when we won. Now—do you think there are people in those states who voted for Nader last time who are going to defect to the Kerry camp this time?
—Probably, says Clark. —I think a lot of the people who took the there's no difference between the two parties line kind of had to eat their words over the last four years.
—Yeah, Oliver says. —To a certain degree you can take what Dean was saying, back in the day, about his supporters not being transferable, and you can apply that to the Nader folks—but I bet in the end a lot of them will hold their nose this time and vote Kerry. So there's that. Then you've got the Republicans.
—They're big, Clark says. —And they're well-organized.
—They're big, Oliver says. —But they're not necessarily unified behind Bush. Lots of them don't even see the Bush Administration as particularly Republican. It's not a fiscally conservative administration. It's not a “small government” administration. It's a fundamentalist, militarily-adventurous administration—and a lot of old-school rank-and-file GOP dudes don't love that.
—There's a lot of fundamentalists out there, says Clark.
—Not in New Hampshire, Oliver says. —Which went Republican last time and probably won't this time and has four electoral college votes.
—How many did we lose by in 2000? Clark says.
—Four, says Oliver.
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