Chapter 692 - 324: Earthquake in Washington
Pittsburgh, Allegheny General Hospital.
Sarah sat in a chair beside the hospital bed, a silver-gray laptop resting on her lap.
"Boss."
Sarah turned her head to look at Leo, who was lying in bed.
"The email’s ready. It’s addressed to Mike Allen, the chief political correspondent for the *Political Newspaper*."
Leo leaned back against the pillows, the cast on his left arm making him look somewhat awkward.
"Send it."
Leo’s voice was calm.
"But Stern informed me that the White House is reviewing your proposal, and we need to keep it confidential for now," Ethan said, standing nearby with a worried tone. "Doing this tears up our understanding with the White House. If they’re humiliated and decide to retaliate..."
"Understandings are built on a foundation of equal strength."
Leo stared at the ceiling.
"Right now, the White House is trying to find a loophole in the Constitution. That tells me they’re already scrambling. Keeping this a secret will only give them time to calm down and come up with a reason to reject me."
"I don’t need them to be calm."
Leo’s gaze sharpened.
"I need them to panic."
"I want the whole world to know that the White House is seriously considering this. Once the story is out in the open for public discussion, it takes on the magical quality of a done deal."
"Send."
Sarah hesitated no longer. She decisively hit the Enter key.
Bouncing through a series of relays, an encrypted email crossed the mountains of Pennsylvania and burrowed into Mike Allen’s inbox in Washington D.C.
The email’s subject was just a single line:
Exclusive: White House Secretly Evaluating Mayor Wallace’s Constitutional Eligibility as a Vice Presidential Candidate
...
「The next morning. Washington D.C.」
For the nation’s political elite, the day began with the morning briefing from the *Political Newspaper*.
In an Arlington townhouse, a partner at a lobbying group, coffee in hand, had just gotten out of bed and habitually swiped open his phone.
A second later, scalding hot coffee splashed onto his expensive carpet.
In a Georgetown breakfast diner, two Senate chiefs of staff were eating bagels and trading gossip.
The moment the notification popped up on their phones, they both stopped chewing and stared at each other, unable to hide the shock in their eyes.
𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
All across Washington D.C.—from Capitol Hill to K Street, from the State Department to the Pentagon.
Everyone’s phone was vibrating.
The same name was on everyone’s lips.
Leo Wallace.
The lead story in the *Political Newspaper* read with an air of absolute certainty:
"Multiple senior officials within the White House inner circle, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have confirmed that the President’s team is seriously considering inviting Mayor of Pittsburgh Leo Wallace to be his running mate."
"Although the Constitution stipulates that a Vice President must be at least thirty-five years old, the White House Counsel’s Office has reportedly worked overnight, assembling constitutional experts to search for interpretive leeway within the Twelfth Amendment..."
The article was a high-yield depth charge, detonating at the very bottom of the Potomac River.
The earthquake began.
At nine in the morning, famed anchor Wolf Brayton was in the CNN breaking news studio, facing the camera with an expression of utter disbelief on his face.
The red ticker at the bottom of the screen flashed frantically: [WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERS 34-YEAR-OLD MAYOR FOR VP NOMINATION?]
"This is insane!"
The guest commentator, a former Republican campaign strategist, was waving his arms excitedly in the studio.
"This is an outright humiliation of the United States Constitution! That kid from Pittsburgh is only thirty-four! He still has to pay extra insurance to rent a luxury car, and now you want to give him control of the nuclear button? Have all the Democrats gone completely insane?"
"But, Jack, you have to look at the numbers."
The other analyst, who was aligned with the Democratic Party, quickly countered. He pointed to the latest polling map of the swing states on the large screen.
"Look at Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Ever since the shooting, Leo Wallace’s approval ratings in those regions have skyrocketed."
"He’s the Messiah of the Rust Belt. If the President wants to win, if he wants to hold the Blue Wall, Wallace is his only ace."
"What about the legal issue?" the Republican commentator demanded.
"The law serves the people." The Democratic analyst shrugged. "Maybe it really is time we re-examined the rules set down two hundred years ago."
"After all, if the voters want him, are we really going to use one rigid clause to deny the will of tens of millions of people?"
This debate quickly spread to academia.
Constitutional law professors from Harvard Law School and Yale Law School were hastily summoned by the major TV networks.
Dressed in tweed suits and thick glasses, these professors, who usually confined their attacks on one another to the pages of academic journals, were now forced to argue heatedly in front of a national audience.
"This is unconstitutional! Unquestionably unconstitutional!" a conservative legal scholar roared on Fox News. "Originalism tells us that thirty-five means thirty-five. Not a single day less!"
"Originalism is obsolete!" another, more liberal scholar retorted on MSNBC. "The spirit of the Constitution lies in representation! If a young man can represent the interests of the nation’s working class, then the age limit itself is an outdated form of discrimination. We should use judicial interpretation to remedy this flaw!"
The squabbling in academia made the situation feel all the more real.
At first, everyone had thought it was just a joke.