The post-bills plastered all over town said FREE COOKIES in big letters and RALLY FOR HOPE in somewhat smaller but still prominent letters.
The legend, "Sponsored by the Campaign to Elect Enrique Espiritu Esperanza for Governor" was in small print.
The people who came out were not patronage hounds or sycophants, but a cross-slice of the California electorate. Some had agendas. Others were simply looking for a trendy cause, or a free snack.
"Tax-free as well as free," the staffers said, as they passed out the glassine bags. Ricky had coined that particular slogan. He was good at slogans. The man was a natural.
When the house had settled down, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza stepped up to the podium. No applause greeted him, just respectful attentiveness. In the back of the hall, Harmon Cashman was worried. The audience had not been salted with campaign workers, whose job it was to fire up the crowd. Ricky had insisted it was not necessary. This could be a disaster.
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza was attired in a white suit, shirt, and tie. These made his benevolent brown face stand out, starkly beautiful.
He began speaking, his tone steady, his words a velvet purr. He spoke of a change for California. Of the recession. Of unemployment. Of unfair taxes, and the public's growing distaste for the politics of recent years. The backstabbing, the bickering.
"I stand for what -I am," said Enrique Espiritu Esperanza. "I am Esperanza. I am hope. Hope for a better future."
It was sincere, polished, and said nothing risky. In short, it was a perfect campaign speech. High on homilies, lean on substance. Harmon Cashman had heard such speeches thousands of times in his career. But coming from the charismatic Esperanza, this one sounded fresh, clear as spring water-even brilliant.
At the end of it Enrique Espiritu Esperanza said, "I ask that you vote for me on election day. I will make you all proud that you did so."
There was silence. It was punctuated by the dry snap of Oreos breaking under the pressure of biting teeth, and thoughtful chewing sounds.
"If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them," added Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.
A hand went up. A young woman. Her eyes shone with what seemed to be innocence.
"Yes?"
"Do you have any more cookies?"
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza allowed a sad look to come over his wide, cherubic face.
"I am sad to say, no. We have used up our budget for this rally."
"Aww . . ." said the bright-eyed young woman.
A forlorn sigh ran through the audience. There were a few "darns" and "drats," sprinkled with more pungent curses.
"There would have been more," Esperanza added, "but you understand .... The tax."
"That damned tax!" a man howled.
A man jumped to his feet. "Somebody ought to do something!"
Esperanza raised his smooth brown palms. "This is exactly what I propose. To repeal this detestable tax that deprives the open-minded people of this state of the small comforts of life."
A shout of encouragement went up. Others chimed in.
At first, Harmon Cashman thought that the crowd had been salted behind his back. He realized this was unlikely. Maybe it was the cookies. Maybe everyone went wild for Oreos. After all, this was America. What child had not eaten them by the carload? And how many of those had stopped eating them as adults? Sure, Harmon Cashman decided, it was their taste buds getting nostalgic. Using Oreos to create loyalty-it was a masterstroke. Brilliant.
Then, they began to chant, "Esperanza! Esperanza! Esperanza!"
And Cashman realized that the migrants had fallen into the same chant. And no one had slipped them any cookies.
"This guy," Harmon Cashman muttered over the swelling chanting, "must have the greatest pheromones anybody ever saw!"
In rally after rally, it had been the same. The guy just got up on the podium, sometimes without benefit of a microphone, and no sooner did he start to speak than the crowd was with him.
For Harmon Cashman, the campaign was like a vacation in Heaven. He hardly had to do a thing. The press got wind of the Esperanza fever, and suddenly they were running a press campaign. Without so much as lifting a telephone.
At the end of two weeks, the name "Enrique Espiritu Esperanza" had appeared at the bottom of the polls. His speeches were leading the local newscasts. By the middle of the third week, the dark horse nobody had ever heard of was edging up to be in striking distance of the frontrunners, Barry Black and Rona Ripper.
Their campaign staffers were smart. They simply ignored the upstart. That gave the Esperanza campaign a clear field to sprint even further ahead.
Besides, what was there to criticize? Oreo cookies and hope?
"We're in trouble," Harmon Cashman confided to his candidate over a working lunch that very afternoon.
Enrique Espiritu Esperanza looked at him with his doe-like eyes. "I am shooting up in the polls. How is this terrible?"
"We were doing great as an underdog. Nobody bothered to attack us. We were running a guerrilla campaign, and if we'd kept it at the pace we were going, by the time the polls had you in a dead heat it would have been a week before the election, and too late for the other campaigns to do anything about you."
"It is better to win big and win early," said Enrique Esperanza without hesitation.
Harmon Cashman stock his head. "Not if they score any hits. They're going to dig up all the dirt on you they can."
"They will find no stain on my honor. Enrique Espiritu Esperanza is as pure as the driven snow."
"And this appeal to the ethnic vote. It's going to bring the hate-mongers out. You know that?"
"Let them emerge into the light. One cannot step on a hiding cockroach, and the only way to draw out a cockroach is to turn off the light, wait, and turn it on again. I have turned off the light. Now the cockroaches will come. Let them. Let them."
They came.
It was at a Sacramento rally. An indoor rally, this time.
Esperanza was in the middle of his speech before a packed house, when two men jumped up from either side of the front row and shouting "Down with Esperanza!" opened fire with machine pistols.
An X formed on the white wall above and behind the unflinching figure of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza. One bullet track made a slashing diagonal from the left. The other showed up as a wavering line of punch holes coming down to the right.
They should have crossed at a point exactly between Enrique Espiritu Esperanza's black eyes.
Except the percussive stuttering sounds went suddenly quiet.
On the podium, Enrique Esperanza stood blinking, as if unable to comprehend that he had come as close to having his head blown off as the bullet capacity of a Tec-9 machine pistol clip.
In the front row, the gunmen were fumbling empty clips out and attempting to get fresh ones out of their coat pockets.