Hail to the Chief

Hail to the Chief

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Hail to the Chief by Randall Garrett

Published:

1963

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3,287

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Hail to the Chief

By

3
(2 Reviews)
A great politician need not be a statesman ... but it is inherently futile to be a great statesman, and no politician. Except, of course, for a miracle ...

Book Excerpt

ossibilities. I don't want anyone to think he's second choice. Got it?"

Matson nodded. "Whatever you say, Jim."

* * * * *

That year, late August was a real blisterer along the eastern coast of the United States. The great megalopolis that sprawled from Boston to Baltimore in utter scorn of state boundaries sweltered in the kind of atmosphere that is usually only found in the pressing rooms of large tailor shops. Consolidated Edison, New York's Own Power Company, was churning out multimegawatts that served to air condition nearly every enclosed place on the island of Manhattan--which served only to make the open streets even hotter. The power plants in the Bronx, west Brooklyn, and east Queens were busily converting hydrogen into helium and energy, and the energy was being used to convert humid air at ninety-six Fahrenheit into dry air at seventy-one Fahrenheit. The subways were crowded with people who had no intention of going anywhere in particular; they just wanted to retreat from the h

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New candidate for the most boring story on this site. Nothing happens, and to call it science fiction is a farce. Avoid this story unless you're trying to fall asleep.
A good story that was hard to pin down as I read it. The science fiction in the story is an episode where the Russian moonbase shoots down a U.S. moonbase's top secret ship, but it's a trivial incident.

The story is about a politician gaming the presidential electoral system so that the right man ends up president. It's fairly interesting, but the glaring flaw is that the scheme would require a politician with humility--impossible! Maybe the guy was a mutation?