Presidential Declarations

Presidential Declarations is the second in a trilogy of novels by Douglas J. Wood in which Samantha Harrison, a conservative Republican and former governor of Virginia, is planning a run for the presidency. As previously reviewed in the blog, the initial novel Presidential Intentions, is used for character introduction and development. It establishes Harrison’s considerable credentials as a bright and passionate candidate who espouses a very conservative agenda. Wood wrote the first novel in 2014.

The second novel published in 2015, Presidential Declarations begins with Harrison having lost the 2016 Presidential election to Hillary Clinton and the 2018 Senate race to Tim Kaine. Harrison was ready to leave public life until she was nominated to fill the seat of a retiring longtime Congressman. Almost immediately, Harrison was summoned by Clinton to the White House for reasons that were not apparent. Sam was totally stunned when Clinton offered her the job of Secretary of State. The job offer came over Bill Clinton’s objections, and both Harrison’s daughter Amanda and longtime confident Zachary Watts advised her to turn down the offer. Hillary claimed that while she and Sam had many differences on domestic issues, that they saw eye-to-eye on most foreign policy and that Sam was simply the best person for the job. Despite being from opposite parties and despite their differences on domestic policy, Sam accepted Hillary’s offer.

Simultaneous with the evolution of his audacious presidential plot, Wood penned a terrorist plot on Washington by Hamas who had control of the Gaza Strip. It was in the capacity of Secretary of State that Sam landed in Israel to make one more attempt to negotiate a Middle East peace pact. At the suggestion of Hillary, Sam also agreed to meet with the leader of Hamas in Gaza, a decision that turned out to be unwise. At the same time dirty bombs were exploded around Washington, Sam’s security detail was killed and she was taken prisoner in Gaza. Held captive with her were her daughter and another American. In the explosions around DC, both the Vice President and Speaker of the House were killed. The President had been having lunch with friends and the restaurant was nearly totally destroyed. Clinton’s body was not initially found, but she was presumed dead. That meant that the fourth person in line for the Presidency, the Secretary of State, was a captive of Hamas.

Clinton’s nearly lifeless body was found, and she recovered while Sam served as the acting President until Clinton c return to the office. They had a cooperative relationship until Sam chose to decline Hillary’s offer to fill the vacant Vice President position. Sam was unwilling to play second fiddle to anyone. Then the competition began in earnest for the Presidential Election in 2020.

Wood’s use of current day politicians is intriguing. He repeatedly used Harrison to attack Obama’s policies on both domestic and foreign matters. Given the timing of the writing of the novel and the evolution of Trump’s surprisingly successful candidacy, Trump was only mentioned once in the book, as someone whose candidacy wilted in the face of Harrison steamrolling toward the 2020 Republican nomination. Interestingly, Sam’s choice of Ben Carson as her running mate was viewed as a brilliant decision. After reading the first novel in this trilogy, I wondered if Harrison’s right wing positions might be softened as the result of the realities of her time in office, but in fact, this was not the tact that Wood chose. The speeches he wrote for Harrison were far better than the kind of tripe I heard on Fox News. Perhaps the eloquence of Harrison’s words did not quite match the eloquence that Aaron Sorkin gives his leftwing candidates, but the speeches and debates were good. I’m curious to see what the author does with his characters now that Harrison has arrived in the Oval Office. He ends the second book on Harrison’s first day in office when Iran’s Grand Ayatollah declared jihad against both the United States and Great Britain. Right now, I’ll start reading book three in the trilogy, Presidential Conclusions.