Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Draper Read Free Book Online

that he would make the most of his moment.
    He briefly sketched his life as an inner-city Atlanta boy given America’spromise of opportunity, and how that was all he needed and all anyone should have the right to expect. Then he said, “We cannot live in a country where the government sits around and tries to engineer and design results and outcomes. Every time they try to do that—‘Everyone has a right to own a home’—how does that end up? ‘Everyone has a right to health care’—how does that end up? The Constitution says, ‘Promote the general welfare’—not ‘PROVIDE the general welfare!’ ”
    After the cheers died down, West picked up steam. “We’ve got a class warfare going on. You’ve got a producing class, and you’ve got an entitlement class. If we’re not willing to take our country back”—the candidate jabbed a finger at the crowd—“then you’re complicit. It’s your fault.”
    Said the lieutenant colonel, “You’d better get your butts out there and fight for this country!”
    The cheering grew.
    “This 2010 election is a defining moment for the United States of America . . . If you’re here to shrink away from your duties—there’s the door. Get out. But if you’re here to stand up, to get your musket, to fix your bayonet, and to charge into the ranks—you are my brother and sister in this fight. You need to leave here understanding one simple word.
    “That word is: bayonets.
    “And charge the enemy—for your freedom, for your liberty. Don’t go home and let your children down! You leave here today—CHARGE!”
    The Democrats scoffed at Allen West. They painted him as the most off-the-beam of the extremist Tea Party candidates. They basked in the conventional wisdom that an African-American ultraconservative Christian could not possibly poach on Ron Klein’s Jewish constituent base. They did not know how to account for West’s own adoring followers or his astounding talent for fund-raising. The triumph of a man like Allen West seemed every bit as unthinkable as the viability of a ragtag movement that seemed more akin to a primal scream than anything of electoral significance.
    The unthinkable occurred. He beat his opponent by 8 points.
    On December 30, 2010, at six in the morning, Congressman-elect Allen West kissed his wife goodbye, hopped into the front seat of a U-Haul truck, and drove out of Plantation, Florida. The following morning, ashe passed over the Potomac River, he reflected on Caesar crossing the Rubicon to save his beloved Rome. And he thought as well about the last time he drove a U-Haul, seven years ago, when the freshly discharged lieutenant colonel and his young family headed east from Fort Hood, Texas, to begin a new life in Florida—then to teach history. And now, to make it.
    He spent New Year’s Eve drinking sparkling grape juice at the Alexandria, Virginia, home of his lawyer and friend Neal Puckett. By January 1 he had already moved in to the basement apartment of an Army buddy near McPherson Square, walking distance from the White House. Congress would not be in session for another four days. None of the other freshmen had yet arrived. And that was the idea.
    Because his foray into Washington was, in a sense, a paramilitary operation. Let the others stumble in on January 5 with their thousand-yard stares. West intended to get a jump on the rest. And so on New Year’s Day he was jogging on the Mall, standing before the great statue of the seated Lincoln, all pores open. Then back to his man-cave to spend the day absorbing budgetary data and parliamentary procedures. On the morning of the second, he and his chief of staff, Jonathan Blyth, visited the Capitol when no one else was around. He wandered the bowels of the Capitol basement and a couple of times got lost. Blyth had worked on the Hill before, but his boss’s instructions were to let West figure his own way out. He intended to learn every corridor, game out every shortcut. He’d drawn