It had been harder to become accustomed to constantly being the most looked-at person in any room, up to and including Madison Square Garden. He had learned never to scratch his nether regions, because the video would be on the Internet within seconds.

The elevator reached the lower floor, and then, instead of being walked to the Oval Office, Will was walked to the press room in the basement of the White House. No preparation had been necessary, because the press had not been invited. Instead, the auditorium was filled with White House staffers.

Will stepped to the lectern. "My God," he said, "who's answering the phones?"

Tim Coleman, his chief of staff, stood up in the front row. "Nobody, Mr. President," he said, then sat down again. Everybody laughed.

"Well, good morning to you all," Will said. "As I expect you may have heard, I'm headed for New York today to accept the nomination tonight, and I wanted to say just a few words to you before I go." He looked around at the happy faces. "It may surprise some of you that I got the nomination." Everybody laughed again. "But I guess being the incumbent helps. What was even more of a help was the successful nature of our first term, and I use the pronoun advisedly. The people in this room had as much, maybe more, to do with that success than anyone else, and I wanted to thank you, personally, for that help.

"Now, assuming that I win a second term for us-and that's only an assumption at this point-I'm going to be faced with being called a lame duck for the next four years. It's my fervent hope that you will all be here to face that with me, but I understand that practically all of you have served for the past four years at a considerable financial sacrifice and that the call of the private sector, as the Republicans like to call the defense contractors and the Washington lobbying firms, will be ringing in your ears.