"What? President? Me?"
Murphy repeated, a sense of absurdity in his voice.
"Leo, are you still drunk from last night? Or has the coal dust from Pittsburgh clogged your brain?"
"I've been a Senator for less than half a year! The seat in my office isn't even warm yet."
"And now you want me to run for President? To compete against the big shots who control hundreds of millions of USD in campaign funds? How am I supposed to win the party nomination? With what? A photo of me eating a sandwich in the Senate cafeteria?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Leo. You might as well ask me to build a colony on Mars. That sounds more plausible than me becoming President!"
Leo said, "John, calm down."
"Who said we need to win the party nomination?"
"We don't need to suck up to the Democratic National Committee, and we don't need to beg for votes from superdelegates."
"We're going to do this ourselves."
"We're going to form a new political party."
The other end of the line fell dead silent.
