Prayer for a Vote — Hoebuck's Price
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Josh calls out to Toby, shifting focus to Senator Hoebuck's unusual request, setting up the next significant negotiation.
Toby meets with Senator Hoebuck and Dr. Chen, who propose a controversial study on remote prayer in exchange for Hoebuck's vote, presenting a moral dilemma.
Toby processes the ethical implications of the deal as Hoebuck and Dr. Chen exit, leaving the White House team to weigh principle against political necessity.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Not present; their clinical outcomes are repurposed as political evidence.
The CCU heart patients are referred to as the study cohort: half were prayed for and their outcomes are cited as the basis for the 11% reduction claim.
- • N/A — their outcomes are used to justify further funding and study
- • Serve as empirical basis for claims
- • N/A — the text treats their outcomes as data points rather than agents with beliefs
Frustrated, anxious, combative beneath a motor‑running urgency to find any path to victory.
Josh sits in the Roosevelt Room amid the vote‑chart and countdown clock, rattling off the exhaustive list of places they've searched for Senator Hardin and calling Toby to account, supplying the pressure cooker context for the subsequent office encounter.
- • Find and secure votes to pass the foreign aid bill before the funding deadline
- • Mobilize colleagues (call in Toby) to salvage the legislative fight
- • The administration must do whatever pragmatic legwork is necessary to pass the bill
- • Every missing senator is a solvable logistical and political problem
Incredulous on the surface, irritated and protective of scientific and institutional standards underneath.
Toby moves from the Roosevelt Room into his office, listens in mounting disbelief, interrogates the scientific pedigree, and attempts to puncture the claim with questions about publication and rigor.
- • Reject or expose weak evidence that would damage the administration's credibility
- • Avoid transactional vote‑buying that undermines policy integrity
- • Determine whether the demand is politically or scientifically defensible
- • Federal money and scientific legitimacy must be defended against sectarian or dubious claims
- • Buying votes with earmarks or dubious science will cost long‑term credibility
Calmly transactional; confident he can extract resources by converting moral/scientific claims into a bargaining chip.
Senator Hoebuck delivers the bargaining position plainly and transactionally: he offers his pivotal vote in exchange for a $115,000 NIH-funded study, framing it as a straight swap and underscoring institutions that back the claim.
- • Secure a tangible appropriation ($115,000) for a study benefitting his interest/base
- • Turn scientific claims into political leverage to influence the administration
- • Earmarks and small appropriations are a legitimate part of legislative horse‑trading
- • Citing studies and institutions provides cover for seemingly unusual requests
Measured and earnest; invested in having her research taken seriously despite its sensitive subject.
Dr. Chen calmly presents clinical results from a double‑blind, placebo‑controlled trial, quantifying an 11% reduction in cardiac events among prayed‑for patients and offering herself as a credible, non‑sectarian scientific witness.
- • Secure NIH funding for a larger, confirmatory study
- • Protect the scientific legitimacy and non‑sectarian posture of her work
- • The data deserve further, federally funded study regardless of political discomfort
- • Scientific methodology (double‑blind trials) can make controversial claims investigable
Not present; invoked as a methodological component whose moral import is leveraged by others.
The Prayer Study Volunteers are referenced as the human backbone of Dr. Chen's trial—those who performed the remote prayers counted toward the claimed benefit, presented as empirical actors in the study.
- • N/A — they are study participants whose presence lends empirical weight
- • Remain blinded and part of rigorous methodology
- • N/A — implied belief that their prayers could have an effect
- • Their contribution should be evaluated scientifically
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Josh's Senator Vote Chart anchors the scene's urgency: he studies it obsessively as the countdown clock runs. The chart drives the decision calculus that makes Hoebuck's offer politically urgent and frames the moral question of whether to trade credibility for a vote.
Hoebuck's $115,000 NIH Prayer Study Funding Request is the explicit bargaining instrument: a concrete dollar figure linked to a federal agency. It's framed as a small, targeted appropriation whose political cost-benefit is immediately calculated against a $17 billion bill.
Dr. Chen's double‑blind placebo‑controlled study functions as the evidence Hoebuck uses to justify the funding request. Its reported 11% reduction in cardiac events is the linchpin that reframes an otherwise absurd appropriation as a defensible scientific inquiry.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The National Institutes of Health appears as the target funder for Hoebuck's requested $115,000 study. NIH stands as the legitimate federal channel that could validate and resource the controversial research, making it the institutional prize in the bargaining.
The U.S. Senate is the forum whose vote is being bargained for; its procedural thresholds and the floor vote (and presiding officer) create the zero‑sum stakes that make Hoebuck's small appropriation valuable.
The White House is the decision‑maker confronted with the demand: its staff (Josh, Toby) must determine whether to accede to a transactional appropriation, balancing political survival against institutional reputation.
Duke Medical Center is the institutional home of Dr. Chen and the source of the double‑blind study. Its non‑sectarian standing is cited to deflect accusations of religious bias and to lend scientific credibility to the prayer study.
Pacific College of Medicine is cited by Hoebuck as one of several institutions with similar findings, bolstering the appearance of a broader evidentiary base for intercessory prayer studies.
The Med‑American Heart Institute is referenced alongside other centers to suggest a pattern of corroborating studies that give Hoebuck's request apparent heft.
The New England Journal of Medicine functions as the rhetorical benchmark Toby invokes to test the study's credibility—publication there would signal mainstream scientific acceptance and thus blunt political criticism.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Josh's frustration over public opinion against foreign aid mirrors Will's critique of voters' unrealistic expectations, highlighting the theme of public perception vs. policy reality."
"Josh's frustration over public opinion against foreign aid mirrors Will's critique of voters' unrealistic expectations, highlighting the theme of public perception vs. policy reality."
"Josh's frustration over public opinion against foreign aid mirrors Will's critique of voters' unrealistic expectations, highlighting the theme of public perception vs. policy reality."
Key Dialogue
"JIMMY: "Here's what I want for my vote tonight.""
"JIMMY: "I want to pay people to pray.""
"DR. CHEN: "The patients that were prayed for-- I know it sounds crazy but the patients that were prayed for-- 11 percent fewer heart attacks and strokes; far fewer complications.""