Capable of Honor

Capable of Honor is a political novel written by Allen Drury, published in 1966. It is the second sequel to Drury's novel, Advise and Consent, and is followed by "Preserve and Protect".

The novel takes place in the same fictional universe as Advise and Consent. Capable of Honor examines the role that journalists play during a US presidential campaign. In the novel, Harley Hudson, the affable but inept Vice President from the first novel, is now president and seeking a term of his own. Having announced his candidacy late, Hudson announces an open contest for the Vice Presidential nomination, in which Secretary of State Orrin Knox, who supports Hudson's policies, opposes the popular but weak-willed Governor Ted Jason of California. The media, which has supported Jason heavily when it looked like it would be a Knox-Jason race for the Presidential nomination, continues its effort for a Jason victory by any means it can.

At the convention in San Francisco, extreme elements of the Left and Right combine to support Jason, and there are several violent incidents, including one in which Knox's daughter is brutally attacked. When it becomes clear that the convention is split down the middle in fights over the platform, Jason challenges Hudson for the Majority Party's nomination (the novels never use the proper names "Republican" or "Democrat" but the descriptions of Majority Party corresponds strongly to the Democrats of the 1960s). Hudson wins narrowly, and Jason expects the Vice Presidential nomination since he commands the support of almost half the convention. Hudson seems amenable, and places Jason on the dais as he makes his acceptance speech. Hudson humiliates Jason by making it clear that he considers Jason a panderer, and states he will accept Knox, and only Knox, as his running mate. The convention duly nominates Knox, but almost half its delegates walk out, to the pleasure of the media commentators, who predict a third-party convention from among the disaffected delegates..