Chapter 26

Chapter 26—The drive home

7:11 p.m., Tuesday, December 20

As soon as Allison got in her car, she slipped on and adjusted Bernadette’s wig, and then put on her customary glasses. When she looked in the mirror, she surprised even herself with her sullen expression.
Allison was in a bad mood—and she remained in a bad mood for the whole trip home. Without a doubt, she had considered on many occasions just how much better the situation would be if she did not have to deal with President Butler. She truly hated the man. And, she disrespected his leadership over the past two plus years—to the point that she felt totally vindicated with her earlier assertions that she would have made a far better President.
Had he performed in even a mediocre way, she might have been jealous. Instead, she was locked into her anger and hate. Not only did she feel he was destroying his own chances at re-election, he was, in her opinion, helping the Republicans capture both houses of Congress—if not outright, they were likely at least to dramatically weaken her party’s position.
Initially her intention was to push for the second spot in his second term. From there she felt she had a pretty strong chance of winning at the end of it. And, should anything befall the President, she would step in and finish it out; then run for her own term—like Lyndon Johnson did when President Kennedy was assassinated.
Now, however, her prospects were beginning to look dim. She was becoming convinced that he would lose his second term election, and thereby take her down with him.
“That bi**h Sophie. It is all her damn fault. If she had kept her nose out of the process, I would have won the nomination, and I would be President right now.”
Not only did Allison believe that was true, when alone she would frequently verbalize it out loud. And that’s what she was doing as she was driving back to the city. “What the hell did she mean by that anyway? She called him ‘The Anointed One.’ Jesus Christ, that sucks. All the time we felt that she was empowering women. Then she turns around and kiss this jerk’s ass. God, I hate that woman.”
Allison had no difficulty expressing her feelings about Sophie, but only to herself, when she was by herself. She knew that if she ever verbalized her hatred of Sophie, even to her closest friends, eventually it would hit the media. And that could hurt her reputation with women. So, she saved that venom for when she was alone—totally alone.
Then, as was becoming her practice, she took a couple deep breaths, and prepared herself to record her take on the meeting. She opened the center console, felt around until she found her miniature recording device. She then reached into her purse, and retrieved a sealed envelope containing an empty thumb drive. Carefully she slid it into the recorder, and hit the “Record” button.
“Tuesday, December 20. We met at Jerry’s cottage. Present were James, Jerry, Reg, Steve and myself. The meeting lasted…” She paused to look at her watch. “The meeting lasted approximately fifty-five minutes. …Jerry was kind enough to bring sandwiches.”
She then hit the “Pause” button, as she gathered her thoughts. Her intentions were never to redact the recordings. She never wanted any written account of the meetings. So it was important to her to be as concise and accurate as possible, as there was to be no editing done later.
She continued, “There were a few pleasantries extended to Jerry for allowing us to use his cottage, and for kind hospitality. Steve suggested he might have brought a hamburger for Reg. After those comments, I asked Jerry to open the discussion.
“I had asked that each member of the group provide two or three matters that he considered major problems facing us. Jerry brought up the three issues he considered to be the most pressing. First, he suggested the President’s staggering unpopularity. He pointed out how badly we lost the House, and that he had real concerns about keeping the Senate the next time around. Then he suggested that the economy was in free fall, and that nothing Butler was doing would or could help. Finally, he made a reference to the “Manchurian Candidate.” He did not elaborate on that, but we all had a pretty good notion about what he was suggesting.”
Allison paused the recording. After she had thought for a moment, she began again.
“James followed. He agreed with Jerry, and added his own ideas. He said that there was not really a question about it—we would lose the presidency and the Senate in the general election. Not only that, the fact that we took such a huge hit on the state level during the mid-term could greatly affect our ability to recover in the near future. We were in trouble. Our state organizations were severely weakened, and it would be hard to fix them. Not only would Butler almost certainly lose in the general election; if he happened not to be the candidate, the party would still likely lose.”
Again Allison paused, but this time for only a couple of seconds.
“Reg suggested that even he could not be effective at smearing Republican candidates. He felt that nothing he could do would make anyone look worse than the guy in the White House.
“Steve pointed out that this time around the bloggers were going to exercise more power than the mainstream media. And that there was nothing he could do to paint an electable face on our party’s candidates. He said we needed something fresh, a new dynamic. But he did not elaborate.”
This time she did not pause the recording.
“After Steve, we discussed potential solutions. I started with Steve.  Steve virtually continued with what he had been saying about the problems as he viewed them. He said that we needed to find a single issue, instead of the ten-headed leviathan of issues we seem to be dealing with. We needed one easy to understand point of attack, a huge, all-encompassing headline, one that voters could get their heads wrapped around. We needed to define that one issue, and own it.
“James then created an interesting metaphor. It had to do with our playing dodge ball with the Republicans. And that every day Butler drove a truck full of horse manure into their camp, and dumped it. Then the Republicans simply threw hands full of horse manure at us, and a lot of it stuck. Then the next day, the President did the same thing. With that, James stopped talking. We all got the picture. James was suggesting that the President was not able to control himself … that he was the problem.
“Jerry then jumped in, almost interrupting, and made the comment that an 800 pound gorilla had just walked in the room. No one wanted to state what was being suggested, but we all knew. We all knew that the situation would remain untenable as long as this President was in the White House. We stopped with that, and agreed to meet again the following Thursday, which would be the 22nd. At that time we would discuss options.”
With that, Allison flipped the recorder off, and removed the thumb drive. She put it in an envelope in her purse, and then dropped the recorder in her purse as well. She then took her cell out of her purse, and re-installed the battery, and called James.