Chapter 54
After the Lopez campaign scuttled the candidate’s visit to Cedar Falls, For the Win kept making the case that it needed to be rescheduled.
Lopez and Stone were crisscrossing the upper Midwest, but mainly hitting the bigger cities with the larger media markets.
Dot was convinced that Cedar Falls was key.
She saw it in Fletcher’s spreadsheets and felt it in her gut.
If Lopez didn’t come to town, she might fall short in the county’s vote tally—and then not only would Kitty, Fletcher, and herself not share in a win bonus, but also Lopez wouldn’t be in the Oval Office come Inauguration Day.
Dot kept plugging along, mission-focused and not panicking. Not yet.
August flew by, and suddenly, summer was ending. Cedar Falls was in back-to-school mode.
“Check these out—washable Sharpies,” Harper said. “I wonder if they work. My mom would have appreciated them, especially when Ernest drew a mustache on my Harry Styles concert T-shirt. I cried for hours. I swore I’d never talk to him again.” She shook her head at the memory.
“My mom was furious with my brothers when they painted my pigtails with a new glue stick,” Mary said. “She made them eat the rest of it.”
“That sounds exactly like Christine,” Harper said, watching a mother and her daughter going through their supply list. “I love that ‘back-to-school’ feeling. Even as a teacher. Though I don’t have a school to return to.” Her tone was wistful.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Dot said.
“Yeah, that was the creepy headmaster. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Mary said. She maintained Harper should have sued him.
“I’ll say one thing, though—it’s all very expensive.
” Dot scanned the prices up and down the aisle.
“We were just talking about this on a call with Kitty. Polling shows people are still unhappy about high prices, and they usually take it out on the party in power. It’s the biggest election issue by far, especially when it comes to back-to-school costs.
Rose said her kids are overwhelmed by the cost of her grandkids’ fees, too, for sports and activities. ”
“Is Senator Lopez pushing that?” Mary asked.
“Trying. We had her make a quick video for social last week, straight to the camera, making her big push for a major education tax credit. It got decent play on the mom sites.” Kitty had been impressed when it went viral and acknowledged Dot’s idea was a good one.
“But the president hit her for not having ‘lived experience’ because she doesn’t have children. ”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who made so much money in the stock market, he never had to worry about the cost of raising his kids,” Harper said.
“Exactly. We’re trying to show that she gets it, but there’s always more we could do.” Dot picked up a colorful spiral notebook and put it in their cart.
Harper took it right back out and returned it to the shelf. “You have five of these lying around. Let’s keep going before we accidentally spend another hundred dollars on stuff we don’t need.”
“Like this Mediterranean Fig candle?” Mary said, taunting Harper by pulling it out of the cart.
“I actually need that.” Harper laughed and grabbed it out of Mary’s hands and returned it to the cart.
Dot’s phone buzzed and she looked down to find a text from Kitty Bell to her and Fletcher.
“Uh-oh.”
“What’s wrong?” Harper always worried something bad was going to happen.
“It’s from Kitty.” Dot read the message out loud. “Emergency. Hit job coming. Conference call at eight tonight.”
“Whoa. Hit job! Any idea what it’s about?” Harper’s imagination ran wild to the worst scenario.
“Not sure. Must be bad, though,” Dot said, feeling her pulse race a bit.
“Let’s go then,” Mary said. “We can check out and be home just in time.” She took over the cart and headed to the register. “I’ll pour you a glass of wine in a Yeti, and you can pretend it’s water.”
“Love that plan. Make it the one with a straw,” Dot said. Then she replied to Kitty that she’d be on the call.
AT TWO MINUTES before eight, Dot pulled her hair into a ponytail and logged on to the videoconference. She thought better when her hair was off her face.
Darn it, Kitty was already there.
“Hi,” Dot said, waving to the screen and noting Kitty’s light makeup and hair in a topknot . Kitty wore a sleeveless navy blue top and small diamond earrings. “This must be her Sunday casual look,” Dot thought. “Did this woman ever just throw on a T-shirt?”
Kitty was in her office, a bookshelf behind her where everything had been arranged by a decorator who never intended for the shelves to hold books useful in an office.
Dior in Bloom wasn’t exactly something you’d need for reference in political communication.
But she had to admit, the aesthetic was on point.
“Hi, there. Thanks for getting on. Where’s Fletcher?”
“He just texted me. Should be on any second.” Dot prayed that was true, hoping his tardiness wasn’t a reflection on her.
And right on cue, Fletcher beamed in, unaware that early is on time.
“Hi, there! This must be good, Kitty. Or bad.”
“Well, it’s not great. The DNC got word about a story that’s going to hit soon. Super-negative about Lucy’s personal life,” Kitty said. Dot clocked the first name reference. The two women must have grown quite close.
“What did they find?” Dot asked, cringing at how bad this was going to be.
“They have oppo research about a disgruntled former boyfriend of hers from years ago, and apparently he’s willing to talk. That’s what got The New York Times to bite.”
“Does the DNC know which reporter is on the story?” Dot ran through a mental list of political reporters on the election beat wondering who it could be.
“Not yet—working on it. Chances are I’ll have crossed paths with them—especially if they’re D.C.-based.
“What do they get out of digging up an old boyfriend from years ago?” Fletcher asked. “What’s their angle?”
“I imagine it’s that she’s single, unreliable, unable or unwilling to commit.
A frenzied mess. Apparently, they’ll plant seeds of doubt about her because she’s never been married.
They couch it as ‘just asking questions,’ but we all know that’s code for a childless woman who can’t hold on to a man; and someone who doesn’t have the right temperament to be commander-in-chief. ”
“They’re going to throw it all against the personal wall,” Dot said.
“So, we have to make sure it doesn’t stick.” Fletcher tapped his index finger on his chin in thought.
“That’s the play. Any ideas?” Kitty asked.
“Can we go back a second?” Dot asked, needing more information. “Going after her for being a single, independent woman . . . that’s not going to help them with the youth vote they need.”
“In theory, yes,” Kitty said. “But the youth vote is somewhat fickle, and we’ve been shedding young people’s support for a few cycles now.
But the GOP also wants to drive up their numbers with older women.
Heck, any women. If they can win more of their vote, they don’t have to worry as much about the other groups. ”
“And if they do that enough times, in enough states, they’ll take the electoral college again,” Fletcher finished Kitty’s thought.
“Okay, let’s say this attack strikes,” Dot posed. “How do you think she’ll react? It’ll be good to be ready for whatever her response is going to be.”
“Good question. I can’t say for sure, but I’ve been around her enough to believe we’ll get a decent mix of gracious and sharp.
She’s cool under pressure, which is reassuring about how she’d react in a crisis.
But there’s a fine line between resolute and overreacting, especially for women.
If she can ignore it or manage it with a smile and a spark, that’d be the best outcome. ”
“This is why I’ll never run for office,” Fletcher said. “I’d get so mad.”
“Well, we can get mad on her behalf,” Kitty said.
“And we can also get even,” Dot said.
“I like where you’re going with that, Dot.
Make no mistake, the story will be brutal.
Jilted lover stories will draw headlines and clicks.
I think that’s why she’s always been very protective of her private life—she wants to focus on the issues, while social media just lasers in on her personal life. ”
“So, there’s a danger in under-responding, too,” Dot said. “If she decides not to dignify it with a response, all the accusations go unanswered.”
“Exactly. And those impressions are hard to erase,” Kitty said.
Fletcher clapped his hands together. “So, where do we come in?”
“We have about forty-eight hours before this story is supposed to hit. I was hoping you two can put your heads together and see if we can offer something to break through the DNC’s brick wall of running scared responses.
It takes forever and a day to get them to approve anything.
So many of them are canned and just don’t work. I want to go around them.”
“Do you have any suggestions?” Dot asked. “Or do we have a blank slate?”
“Blank slate. Brainstorm some ideas but do it fast. Send me something by noon tomorrow?”
“You got it.” Fletcher said that he’d side-text Dot.
“We’re on it,” Dot said, the gears of her mind already turning.
They ended the videoconference and immediately Dot’s phone rang. It was Fletcher.
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “What about a video of all the scandalous headlines from Republicans in the last twenty years. Try to make this look like no big deal compared to their haul of junk.”
Dot didn’t like that approach. It was too obvious a response, and the DNC would do that anyway. That was their go-to move. They needed to be more creative and to think of something that would get people’s attention.
“Let me think. I may have an idea,” she said, which was Dot’s polite way of saying “Your idea is not going to work.”
She hung up and put the kettle on.
It was going to be a long night.