Girl Power (16 page)

Since you're going to be hosting them on your show, you could decide."

~ * * ~

Shortly after Sally hung up from Winfred, Lindy barged in.

"Jesus. I knew things would get even more hectic after you and Winfred's

announcement, but I had no idea. I'm afraid your life isn't going to be normal

again until after you're elected President."

Sally chuckled. "Really, Lindy. Being President is more normal than this?"

"Could be. Sally, since I came in two hours ago, I've had seven requests for you to be on morning to late night shows, three requests for magazine

interviews, complete with covers, a request to write your biography, four

requests from women's groups to hold town hall meetings and—"

Sally raised her hand. "Hold on Lindy. Obviously, I can't be everywhere."

Sally pushed the intercom button.

"Yes, Ms. Cummings?"

"Hi Millie. Would you see if Mr. Casey and Mrs. Cahill are in and ask them

to come into my office?"

"Right away, Ms. Cummings."

"Sally!"

"Right away, Sally."

Sally turned back to Lindy, who'd taken a seat. "What TV shows?"

"Pretty much what you'd expect. Meet the Press, Good Morning America,

Late Night with Jay Lennox, 20/20, Pierce Morgan, Wolf News…"

"Which show on Wolf News?"

Lindy shrugged. "Apparently, your pick."

"Hmm. Which magazines?"

"Vanity Fair, More, Glamour, but I'm sure there'll be more. There'll be more of everything."

With coffee mug in hand, Lee slid into the room, followed closely by Kelly.

"Hi, Kelly, hi, Lee. Take a seat. We have some things to go over." Sally glanced at Lindy. "Why don't you tell them what you told me?"

Lindy repeated what she'd told Sally.

Lee scratched the back of his head. "This is a very good sign. It means you have the media's interest and if we use the media correctly, the public won't be far behind."

"That's what I thought, but how should we handle it? I can't be two places at once and if I could I'd probably keel over from exhaustion."

"I know. Nevertheless, we are the new kid on the block. We can't let an

opportunity to get your name and picture out in public get away. The magazine

covers are a no brainer. Any offer to be on the cover of a magazine, you take. If they want an interview, give them one. Who is your most prolific writer?"

Lindy spoke up, "We're all good, but after Sally, I'd say Carla is best."

"All right, Sally if you can't keep up with the interviews, have Carla

paraphrase and rewrite your interviews. For TV, we're going to have to use

surrogates. Lindy, you, Kelly and I will have to take Sally's overflow. Just make sure you stay on message. We don't need any faux pas. Celebrity shows like Jay

Lennox will settle for only you. Political shows will take any of us. Kelly, you take the magazine covers. Lindy you take the celebrity shows for Sally, and Carla can take town hall meetings. I'll take the political shows for the rest of us, except for Wolf News. I want their viewers to get a whiff of what their roboman, Coop

Richardson, III, is up against in Sally, and I want her on as soon as possible. You never know. We may even get a few women from the other side."

~ * * ~

Wolf News Studio – The Heidi Van Sussan Show

Soon meant Wednesday afternoon, when Lee managed to schedule Sally on

Heidi Van Sussan's, For the Record show. Unlike The Winfred Opry Show, there

was no fanfare or formality. Instead, Sally and Heidi, seated on chairs on

opposing sides of the interview desk, shook hands and waited for the show to

start. Heidi said, "I'm so pleased to meet and have you here. I've been following your movement with interest."

"Thank you. I'm glad to be here, though I'm a bit nervous, being here in the

'belly of the beast' so they speak."

Heidi threw her head back and laughed. "I know what you mean, but don't

worry. I'm no beast. Sally when the show starts, I want to talk about issues, but for now, I would like to get some background on you. Can you tell me about

your family?"

Sally fidgeted a bit. "There's not much to tell. I was born in 1970 in Trenton N.J. I received my bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and law

Degree from Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware. After graduating

from Widener, I married my Philosophy professor from Maryland University,

which turned out to be a mistake. I was a boring housewife and he had an eye for coeds. The good thing is, we didn't have any children, though my ex-husband

has a daughter, from a previous marriage, whom I grew very fond of,.

"We divorced after five tumultuous years of marriage, I was thirty-one, and other than menial part time jobs while I attended school had never held a job."

"What did you do?"

Sally snickered. "I did what any thirty-plus divorcee who'd never held a job would do. I ran for mayor—and won."

Heidi giggled. "Good for you."

Sally nodded. "I thought so. I'd always wanted to help people and that was

as good a way as any. Unfortunately, the pay was low so I ran for Congress and

won again"

A man came up and whispered something to Heidi. She glanced at Sally.

"The show starts in thirty seconds." When the red lights on the cameras lit, Heidi turned toward the camera.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to For the Record.

Tonight, I have the pleasure of having a remarkable woman as our first guest—

Sally Cummings, the Democratic Congresswoman from Maryland, who recently

announced on The Winfred Opry Show that she is running for President. That's

right folks, President—a woman President. Wouldn't that be something? And not

as a Republican or a Democrat, but as the founding member of SAFE, a political

party formed for the promotion of women's equality, something, as a woman, I

can truly appreciate." The camera retreated and Heidi turned toward her guest.

"Good evening, Ms. Cummings. So good of you to join us this evening. May I call you Sally?"

Sally brushed a wayward tuft of hair back. "I would be disappointed if you

didn't, and I'll call you Heidi."

"Fair enough. Tell us a little about yourself, and what made you decide to

run for President?"

Sally assumed an upright posture. "Well, as a Democrat, I was refused the

opportunity to run for Maryland's junior Senate seat in favor of a man. Not

because he was a better politician, but because the odds favor a man. This is

something women run into all the time, so I decided to do something about it."

Heidi leaned forward resting her elbows on the desk. "You started SAFE?"

"Yes."

"So you could run for the Senate."

Sally shook her head. "Not at first. I wanted to have a place where any

woman who wanted to run for office could. My friend and co-founder of SAFE,

Lindy Rollins, talked me into running for Senate."

"Why don't you tell the viewers what SAFE stands for?"

"SAFE is an acronym for 'Stand Aligned For Equality'."

Heidi pursed her lips. "And it's only for women? Men can't join?"

"As a matter of fact something like sixteen percent of our six million

members are men."

Heidi gulped. "You have six million members?"

Sally smiled at Heidi's reaction. "That's right and we expect to have nine to ten million members by the end of our first month. Not bad for a movement that

started in a Mexican Restaurant with six determined women a little over four

weeks ago."

Heidi whistled. "I'd say it's more like amazing."

Sally grinned. "It is, isn't it? I guess women's politics is an issue whose time has come."

After Sally finished explaining the ins and outs of SAFE, Heidi got into the

issues. The entire interview only lasted about eight minutes, but Sally went away with the feeling that the movement was depicted in a fair light and she'd overall accomplished a lot of good for the party.

~ * * ~

About eight-fifteen that Friday morning, Brenda rushed into Lindy's office.

"Lindy, Lindy, the first poll is out."

After showing Lindy the paperwork, they went to Lee's and Kelly's office.

Five minutes later, all four of them waltzed into Sally's wearing grins that would put the Cheshire cat to shame.

Sally glanced up with a quizzical expression. "Guess what we got?" Brenda teased.

"I'll bite."

"Y-o-u-r very first presidential poll."

Sally grabbed for the paper. "Let me see that."

Brenda handed the paper over. Sally smiled as she scanned it. "This is better than I'd hoped."

Lee said, "I think it's better than all of us had hoped."

Lindy said, "Better, it's unbelievable. Read that out, Brenda."

"Approval Rating, Richardson – 35%, Taylor - 34%, Cummings - 25%,

undecided – 6%.

"I'll say it's unbelievable," piped in Kelly, "It's not like I didn't think we could be competitive, but we've only been a party for four plus weeks and you've only been a presidential candidate for what?"

"Four days."

"See, it truly is mind boggling. You're only nine percent behind Taylor and ten points behind Richardson." Kelly took a deep breath. "I can already picture the campaign contributions rolling in."

Lee chuckled, "You got that right. We have the momentum and with all the

promotional things we have scheduled for the rest of this week, we should close

the gap."

~ * * ~

"We now take you to Washington D.C. where Jenna Kenner is standing by

in the Clovis Taylor for President Campaign Headquarters. What's going on

Jenna?"

"Thank you Jeff. As you reported, the first three-way presidential race poll is out with the new woman candidate doing surprisingly well and I'm waiting to

get a comment from the Taylor for President camp. I'm walking up to the

receptionist now. Hi, I'm Jenna Kenner with National News Network. Can I

speak to someone about the new poll numbers?"

"What about them?"

"Well, I'd like to get candidate Taylor's reaction to them."

"Mr. Taylor is much too busy to worry about polls."

"How about the campaign manager or the campaign strategist?"

"They're out."

A comely middle-aged woman walked by and Jenna grabbed her arm.

"Excuse me. Aren't you Liz Black?"

"Yes. What did you need?"

I'd like to get candidate Taylor's reaction to the latest poll in which he's only nine points ahead of the new woman presidential candidate Sally Cummings?"

"Only nine points? Mr. Taylor isn't concerned, but he is pleased that he's

only one point down from the Republican candidate."

"Yes, but Sally Cummings has only been a candidate for four days."

Liz Black shrugged. "I gotta go."

Jenna turned to the camera. "There you go, Jeff. The Taylor campaign claims to be unconcerned about the remarkable showing of the new candidate."

"Thank you. Jenna. We now take you across town to Tim Allen who is at the

Cooper Richardson, III for President Headquarters. "Tim what do you have?"

"Thank you, Jeff. I'm afraid I don't have much more than Jenna, but they did hand out a statement a few minutes ago. It reads: At first glance, the polling

numbers of Sally Cummings are troubling, until you realize the candidate is only a two term congresswoman and her personal choice for Vice President has never

held any public office. If she's still around for the debates, Mr. Taylor and

Richardson III will make minced meat of her."

"Thank you Tim. More bravado from the established party camps. I take

you now to Alton West, who apparently has someone who's willing to talk to us.

Alton."

"Thank you Jeff. I'm at the Stand Aligned For Equality headquarters, who

some call the Pink Party. I have with me, Lee Casey the co-chairman for the

SAFE National Committee."

Alton and Lee shook hands. "Thank you for speaking with me."

Lee flashed an endearing aw-shucks smile. "You're welcome. My door is

always open to the media."

"I know, and I appreciate that. Sir, what is your reaction to yesterday's

poll?" "We are ecstatic. What else could we feel? Our candidate announced four days ago and we're only ten points down. I think your anchorman is right. The

other camps are spinning bravado. They're scrambling and they're worried, but it isn't going to matter. We have the ideas, we have the momentum and we have

the plan. No more gridlock. We offer government of the people, by the people,

for the people, and we are going to win."

Chapter Thirteen – Week Six

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in

politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

-
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Republican National Committee Headquarters

"Good morning, Pricilla."

"Good morning, sir. You're looking chipper."

"Thank you, I feel chipper." Just as he entered his office, Crowe looked back at Pricilla. "Bring me a cup of coffee, will you?"

"Certainly."

Sitting at his desk, he went through his messages. "Damn, Karol called.

What now?"

Crowe's receptionist brought in his coffee. "Thanks, Pricilla. You're a good girl." "Oh, I see you found the message from Mr. Rogue. He was very anxious to speak with you."

Not what Crowe wanted to hear. "Thank you. Close the door when you

leave." When Pricilla left, he punched in Rogue's number. "American

Crossburnings, may I help you."

"This is Crowe."

"Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?"

"I have a message that Mr. Rogue called."

"I'll put you right through."