The Means by Douglas Brunt

Author:Douglas Brunt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

TOM PAULEY

28

“Selling is at least half of what I do. For the first time I see the appropriateness of the election process. It’s the best preparation there is for this crazy job.” Tom Pauley sounds embattled but it’s the brawny talk of a man who’s winning.

“You’re selling well,” says Peter Brand, who stayed on as Tom’s chief of staff after the election.

“I’ve been selling for a lot of years. If you’re a trial attorney you need to sell the jury on your presentation of the facts. This is about the same thing, I just didn’t realize I’d be doing so much of it. You know, the big difference is that when I was trying cases, I’d make a hundred decisions a day about the case on all sorts of matters big and small. Now the staff handles anything small. I set a policy and they do all the blocking and tackling. Instead of a hundred decisions a day, I make about three decisions a month. But they’re big and I need to get them right.”

Peter Brand nods. He’s come to know Tom and knows this kind of ruminating means he’s decided on a course for something. “What’s on your mind?”

“The Republican base is firmly for what we’re doing. So we’re selling our plan to independents. That’s our target, but we need to expand that. I want to go talk to the core of the left.”

“You want to speak in front of a teachers union meeting?”

Tom nods. “Annual meetings are coming up. I may not win them over but maybe I can get them to view me as not evil. Maybe I can soften them. I know I just got in here, but maybe they’ll be less motivated to vote against me next time even if they don’t vote for me.”

“They’re going to view you as evil no matter what. Your policy is to make them fireable and pinch their pensions. There’ll be some very bad TV footage—you getting booed and shouted down, possibly you getting some crap thrown at you.”

“Who cares? If they treat me rough, that’ll just fire up Republicans and it may offend some independents enough to come my way. I have thick skin.”

Brand thinks this over. Tom comes across as such a nice guy. He is a nice guy. “It could work. You want me to set something up?”

“Show me a few options where we can do this. I’d like to do it in the next few weeks.”

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