Tea & Crackers: Chapter 4-5

Tea & Crackers Campaign: Chapter 4

Veda was smart about making a graceful exit and leave her audience wanting more. She took another lap around the room, chatting with enthusiastic supporters. Dr. Spector followed behind her with an ice bucket asking for campaign donations. Marge got faculty wives to volunteer for committee work. She and Dr. Spector would officially run the campaign, as they spoke about filing dates and such things with Veda. I got busy with my email sign-up sheet again, and gave it to one of the faculty wives who made a copy by photographing it with her phone. Veda thanked them all again for their organization and support, and we headed out the door.

As we left Dr. Spector’s house, Veda and I had our first real conversation about the campaign. Now that I’d seen her in action, I had a better sense of what she intended to do. First we stopped at the bank so Veda could put her donations in the night deposit. I endorsed each check with Elect Veda Rabadel, District 28 Campaign, and the account number, and we kept the cash for gas and traveling money. Veda handed me a small notebook to use as a three column donations and expense log. Later she wanted the numbers copied into a spreadsheet. In all, she’d raised more than two thousand dollars, with five hundred coming from one donor, a sugar magnate, the dark haired man whose wife wore the diamond choker. We were far from the five hundred thousand dollars Tugg was sitting on, but it was a start. Veda reviewed my columns of entries, initialed and dated the page and I ran the envelope to the deposit box.

As we drove out of the parking lot, I asked her, “So how are you going to win?”

“Henna, I don’t know if I can, but we’ve got to try.”

“Why try if you don’t think you can win?” I fired right back.

“Well, some things have to be said, discussed in the public arena. At least I know I can do that and give a good public airing to the issues that concern me and some of the people you met tonight.”

“That’s like playing volleyball to make the air more breathable by knocking pollution out of the sky.”

“What?” Veda paused for a minute and laughed.

“So tell me again, how are you going to win?”

“Florida is a swing state,” Veda began again. “And lots of people are embarrassed by the way the governor and his Republican legislature have been running things. We need to capitalize on that dissatisfaction. Also, the district has been Democrat for generations. Then it got gerrymandered into a safe Republican district. Then the dumbest possible Republican got elected.”

“Gerrymander, like salamander, like alligators, right?” I asked, trying to keep it light.

Veda smiled and shook her head. “Look it up,” she said.

The immensity of her candidacy suddenly hit me. If it worked out, it would change my life. I assumed it would be a change for the better, but I really had no idea. I was lost in dreams of volleyball and working at the general store when Veda asked, “You want a job? You can be my campaign aid or researcher or something.”

I held up my list of fifty-three new email names. “Already on it.”

“So, to start, provide me some talking points and facts for my speeches, and do some competitive analysis on what the other side is saying and doing?”

“I get paid?”

“Free room and board.”

“I got that already,” but I said it with a smile.

“Well, I’ll buy you a laptop computer if you can give me facts to build into my speeches,” she offered, “and manage my email list to voters.”

“With your insurance money?”

“Yes, then you’ve got something that can take you to college other than a volleyball.”

“Balling is not so bad.”

“What?”

“Joking. Sure, I’ll do it. But Aunt Veda, I’m different than you.”

“I know you are. I’m doing it because some of these things have to be said. Your uncle was fond of saying it’s our human responsibility to the leave the world a better place than when we found it.”

“Yep, I guess so, but I’m a little too young for that. I’m a jock; you’re a teacher; Unc’ was a warrior for planet earth.”

“So how does that make us different?”

“Real simple,” I said. “I love you, but you’re mostly in your head. Me, I just want to win.”

“Well, I could do with some of that.”

“Then bring it on, Congresswoman. We have 144 days to slam-dunk Tugg. He’s such a mule-faced corn cob, he’s got no chance.”

“Please don’t talk like that.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Veda, I’ll only tell the truth around you.”

Veda wiped away a tear. Maybe it was my mention of Unc’. That topic was emotional quicksand, and I’d have to remember never to remind her of her sadness. And it was her first tear all day; she was improving. She parked at a big box computer store outside Gainesville. “Let’s get you that laptop computer, then.”

Inside, we ran into the political science student whose shoe I spit on. He got excited when Veda pulled out her plastic. I had a shiny new laptop with an Internet subscription and a satellite dish to mount on the roof. Veda said she’d call one of the Askaloosa brothers to come over and install the dish. And that’s how I met my Jeeter. I could have climbed that ladder myself, but I was learning how a woman can act weak and useless to get a man to do her bidding.

As I was walking out, the pimple-faced kid insisted on carrying my laptop to the car.

“You a registered Democrat?”

“Not yet, but I intend to do it,” he said.

“Tell ya what,” I offered, “you register and get ten of your friends from the store to register too and I’ll put you on my campaign mailing list.”

“Deal,” he said.

“You ever won anything before?”

"No.”

“Great. I like working with political virgins.”

"Takes one to know one,” he said.

I smiled and shook his hand. Soon enough my smile would turn into a smirk, and my years of innocence would be over. Don’t worry; the pimply-faced kid had nothing to do with it, though he did prove to be a valuable geek resource. He got Veda’s campaign website built in three days.

Tea & Crackers Campaign: Chapter 5

My brain was burning and the information overload thrilled me. I’d been up most of three nights on the Internet, reading everything from Mother Jones to the Drudge Report and Wikipedia. Once I got into the Florida Secretary of State’s public campaign records, I began taking notes. I boned up on how to run a grassroots campaign, read about the birth of the Tea Party, where their money comes from, and who all of Congressman Tugg’s donors were – realtors, airplane manufacturers, the religious right and the tobacco lobby. I even got the address of his rental houses in Ocala and thought about lighting one on fire. When I mentioned that to Jeeter, he talked me out of it, saying Tugg was probably insured.

After seeing Jeeter up on the roof with his shirt off to install my satellite dish, I made sure I had his cell phone number. He even offered it, in case the satellite dish needed adjustment or a stiff wind turned it crooked. I couldn’t help myself; I began having little problems with dish reception on a daily basis which gave me good reason to chat with Jeeter on the phone.

I nailed the cardboard box from my new computer to the wall and used a magic marker to create a campaign calendar. The critical dates were August twenty-sixth for the primary election and November second for the general election. I also put a sign on my bedroom door: Congresswoman Rabadel’s Campaign War Room. Now, if the Tea Party wanted to shoot a missile at me, they’d know where to find me.

After one of my famous ninety minute cat naps, I went for coffee downstairs. Gramm was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Veda went out to another meeting. She said I was to let her research assistant sleep in.” Gramm was smoking a joint and polishing a tray of silver jewelry. She liked to dress up as a Seminole elder on Saturdays and sell trinkets to tourists up from Gainesville and from as far away as Tampa or Pensacola. If they bought a bangle, she’d let them take her picture for free.

I poured a cup of chicory coffee and made oatmeal. “I’m on a volleyball training diet until I pass the physical next week.”

“Decided who you’ll play for yet?”

“I think I’ll decide for University of Florida. I’ll be working the campaign in Gainesville this summer and I’m getting to know people on campus.”

"So be careful not to put honey on your oatmeal. I dissolve my magic mushrooms in the honey jar.”

I covered my oatmeal with brown sugar and a sliced banana. “Good to know, Gramm. College athletes get tested for all kinds of drugs.”

“So you’re going to help Veda win the election?” Gramm seemed surprisingly clear-headed.

“It’s my new summer job, helping with research and talking points. And I’m digging for dirt on Tugg. I’ve got a new need for political news. I like seeing Veda in campaign mode. She speaks well and gets people excited.”

"That she does. It’ll be a good way for you to learn how things work around here. The Rabadels have lived in Steinhatchee for generations, and we’ve always worked to make this part of Florida special.”

“Your husband started the marina, and sold it, right? And his father before him planted much of the citrus groves around here, right?”

“Right, and before that we were fishermen and farmers going back to the Seminole Wars. Rumor was a Rabadel ran with Andy Jackson but I’ve never been able to research that accurately.”

“Maybe I can do it on my computer, Gramm.” She smiled and offered me a pull on her joint but I waved her off. “I have to be careful not to get Veda in any trouble by being caught doing under-age drinking or things like that.”

"Hell, no one around here is going to arrest me.” Gramm grinned devilishly. I imagined that was true. She had her ways of flowing around obstacles and always landing on her feet. Also, she owned the Steinhatchee General Store and gave everyone credit. Most folks in the vicinity worshiped her for that. The store was the only place to get a cold beer for twenty miles, and no one wanted to lose that. I’d worked behind the cash register many a hot afternoon.

Gramm would occasionally throw some young kid out, and deny him service, usually for messing up the girly magazines. If she knew the family, she might threaten to cut off his older brothers too. That always brought a parent around with their child in tow to apologize. That’s how Gramm kept the peace hereabouts.

“It’s good for Veda to find something she has passion for. This election may get her fired up and bring her out of her sadness about losing your Uncle Leland. So we have to help her anyway we can, and be prepared. If she loses she might suffer a let-down.”

“Yes, it’s crossed my mind, but we’ve got to try. All of us. She did well with the folks in Gainesville and we’re getting organized.”

“And well you should be,” Gramm declared. “Old Tugg is going to bite into this district like an old gator and be tough as hell to beat. He’ll roll and scratch and bite like swamp vermin, and stay in the good graces of the crackers up north of here. We’ve got to get people riled up and willing to vote for change.”

“How do we do that, Gramm?”

“Don’t know yet, but keep a watchful eye out. The issues and opportunity will come along, and when they do, we have to jump aboard. Meanwhile I think I’ll start sponsoring some bingo and domino tournaments at the senior centers in the district.”

“Lots of those seniors like to vote absentee and mail their ballots early, Gramm.”

“Well, now you’re thinking, child. Maybe bingo for Veda will get people talking.”

“I like that, Gramm. Bingo for Veda.”

“Bingo for Veda,” she repeated and then cackled. She had a shine in her eyes by then. It made me feel good as I could see the Rabadel women getting organized behind their candidate.