Chapter 11
The headlines in the morning paper were not promising. “East Versus West” read one.
“Dueling Bills at 50 Paces” read another. And the op/eds were having a field day. It was
nothing less than Donna had expected. She noted wryly, the senior White House staffer who
offered her nameless quotes on the disaster of White House infighting and the dangers of
untried/untested staffers.
Donna tamped down her anger. There would be time to address that whole situation later.
Right now was about supporting the President and getting back on message. Annabeth had
just finished giving her carefully rehearsed spiel and had handled the questions deftly. Donna
was very lucky to have Annabeth on their team. Now, it would be up to Helen Santos and
Kathleen Baker to take the ball and run with it.
“Knock ‘em all down, Ma’am.” Donna whispered as the First and ‘Second’ Ladies exited the
limo at their first stop of the day.
Helen just smiled and waited for Kathleen to join her. Instead of rushing into the YMCA as
expected, Helen slowed her pace and fielded some questions with a casual air.
“I’m not sure what prompted Congresswoman Santiago’s statement yesterday.” She replied.
“We have been very impressed with the program we’ve seen here, but that’s hardly enough to
propose national legislation and I’m reasonably sure the Congresswoman is aware that the
East Wing doesn’t propose legislation in the first place.”
“Collective Learning is supposed to go to the floor for a vote today in the House. Are you
concerned that the sudden interest in First Steps program might derail your husband’s efforts
to pass his first major Bill?”
“Despite what you may write, and I did see the headlines this morning, we work as a team;
together. I’m certain that with the incredibly talented and experienced people that my husband
and I have been privileged to assemble we can get a lot of good accomplished for the
American people. Thank you.”
Helen and Kathleen moved on to their next event with smiles and waves.
**************************************************
“Josh, President Bartlet is on line 2 for you.” Carol announced.
Josh hurried to pick up the phone. “Good morning, sir.”
“Josh! How’s it going kid?” The President inquired jovially.
“Oh…you know.” Josh hedged and sighed.
“I thought you handled Kazakhstan well.”
“Yeah, I did that one all alone.” Josh joked. “I really think we should have a rule that whoever
sends troops in has to stay in office until they get pulled out again.”
“With fresh young minds on top of the situation, you’ll have it resolved in no time.” The
President assured him. “Tell me about Collective Learning.”
Josh’s groan said it all and Jed chuckled. “The women seem to have stirred some things up in
California.” Jed noted.
“Yeah, they got sucked into a thing.” Josh admitted. “Donna’s going to try to fix it.”
“If anyone can, it would be Donna. She’s grown a lot in the last year or so; well, since she
started with us in Nashua really, but especially in the last year or so.”
“Yes, she has.” Josh agreed.
“People on the outside though, they might not see that as much. She’s taken some pretty
nasty hits in the press.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I’m saying the editorials linking her to you and talking about her being in over her head have
had to hit her hard, don’t you think?” Jed surmised. “Abby was saying that she was reeling for
the first two years as First Lady and she’d been First Lady of New Hampshire before that.
Finding their balance is going to take a bit; but I’m sure you’re aware of that.”
“Yeah…”
“Your concern is Collective Learning.”
“Yes, sir.” Josh answered. “We got Baker confirmed and that was enough of a fight, but if we
get hammered on our first major Bill out of the gate…The Problem is that this First Step
program has taken over the media. They’re in love with it and the public loves it and the
public is calling their Members of Congress…”
“Which puts pressure on them to back off of Collective Learning.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve read Collective Learning, Josh. It’s a good Bill.”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“You should pull it.” Bartlet suggested.
“Sir?!”
“You should pull the Bill.” Bartlet repeated. “I’ve made some calls-“
“Sir, you made some calls?” Josh’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead.
“As a favor to a friend.” Jed admitted. “IF you’re able to hang on to enough votes in the
house, it’ll tank in the Senate and there’s momentum gathering for First Steps.” Jed paused.
“This is a lot of momentum to have gathered in 24 hours, Joshua.”
“Yeah…” Josh sighed again.
“Do you know who’s playing you?...You and Donna?” Bartlet asked.
“I have a pretty good idea, yes.” Josh. “It’s just a matter of giving them enough rope with which
to hang themselves.”
“Pull the vote, Josh.” Jed advised. “It will look better if you do it and re-submit it.”
“Re-submit it? I barely got this through the first time. Are you going to re-write it, sir?”
“Funny boy. I was thinking that Collective First Steps had a nice ring to it.” Jed opined.
“Someone worked very hard to get this ball rolling. Instead of using all your energy to stop it
and reverse it’s course, doesn’t it make more sense to roll with it and just add on a layer?”
“Sir…you’re brilliant.” Josh smiled.
“Abby? Josh says I’m brilliant, just so you know.” Jed yelled and Josh could barely make out
Abby’s reply.
“You’re both jackasses. Why aren’t you working with Helen and Donna on this?” she shouted.
“Hey, they’re on MSNBC right now.”
Josh clicked on his television and saw Helen give her carefully worded answers with Donna at
her elbow. It was nicely done, and if it had only been their trip that had set things off it might
have been enough to put the genie back in the bottle; but there were other people involved
and that made things much more complicated.
Josh’s chest filled with pride in Donna as he finished watching the press questions. “She’s
really something, isn’t she, sir?”
“Yeah…you should call and tell her that.” The President suggested.
“I think I can do you one better, Mr. President. Will you excuse me please, sir?”
“Certainly. Good luck, Josh.” Josh didn’t even hang up the phone he just depressed the
button for the next line. “Lester? Change in plan. Get over here a minute please and bring
Sam and Lou with you. You might want to move back the briefing a bit too.”
Josh knocked on the door to the Oval and walked in without waiting for a response. “Sir, I
think we need to change our ground game.”
“You told me it was going to pass the House, Joshua.” Santos reminded him.
“It will…or it could, but it’s going to be an uphill fight and that’s before we get to the Senate;
which we do NOT control right now.” Josh took a deep breath. “I want your permission to pull
the Bill off the floor and send it back to committee for some additional wording.”
“Such as?”
“Such as folding in First Steps, sir.”
“You doubt we can pass it as is and you think the missing ingredient is adding more expense
and Government regulations?”
Josh smiled. “Yes sir, I do. I think if we get all hands on deck, we can roll out a comprehensive
education package that will get bi-partisan support, but we need to pull the Bill now.”
“You’re sure?”
“Reasonably sure, sir.”
“Well, if you’re ‘reasonably sure’, it’s full steam ahead.” President Santos quipped.
“With your permission, sir?”
Matt Santos looked at his Chief of Staff very carefully. “Okay. Execute your play.”
“Carol! Get me the speaker on the line.” Josh called out as he returned to his office and his
staff filed in. “Also, I need you to get in touch with Annabeth and let her know we’re sending
her an updated press packet.”
“Got it.” Carol promised.
It took a few minutes, and a few threats where Lou was concerned before he got everyone on
board. Then he opened up the internet explorer to do some research.
********************************************************
Josh read through his emails and after he read Donna’s twice, and perused her attachments,
he formed his reply.
Goodmorning Donnatella,
Mrs. Santos sounded great this morning. Nice job. Lester is sending Annabeth some
reinforcements. Have her check her email. I’m calling an audible over here and I’m counting
on you to read my mind and catch the ball I’m tossing your way; teamwork.
Love,
Josh
Donna broke out into a smile and motioned Annabeth over to her. “Pull up your email
account. Josh and Lester have some new info for you.”
Annabeth used her Blackberry to access the data and Donna read it over her shoulder. Once
they’d read through it, they looked into each other’s smiling faces and high five’d each other.
Donna started to walk away but Annabeth pulled her back by the elbow.
“Wait. There’s an attachment here for you. I’m forwarding it.”
Donna waited anxiously to see what it was and opened it once it appeared in her inbox. It
contained only 1 line of text and appeared to be a hypertext link. When she clicked on it, it
took her to the Tiffany’s website; the engagement ring selections. Donna’s jaw dropped. After
the minute it took her to recover, she did some surfing of her own and sent a link back directly
to Josh. Ball’s in your court, Joshua.
*****************************************
“Amy Gardner.”
“What the hell are you trying to do to me over here?” Representative Wilson nearly blew her
ear out.
“Congressmen?”
“Why are you having my office issue statements going negative on the First Lady’s trip and
then pulling the rug out from under me?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir. The west wing has adopted a strategy for handling the
uproar from the First Lady’s trip. How is that pulling the rug out from under you?”
“Do you even work over there?” Wilson blasted. “I just got a call from the Whip’s office. They’
re pulling the Bill from the floor and sending it back to committee for additional work. My
people are scrambling to revise the statements you handed to us just hours ago!”
Amy’s morning continued in that vein while she tried to reach Josh Lyman who was
conspicuous by his absence. Finally, she decided that deputy was better than nobody at all.
“Sam, what the hell is going on over there?” Amy slammed into his office.
“Josh convinced the President to re-work the bill.” Sam informed her. “It was all in the email.”
“I didn’t get an email.” Amy retorted.
Sam looked up; confusion on his face. “It went out to the entire list. You should check again.”
“I already checked numerous times.” Amy informed him. “If there was a change in the
legislative session, someone should have bothered to clue in the legislative director, don’t
you think?”
“Yes; hence the email.” Sam went back to the file on his desk.
Amy, simmering with anger now, went into full attack mode. “I’ve been giving misinformation to
everyone on the hill all morning!”
“That’s really going to hurt your credibility.” Sam noted.
“No. Shit.” Amy sneered. “Where is Josh?”
“On the hill. It’s surprising you didn’t run into him actually.” Sam replied. “Now if you’ll excuse
me Amy, I’m in a time crunch here.”
“Right.” Amy had barely cleared the threshold when Sam was on his phone to Josh.
“She’s looking for you and she’s extremely pissed.” Sam relayed.
“Yeah…so am I.” Josh answered and hung up the phone. Sam whistled as he hung up at his
end. Neither Amy nor Josh was someone you’d want to go up against when they were pissed;
but Josh…he’d never bet against Josh.
*********************************************
“You’re serious?” Helen asked her Chief of Staff en route to their next event.
“Completely.” Donna confirmed. “They’re pulling the Bill off the floor and they’re going to
incorporate First Steps into it. However, that means it’s going to require more funding. That’s
where we come in.”
“I’m in wherever you tell me to be in.” Helen gave a half laugh and Kathleen nodded.
“We’re going to use the power of the sisterhood to get this through. Childcare, healthcare,
education; these issues are always ranked as more important among men than women and
we’ve got 51% of the population. We’re going to start pushing the new Bill right here in
California today and pick it up in D.C. tomorrow morning first thing. Kathleen? How
comfortable are you in shaming old, white men into taking care of this nation’s children?”
“If you get me some talking points, I can get comfortable real quick.” Kathleen replied and
Donna smiled.
“Josh’s office is sending them over presently. That means we can hit twice as many
Congressional offices in Sacramento this afternoon. The highlights are going to be; it’s
already been proven to be effective here, it’s an economic investment in the community, and
if you don’t support it there will be no lack of literature telling your female constituents that you
don’t care about their issues.”
“We’re going to throw our re-election weight around? Do we even have re-election weight?”
Helen asked.
“Yes Ma’am, we certainly do and we’re going to use that weight to get ground breaking
legislation passed.” Donna explained. “When we get back to D.C., Annabeth is going to get
us a list of…resistant Members of Congress that we’re going to visit…with the press and a few
children in tow.”
Now Helen smiled. “That’s just diabolical.”
“Josh and his team will rush the new Bill through committee; fast track it.” Donna continued
and had to admit to herself that she liked the term diabolical. “I’m contacting a few of the
women’s groups that work with us to add their muscle to ours. I’ll be coordinating with them
while you’re taking meetings in Sacramento.”
“We’re really doing this?” Kathleen double checked, her excitement growing.
“Damn straight we are. We’ve got an important issue and we’re part of the legislative team
getting it through.” Donna replied.
“Let’s get started.” Helen decided.
*****************************************
Amy caught up with Josh in his office, but the wind was knocked out of her sails by his
opening salvo.
“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been revamping message and Bill without a legislative
director all morning!”
“I was on the hill working with legislative offices for strategy. Nobody bothered to tell me the
strategy had been changed.” Amy defended herself.
“There was an email, several text messages, and a White House briefing and you couldn’t get
the message?” Josh only let that hang a minute. “The First Lady and her office have screwed
me over on this Bill. I’ve had to pull it rather than suffer a humiliating defeat on the floor. Her
next move is going to be rallying the women’s groups. I’ve got a meeting in the Mural room.
Make sure you catch up with Lou so you’re not AWOL when we need you. This kind of screw
up isn’t going to fly with me.” Josh left the office and went to the mural room for a few minutes
until he was sure Amy was gone before returning to his office.
The email he got from Donna was better than getting 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and it
didn’t hurt that the attachment had several possible honeymoon locations.