Title: Come to Jesus
Author: Cathy Miller (www.cathyswesting.com)
Timeline: In the Go West/Our Choice universe; shortly after Josh & Donna started
their consulting firm.
Rating: PG for language
A/N: So I’m in the last week of school, packing up my classroom, and having fun
writing a new series on my website about Josh and Donna’s first days in the Santos
White House which is all good…but something was bugging me and today I finally
figured out what it was; I miss Fred (okay, Billy Fernandez, but I’m with Josh on the
Fred thing). Seriously, I think I may have a crush on the guy. I started thinking about
what those first days at Lyman Campaign Consulting may have been like for Fred
and this is the result.
“You wanted to see me, Obiwan?” Billy Fernandez asked from the entrance to Josh’s
office.
“Yeah. What did Steve Parsons decide?” Josh asked without looking up from his
latest numbers.
“Uh…I don’t think he has yet.”
“But you did talk to him, right?” Josh confirmed.
“Yeah. I talk to him almost every day.” Billy replied carefully, but the misdirection didn’
t work on Josh.
“Fred…” Josh moaned. “You have to have the talk with him.”
“The thing is…I’m not so good with the talk.”
“You have to get good with the talk. It’s a big part of this business.” Josh met Billy’s
eyes now.
“I’ll get it eventually. Why can’t you do it? Just this once.” Billy suggested.
“He’s not my guy. When it’s time for the ‘come to Jesus’ talk it has to come from the
one who’s running the campaign. I give the ‘come to jesus’ talks to my guys. This one’
s yours.”
“Aren’t you Jewish or something?”
“Techinically.”
“I am so telling Ruth you said that.”
“Quit stalling and have the talk with Parsons.” Josh shifted his attention back to his
papers.
“He’s a good man.”
“He is.” Josh agreed.
“He just can’t get above 12%.” Billy continued.
“Nope. So have the talk with him, Fred.”
“Can’t you do the talk this time? I’ll watch and learn.”
“He’s not my guy.” Josh dropped the papers on the desk.
“If this is your way of saying ‘I told you so’…”
“It’s not. Parsons is a good guy, a decent public servant.” Josh pointed out.
“Then why can’t he-“
“We’re past the point of why, Fred. That’s immaterial right now; timing, personality,
competition, it doesn’t matter why. We’re at the ‘what is he going to do about it’
stage.”
“You’re at the ‘what’s he going to do about it’ stage.” Billy muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“You really haven’t trained me in this part. I think you’ve fallen down on this part of
my training.” Billy maintained.
“You do.” Josh smirked.
“Yes, I think you should do this one and I’ll learn from the master and do the next
one.”
Josh rolled his tongue in his cheek and nodded his head slowly. “Okay. I’ll go with
you on this one. But I’m serious, Billy. This is a big part of the job. You’ve got to get a
handle on this.”
“But it totally sucks.”
“It really does.” Josh agreed.
*******************************************
Billy watched ‘his guy’ come off the stage after his debate with the three other
primary candidates and felt his heart rate pick up. This was going to suck. He started
to move toward Steve and felt Josh pull him back by the elbow.
“You are going to have a great urge to soften the blow and be kind to him right now.
Resist that urge with everything in you; it is not being kind it is prolonging the pain.”
Josh advised him.
“Prolonging the pain….right.” Billy took deep breath and called out to his guy.
“Steve!”
Steve Parsons turned at the sound of his name and smiled broadly at the sight of his
campaign manager. Steve’s eyes widened when he noticed the man standing next to
his campaign manager.
“Billy, hi. Josh…I didn’t know you were coming out for this tonight. Billy, you should
give me a heads up when Josh Lyman is in the house.”
“It was kind of a spur of the moment decision.” Billy hedged.
“Well…what did you think?” Steve asked them.
“You did great.” Billy noted.
“Dorsey and Wells are getting all the play time, though.” Steve shook his head.
Josh waited a beat but when Billy said nothing, Josh jumped in. “Steve is there
someplace private we could talk?”
“Oh…sure. We can grab a cup of coffee around the corner.” Steve led the way and
Josh kept the small talk light and easy. “Did you hear the answer Dorsey gave on
factory emissions?” Steve asked as they sat down with their cups. “It sounded like it
came from a Shell oil brochure.”
“That’s where he’s getting his campaign financed from.” Billy replied and earned a
smile from Steve.
“Steve, we came out to see you because we’ve got some new internal numbers.”
Josh announced. “The numbers are discouraging.”
“We knew it would be an uphill battle going in against Wells and Dorsey.” Steve
replied. “You told me that going in.”
“Yes, but to be competitive in a race like this you need to be breaking 20% by now
and you’re sitting at 12%.” Josh continued.
“That’s because we don’t have the money for the ad buys like the front runners. Billy’
s been very adamant about now spending what we don’t have and we’re behind in
fundraising.” Steve explained.
“That’s very responsible of him.” Josh declared. “We don’t want any of our
candidates going into debt that it might take years to repay. We’re behind in
fundraising because we’ve hit a wall with the money, Steve.”
“Then…what do we do about that?” Steve asked them and Josh and Billy exchanged
meaningful glances. Billy took the hint and jumped in with both feet.
“We call it a day, Steve.” Billy said simply.
Steve looked shocked. “But…I thought…”
“If we saw the numbers climbing AT ALL, we could stick it out a little longer and see if
we caught a break, but they’re stagnant.” Billy concluded.
“But we’ve got weeks before the primary.” Steve protested.
“And…no hope of winning it.” Josh stated.
“So you’re just going to pack it in and quit?” Steve asked. “We have a contract.”
“Which we’re prepared to honor or cancel at your request.” Billy assured him.
“At this point, we like to give our candidates the option of an early cancellation to
avoid running up additional campaign debt. As you just pointed out, so far, Billy has
kept you in the black.” Josh explained.
“I…can’t believe this…We can’t wait to see if I get a bump from the debate tonight?”
Steve asked bewildered.
Billy felt the urge Josh had warned him about and tamped it down with all his might.
“We can wait and see, yes, but did you look around tonight? There were maybe 100
people in attendance, 2 print reporters, no art…You may get a personal mention in
the write up but it’s highly doubtful that even that would give you any kind of bump.”
Billy paused to let that sink in and saw Josh’s subtle head nod. “We’re just trying to
give you a realistic picture here. It’s your campaign, Steve. You make the decision.”
Steve’s face was the picture of frustration and disappointment. “I…I wasn’t prepared
for this tonight.”
“We understand that Steve.” Josh pointed out.
“You don’t need to make a decision this minute.” Billy agreed. “Take a couple days
and think about it.”
“You spend weeks – months – making the decision to run and then…it’s just over?”
Steve questioned.
“There’s something else you should factor in.” Billy noted. “You ran a solid campaign
here. You’ve garnered some support and built up some name recognition. That sets
you up nicely for another run down the road.”
Steve half-laughed. “I can’t see that far down the road, Billy.”
“No, that’s what you’ve got campaign managers for.” Billy smiled. “I’ve been proud of
this campaign, Steve. Proud of how you’ve handled it. We can do this again.”
“You did a nice job at the debate tonight.” Josh added. “Lyman consulting is proud to
be associated with someone of your integrity and character.”
“Thanks.” Steve said sincerely.
“Think things over and I’ll talk to you sometime tomorrow.” Billy offered as he stood
up and shook Steve’s hand. Josh followed suit.
When they got back to Josh’s car, Josh threw Billy the keys.
“You’re letting me drive your precious vehicle? Were you drinking and I didn’t
notice?” Billy teased.
“I’ve got to catch up on some reading. You can play chauffer since I’m only behind in
this paperwork because you scammed me into this trip.” They both got in the car.
“Scammed you? You agreed to help me with the thing!” Billy protested.
“You didn’t need my help with the thing.” Josh pointed out. “You did almost all of it
yourself and you did a fine job of it too.” Josh pulled out a file from his briefcase.
“You’re going to do really well in this business, Fred.”
Billy didn’t know how to respond to the sincere compliment his mentor had just given
him, so he followed the advice of Josh Lyman; when you don’t know what to say, just
shut up.
They hadn’t traveled a couple miles before Josh started talking again.
“What do you think about running O’Brien in the Virginia 3rd?”
Billy smiled, knowing the response his reply was going to get. “O’Brien’s a stuffed
shirt.”
“What do you mean ‘a stuffed shirt’?” Josh demanded. “He’s already got 10 points
on everyone else in the field.”
“Name recognition.” Billy shook his head. “Won’t mean shit once the opposition
starts blasting his record on the airwaves.”
“Then who do you think we should run?” Josh prompted.
“Davidson or Keith.” Billy surmised.
“Why?” Josh pushed.
“Davidson has the backing of the local there and has a strong background in…”
Josh’s attention wandered a bit while Billy expounded on his choices. Yeah, the kid
was going to do real well.