My Treasure

Simon spun the laptop around so that the screen was facing her. "These are the latest polls and projections." He allowed Jeanette some time to look them over before continuing, "Politico has you down on average by thirty-one point two points... New York Times has Martin over you sixty-five to thirty one. Monmouth has him at sixty-six with you at thirty-three. You have one good outlier from YouGov that has you at forty with him at fifty-eight."

Jeanette sighed and sat back in her chair. What would I advise myself to do if I were my own manager? she thought to herself.

"I've reached out to the Martin campaign about setting up a debate between the two of you," Simon murmured to her. "And... no response."

She shook her head. "There wouldn't be. There's no reason for him to debate right now, being up by so much. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain by debating. If I were his manager I would forbid him from getting on that stage... or honestly any stage at all. His best bet in this very moment is to do as little as possible."

"Well his strategy thus far seems to confirm that," Simon said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turning the laptop back towards him. He typed into the keyboard, scrolled, clicked, and rotated back towards the middle chipette so she could see. "This is one of the attack ads that they have produced... against you."

Simon played the video.

The video faded from black into a greyscale clip of Gary Martin walking confidently down a sidewalk in a nice suit. "I'm Gary Martin and I approve this message," came the Senator's voice in the background. His voice was quickly replaced with that of a concerned-sounding woman as stock videos and images of Jeanette took over the screen. "Immoral hordes of wealth," the ad flashed a picture of Jeanette's house. "Lack of commitment," a picture, of all people, of Ian Hawke. "Irresponsibility," a newspaper article about their entire family falling overboard during their infamous cruise years ago. "Promiscuity," several pictures and videos flashing, first of her and Simon, followed by her and Alvin, followed by her and Theodore, then her and several of the politicians she had worked for as campaign manager. "Victim blamer," a screen shot of her reply to Gary Martin's post, with news casters' and Podcasters' faded voices criticizing her in the background. "Are these the qualities California wants in their Senator?" the woman's voice continued. what followed was a Mashup of political pundits doubting Jeanette's ability to vote on policy, to communicate her message, and to win. Finally, Gary Martin came onto the screen in a different suit than at the beginning of the commercial with a stone-cold but suave look in his eye. "California doesn't need a pop star representing it in Washington," he said. "Vote Gary Martin for Senate this November." The screen faded to black.

Jeanette gritted her teeth. "That was pretty standard. But effective."

"It's been absolutely flooded onto every single website and app that you could think of," Simon said, nodding. "Look at this. I go to Youtube... click on a clip from my kids' show... and... boom!"

The ad that came up after selecting the "Science 'Munk" clip was indeed that same ad. And it was unskippable.

"I get it," Jeanette said in frustration.

"That's the other thing," her husband let out hesitantly. "It's the funding. Martin's campaign right now is out-spending us almost four to one. Our ads just aren't reaching nearly as many people as his are. What we are doing right now just simply isn't going to be enough if you want to win."

Jeanette nodded, rubbing her temple in deep thought. "OK, we can combine our pursuit for more money for the campaign with more excitement. I need you to call up every PAC in existence that may be interested in donating, and also call your brothers to try to get a public endorsement from either of them. I'll do the same with my sisters, and I will also get in contact with as many wealthy investors and donors that I can. Hopefully my connections I built from being a manager pay off here. And both of us need to look through our old contact cards and find every single person, even mildly famous person, that we've maybe bumped into at a party or... whatever, and we need endorsements from them too."