“Yes, Jack.” It was just a whisper.
We ran through it. There was no trouble, it was sane and sensible, likely to appeal to anyone with no ax to grind. The points she did not understand we let lay over. She liked especially my housing bills and began to perk up and sound like a candidate.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Here’s the gimmick. I’ll get my name off the ballot so that the race will be over in the primary. It’s too late to do it myself, but they’ve played into my hands. It’ll be a court order, for ineligibility through non-residence.”
Dr. Potter looked up sharply. “Come again, son? I thought you said your legal position was secure.”
I grinned. “It is-if I fight. But I won’t. Here’s the gag-we bring a citizen’s suit through a couple of dummies. The court orders me to show cause. I default. Court has no option but to order my name stricken from the ballot. One, two, three.”
Tom cheered. I bowed. “Now Dr. Potter is your new campaign chairman. You go on as before, going where you are sent and speaking your piece. Oh, yes-I’m going to give you some homework on other issues than housing. As for Tom and me-we’re the special effects department. Just forget us.”
Three days later I was off the ballot. Tom handled it so that it looked like McNye and Tully. Mrs. Holmes had the delicate job of convincing our precinct workers that Frances was our new white hope. Dr. Potter and Dick Blair got Frances endorsed by the Civic League-the League would endorse a giant panda against a Tully man. And Dick Blair worked up a veterans’ division.
Leaving Tom and me free for fun and games.
First we got a glamor pic of Frances, one that made her look like Liberty Enlightening the World, with great sorrowful eyes and a noble forehead, and had it blown up for billboards — 6-sheets; 24-sheets look like too much dough.
We got a “good” picture of McNye, too-good for us. Like this-you send two photographers to a meeting where your man is to speak. One hits him with a flash bulb; the second does also, right away, before the victim can recover from his reflex. Then you throw the first pic away. We got a picture which showed McNye as pop-eyed, open-mouthed, and idiotic-a Kallikak studying to be a Jukes. It was so good we had to tone it down. Then I went up state and got some printing done, very privately.
We waited until the last few days, then got busy. First we put snipe sheets on our own billboards, right across Frances’ beautiful puss so that those eyes looked appealingly at you over the paster. “VOTE FOR McNYE” they read. Two nights later it was quarter cards, this time with his lovely picture: VOTE FOR McNYE-A WOMAN’S PLACE IS IN THE HOME. We stuck them up on private property, too.
Tom and I drove around the next day admiring our handiwork. “It’s beautiful,” Tom said dreamily. “Jack, do you suppose there is any way we could get the Communist Party to endorse McNye?”
“I don’t see how,” I admitted, “but if it doesn’t cost too much I’ve still got a couple of war bonds.”
He shook his head. “It can’t work, but it’s a lovely thought.”
We saved our double-whammie for the day before election. It was expensive-but wait. We hired some skid-row characters on Saturday, through connections Tom has, and specified that they must show up with two-day beards on Monday. We fed each one a sandwich loaded with garlic, gave him literature and instructions-ring the doorbell, blow his breath in the victim’s face, and hand her a handbill, saying abruptly, “Here’s how you vote, lady!” The handbill said, “VOTE FOR McNYE” and had his special picture. It had the rest of Tully’s slate too, and some choice quotes of McNye’s best double talk. Around the edge it said “100% American-lOO% American.”
We pushed the stumblebums through an average of four precincts apiece, concentrating on the better neighborhoods.
That night there was an old-fashioned torchlight parade-Mrs. Holmes’ show, and the wind-up of the proper campaign. It started off with an elephant and donkey (Heaven knows where she borrowed the elephant!) The elephant carried signs: I’M FOR FRANCES; the donkey, SO AM I. There was a kid’s band, flambeaux carried by our weary volunteers, and a platoon of WAC and WAVE veterans marching ahead of the car that carried Frances. She looked scared and lovely.