Free Miranda's War by Howard; Foster Page B

Miranda’s number and called her.
    â€œOK, Miranda, I just fired my campaign manager. I’m nineteen days from the primary, I don’t have a message, I’m down in every poll and I’m calling you. I want to work with you.”
    Miranda was at the campaign office two hours later sifting through the campaign’s strategy memos in Diane’s office.
    â€œThis would be more productive if these memos were saved on a network so I can use my laptop. What kind of enterprise doesn’t have a 4G network?”
    â€œThis isn’t an enterprise, Miranda. It was dysfunctional from the start. Nobody was in charge.”
    â€œListen to this drivel,” she said, reading from a memo from his campaign consultant: “The electorate of the district is disillusioned by partisan rancor and would identify with a non-doctrinal Republican who promised to work with both sides.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I did for three months, and the electorate didn’t give a rat’s ass.”
    â€œOf course not. Rule one is solidify your base.”
    She walked the memo over to the shredder and slid it through.
    He laughed.
    â€œAnd this one written by Diane. She came from the academic world. Notice all the citations to scholarly journals.”
    Miranda read a few pages.
    â€œHollow pomp draped with footnotes,” she said and motioned for the shredder.
    â€œI paid $84,000 for that analysis.”
    â€œAll of it useless. Look, this is basically a one-party progressive-liberal state. I don’t care what district you’re in. If you want to run against it you need an issue that picks off a big chunk of the liberals. You’ve got the zoning issue, which we can expand to interest people in a group of towns. That’s enough to win the primary. And that’s all we can focus on. How you win the general is not our concern at this point.”
    â€œHow much is this going to cost?”
    â€œNothing. I’ll create the conflagration, the crisis, whatever you want to call it. And when it’s over, your name ID is 95% among likely voters.”
    â€œNow I can see why Karl Anderson and you can’t work together.”
    She was thrown off balance and wondered just what he knew.
    â€œDo you know him?”
    â€œI’m running for Congress. It’s my business to know the opinion leaders of the district.”
    â€œKarl and Diane would see the dynamics of this race the same way.”
    â€œAnd she’s gone. Go to work, Miranda. Let me see the conflagration.”
    â€œWhat’s that ball for?”
    â€œThat was Diane’s therapeutic chair. She had a bad back.”
    Miranda opened her handbag, pulled out a red Swiss Army knife and opened a blade. She sliced the ball in one intense thrust, and it quickly collapsed.
    He looked at her with a mix of revulsion and admiration.
    â€œWhy did you do that?”
    â€œBecause it needed to be done. You are too timid for this business. You and Karl need to be kicked out of your cocoons and dropped into the boiling vat of oil that awaits. There is no alternative. Think of me as Douglas MacArthur.”
    â€œI’ve never heard a woman quote him.”
    â€œNeither have I. And I’ve studied military history since high school.”

Chapter Fourteen
    Within twenty-four hours of getting word from Julia that she was onboard for selling the Pierce House, they met Nathan Griswold, one of their three colleagues on the Commission, the one most likely to side with Julia on anything. He refused to speak confidentially. Anything they told him was fair game for his next conversation, which would be with Karl and Henry Gerstenzang, the fifth member.
    â€œI want you ladies to make your best case for this,” he told them as he filled his pipe in the study of his old rambling farmhouse. “I know Miranda has some fresh ideas.”
    He, like Karl, exuded fairness and probity. He’d been on the Commission for