“Good morning Jim,” Phillips said happily. “Wait until you get a load of our new t-shirts.”
“Come on in and show us real quick before we head over to the office,” Sotello replied, holding open the door for him. “I thought you were going to meet us over there anyway.”
“I thought I’d just leave my car here, since we’ll be going to the college together.”
“Good idea,” Sotello replied. “The fewer the cars over there, the better.”
Phillips reached into his briefcase as Craig and Sykes walked over. Phillips held up an all black t-shirt with a picture in the center of Sotello, taken at the La Raza attempted break in at his office. It showed Sotello, holding one of the protestors over his head, with total rage on his face. Below the picture was the question: Do You Want This Man As Our Governor? Adrian turned the t-shirt around with a big smile on his face. On the back in big letters at the top was: Hell Yeah! At the bottom, in equally big letters was: Sotello For Governor.
Sotello started laughing again, as he took the t-shirt from Phillips, for another look at the front side picture. “Good Lord, Adrian, you don’t think this might be a little over the top?”
“No way Dad,” Craig said, taking the t-shirt away from him. He held it up for Sykes to look at more closely. “This is awesome Adrian. There will be a sea of these all over the state. I hope you brought some for us to wear.”
“Yep,” Phillips said. He handed both Sykes and Craig a t-shirt out of his case. “We began selling these yesterday, and sold out everything we had by the time I checked with our headquarters staff yesterday afternoon. I immediately commissioned three other companies, I had in reserve, to get started into full production. By the end of the week, Craig’s prophesy will be a fact.”
“This picture gives me the chills,” Sykes agreed. “It makes me wish we had the vote today. You really don’t like this Jim?”
Sotello shrugged. “I guess in the climate of things today, it probably fits. It reminds me of those monster t-shirts, advertising the movie Congo or Jurassic Park.”
This assessment provoked laughter, before Phillips added his simple critique. “It simply works, and people will love it.”
“Let’s get going then,” Sotello said. “I want to show El my King Kong t-shirt. She’ll get a laugh out of it.”
Sotello started leading them out of the house, when he pulled back, and turned to Phillips again. “Adrian, do you have enough t-shirts to give out today in Ellen’s class?”
A big smile spread over Phillips’ face as he nodded. “I have more in the trunk of my car. I’ll get them. Great idea Jim.”
“Nothing like free t-shirts to win over an audience,” Craig commented.
“I am not going to pass them out until the end of the talk,” Sotello said. “It would ruin the sampling we want to do.”
“If this takes hold,” Craig replied quickly, “we can commission some Zombie Girl t-shirts. It…”
Craig started running for the car, with Sykes in hot pursuit as Phillips rejoined Sotello on the sidewalk.
“What’s that all about?” Phillips asked, with some puzzlement showing on his face.
Sotello put an arm around him, guiding him towards the Dodge, where Craig fought valiantly to keep from within a Sykes’ choke hold on the hood of Sotello’s car. “I’m afraid my friend you are on a need to know basis on this particular wrinkle. It’s called plausible deniability.”
Phillips laughed. “You don’t have to draw me a picture. What the hell, it might even draw the press away from you, if it comes to the surface.”
“Sykes would be reassigned, which I do not want at this time,” Sotello replied. “Breaking in any new team members at this time would not be to my liking.”
“Agreed,” Phillips said. “So what’s the plan, a chastity belt?”
__
Sotello and his crew navigated the Berkeley campus hoping not to draw any undo attention, with Ellen leading the way. Sotello wore his hat, which while hiding his features, did nothing to discourage smiling stares from passing students.
“Your disguise sucks Dad,” Ellen commented over her shoulder. “I told you no one wears that goofy hat like from the Mike Hammer show. You should have worn a ball cap.”
“They are in awe El,” Sotello replied. “Right Jan?”
Sykes, who had been busy scanning the faces in the milling crowds as they walked by, looked up at Sotello, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. “Huh? Oh yeah Jim, you’re the bomb.”
Ellen and Phillips laughed, while Sotello pulled his hat down more over his eyes. When they reached Ellen’s classroom, the last of her classmates were filing hurriedly into the room. Her professor spotted them through the open door, and rushed out to meet them. Sotello saw her look at him as others had for the first time, with some trepidation. She was elegantly dressed in a burgundy dress, which stopped just above her knee, and she appeared to Sotello to be in her forties. Her auburn hair framed her face loosely in waves, and hung just below her neck. She wore medium sized black pumps, which she looked comfortable walking in. Her smile seemed to Sotello to be genuine, and extend from her mouth to her pale blue eyes. She shook hands with Ellen, and Ellen in turn introduced her Father.
The Professor grasped Sotello’s hand in both of hers. “Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Sotello. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have you come and talk to my class.”
“Call me Jim, Professor,” Sotello said, taking off his hat. “May I present my campaign manager Adrian Phillips, and Special Agent Janice Sykes from the FBI. She has been assigned to me because of the latest threats and attacks.”
“Very well,” Halloran said, as she shook hands with both Sykes and Phillips. “Please call me Lisa. I am happy to meet you all. I will introduce you to my class first, and then Agent Sykes and Mr. Phillips can give a brief rundown of their duties. I know the class will be interested in the intricacies of the campaign, and the danger a candidate faces on a daily basis, even if popular. We can get right into a question and answer session after that, unless of course you would like to make a statement first.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sotello replied. “I like the idea of getting right to it. Will there be anything you wish to focus on?”
“Not at all,” Halloran assured him. “We can allow this to go in any direction the students take it, with discretion of course.”
Sotello nodded in agreement. “Let’s do it.”
Ellen took a seat, as the rest of the class watched Professor Halloran lead Sotello and his group in. An instant buzz started amongst the students as many recognized Sotello. Halloran held up her hands for quiet, and then introduced Sotello, Phillips, and Sykes. Sotello could see the amazement in their faces, and he wondered if any of them even knew or had noticed Ellen’s last name. He remembered from his college days how little attention anyone paid to their classmates’ names.
Phillips led off with a brief explanation of what a campaign manager does, and how the details of a campaign get handled on a daily basis. Phillips’ gift for public speaking held his audience’s attention throughout, as their eyes never wavered. Sykes kept her part very brief, and Sotello could tell she was understandably nervous. She managed to impart to the class the hidden dangers in a crowd of people, and the number of times a candidate puts themselves at risk, while going through the motions of living inside the bubble of a political campaign. Halloran stepped in as Sykes signaled the end of her talk.
“Gubernatorial candidate James Sotello has graciously consented to answering questions for the rest of our class time together. Please raise your hands, and I will call upon you. Let’s not interrupt each other.”
Although many hands were raised, Halloran called on a blonde haired young woman in the front row. Ellen had mentioned her to Sotello back when her Father had agreed to give the talk. She had warned her Father about trying to debate her with any hopes of sense or reason being involved. “Go ahead Judy,” Halloran directed.
&nbs
p; “Mr. Sotello,” the young woman named Judy began. “Is it true you do not believe in a woman’s right to choose?”
“You mean choose whether to have sex or not to have sex?” Sotello asked in return. “Or do you mean whether to take responsibility for having unprotected sex, or not taking responsibility, by using infanticide to relieve her of her duty? I am actually pro-choice. I choose life.”
“You’re confusing the issue,” Judy retorted, reddening in the face, as some of her classmates had chuckled at Sotello’s plain talk. “We are talking about an unviable tissue mass.”
“Did you know young lady, research proves babies are not only fully formed, but able to feel pain after only eight weeks? Did you know abortion clinic health workers have admitted lying to potential clients? They duck the questions from clients about the sex of their baby, by coming up with euphemisms like ‘no more than a blood clot’, and your favorite ‘unviable tissue mass’, so the woman involved will think of the baby as an ‘it’, instead of a living, breathing human being with a soul.”
The gasps Sotello heard proved to him Judy was not the only one in the class to be ignorant of the truth. Judy looked around at her classmates, and then back at Sotello, with anger creeping into her voice.
“So you would be for overturning Roe v Wade?” Judy accused, her voice raising an octave. “You would send women back to dark alleys and coat hangers?”
“Oh please,” Sotello fired back with disdain. “Surely you can present some other argument for your point of view other than lies and law breaking. Are you not aware Norma McCorvey, also known as “Roe” in Roe v Wade, turned pro-life, because of her experiences working in abortion clinics? She told a Senate panel on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Roe v Wade ‘I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name’.”
“McCorvey also admitted in an interview with Carl Rowan of the Washington Times, the Roe decision was based on false testimony. She admitted her account of being raped in 1969 was a fabrication, designed to invalidate the law. McCorvey confessed she became pregnant by her boyfriend, not raped. She stated that she never needed an abortion, and has never received one since the decision.”
You could hear a pin drop in the classroom as Sotello continued passionately. “As to your tired anecdote of dark alleys and coat hangers, I call instead for personal responsibility. Even as early as 12 weeks the fully formed baby, has fingerprints, sucks their thumb, turns their head, fans their toes, and feels pain.”
“Do you know what a partial birth abortion is Judy? I do. I memorized it. The procedure is performed during the fifth month of gestation or later. The woman’s cervix is dilated, and the baby is partially removed from the womb, feet first. The surgeon inserts a sharp object into the back of the baby’s head, removes it, and inserts a vacuum tube through which the brains are extracted. The head of the baby contracts at this point and allows the baby to be more easily removed from the womb. I repeat, fifth month of gestation or later.”
“You’re lying,” Judy shouted, rising part way in her seat.
“I wish to God I were, Judy,” Sotello replied quietly, as the class sat in stunned silence. “1.2 million abortions are performed yearly, and 140,000 of them in the second trimester, with a totally formed human being on the receiving end.”
A young man leaned forward in his seat next to Judy. “Mr. Sotello, what if your daughter was raped? What would you think of abortion then?”
Sotello started to speak, but Ellen stood up and broke in first. “I’m Mr. Sotello’s daughter, and I will answer that one for you. He has no control over my decisions, other than his welcomed advice. My baby, in such a circumstance would survive, the father might not.”
Laughter filled the room, and Sotello gestured for quiet, smiling at Ellen, who had taken her seat once again. “As Governor of California, I can do little to overturn our laws, which border on infanticide, other than to get the message out about moral responsibility. Know this, I have been acquainted with women who have had abortions. They are never the same… never. A piece of their humanity dies with the baby they abort. In cases of partial birth abortion, the woman, in my opinion, has given up her human race card when she sanctions such a travesty.”
“Let… let’s move on then, shall we,” Halloran directed shakily.
Fewer hands were raised, as the students began to feel as if baiting Sotello would not be as easy as they thought. Halloran called on the young man who had asked Sotello about rape.
“Go ahead Tim.”
“How do you stand Sir on affirmative action?”
“I hold the same view as an illustrious alumni of Cal State Berkeley, Ward Connerly,” Sotello stated without hesitation. “He strives for what Martin Luther King once did, for Americans to be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.”
“Then you would abandon educational opportunities for the poor?” Tim persisted.
“Not at all,” Sotello replied. “As Mr. Connerly explained many times, the poor should be helped with educational opportunities by their economic need, coupled with their ability to meet the criteria of the college, not by their color or race. Quota systems are inherently evil. They set one group of Americans against another.”
One other hand popped up from the rear of the class, and Sotello pointed at the brown haired young woman.
“Do you think there will be other attempts on your life?”
“I hope not,” Sotello said seriously. “I know the press thinks I have been ginning up these attacks just so I can get sympathy votes. Such statements are insane. I don’t know how many of you have ever had a man walk up to you, behind another human being you love, with enough C-4 explosives attached to him to take out a city block, but I can guarantee you this: you would not do it to get votes.”
Sotello pointed at a well-dressed black man in the middle of the room.
“Sir, how do you feel about campaign finance reform?”
Sotello laughed. “I hope the Supreme Court will overturn it. Campaign finance reform never became popular, because neither party wants it. I believe the Republicans might go along with it, if the Unions were included along with Big Business. On the other hand, if Unions ever started voting Republican, the party would probably switch as quickly as a kite in the wind.”
This provoked more laughter at Sotello’s candid manner.
“I can tell you this, I am getting money from everyone I can, within the law. If so called Big Business, or the Unions for that matter, like what I say, and believe in what I stand for, then their money would be welcome. If they think they can donate large sums, and get their own agenda furthered in place of my own, they have made an error in judgment.”
“The enticing quality of Campaign Finance Reform will never work. Fairness, which it purports to promote, never happens. Some group gets left out in the cold without a voice. For example, if we made it impossible for a business like General Motors to support someone, but allowed an environmental group to promote a guy who vows to outlaw motor vehicles, how would that be fair?”
“Truthfully,” Sotello said with a sigh. “The system ends up working like an extortion racket, where companies support everyone with a chance to win on a ticket. If they don’t, they could become the target of whoever gets elected. Look at Microsoft. Bill Gates decided to not pay off, and look what happened, the government went after him like a pack of wild dogs.”
“But Bill Gates is a liberal,” a young lady next to the questioner broke in. “Why would they go after him under a Democratic administration?”
“If you own an empire as large as Microsoft,” Sotello replied, “you better be ready to pay off everyone. They don’t care what your political leanings happen to be. The retribution in progress against Microsoft nearly crashed the market, and it had nothing to do with whether Bill Gates swings liberal or conservative. He employs millions through offshoots of Microsoft’s complex, but that very important fact meant nothing to the luna
tics in charge.”
“Then you think monopolies are okay?” the young black man asked.
“Let me answer you this way. How many of you know the financial software programs Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, all owned by Intuit?”
Everyone in the classroom raised their hands.
“Microsoft Money competes directly with Quicken,” Sotello went on. “How many of you use Microsoft Money as a personal accounting package?”
There were two hands raised, almost sheepishly.
“Now,” Sotello continued. “How many of you use some form of Intuit’s Quicken?”
All but five hands were raised.
“Why don’t all of you use Money instead of Quicken?” Sotello asked. “I’ll answer that. Quicken was around first. Quicken was easy to use. All of Microsoft’s might and innovation has not cracked the surface of Intuit’s popularity. You win some, and you lose some.”
“Now Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may not be as good as others on the market, but to get the ball rolling after a slow start in Internet competition, Microsoft gave their browser away with their operating system. Many of you think like the folks who sold Navigator. They claimed Microsoft competed unfairly. Let me tell you something, if Navigator could have captured the minds of Internet browser users with a product, head and shoulders above Explorer, they would not have needed any court’s help to compete.”
“Do you know who ends up paying for all of this government largess in the form of courtroom battles to break up Microsoft? We do. The Government uses taxpayer dollars to bust Microsoft, and Microsoft has to increase the cost of its products to pay for courtroom battles against the Government. We all lose no matter what happens.”
“Isn’t that an oversimplification Mr. Sotello?” Professor Halloran broke in.
Sotello: Detective, ex-FBI, ex-Secret Service (DeLeo's Action Thriller Singles Book 1) Page 49