Twitter Girl. Nic Tatano
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with a fatigue problem, Tyler is incredibly animated and talks fast with a ton of energy in his voice. He’s more full of life than anyone I’ve met in awhile. Frank’s right, he’s definitely a character.
“Seriously, I’m the chief strategist here. I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the general public and play devil’s advocate. Top Dog likes me to point out things he might be doing wrong.”
“Top Dog would be Senator Becker?”
“You catch on quick. Anyway, I’m only here Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but you can always reach me at home on Skype or Face Time. Or if you’re old school like me, call me on the phone. But I warn you I never shut up and may talk your ear off.”
“Yeah, I kinda get that.”
“Or drop by if you’re in the neighborhood. I’ll take you for a ride in the time machine back to the seventies and we can hit a disco.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Frank probably told you that my body can’t handle work two days in a row, but thankfully God blessed me with a decent brain.” He looks at the clock, grabs a television remote and fires it at the wall of flat screens.
“Well, if you’d like a little help when you’re not here my best friend has her own ad agency and she’s incredibly clever. She mentioned she wanted to volunteer for the campaign.”
“I’d love someone to bounce ideas off. Bring her in.” He looked at the television. “You ready?”
“For what?”
“Showtime, T.G. Time to pop your political cherry.” I can’t help but laugh. Tyler is a free spirit unlike anyone I’ve ever met, and newsrooms are loaded with quirky personalities. He opens up his laptop and slides it in front of me. “President has a press conference. Watch, wait for the usual gaffe, and send a sarcastic tweet his way.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present and you’re on the clock.”
He turns up the sound as I log into my Twitter account. I look up at the flat screen just as President Gavin Turner arrives at a podium. A graphic fills the bottom of the screen with Dubuque, Iowa while a diagonal red Live banner stretches across the upper left corner.
“Good face for radio,” I say as the high-def television brings the President into uncomfortable clarity.
Tyler leans back and laughs. “Never heard that one. A TV term?”
“Uh-huh. Suppose he doesn’t screw up?” I ask.
Tyler leans his head to the side as he gives me an incredulous look. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, you’ve got a point.”
The President waits for applause to die down before he begins. “Thank you all for coming out on this very cold day.” He looks to the side at two men seated next to the podium. “Nice to see my good friends, Governor Lovegood and Senator Bracken… two great public servants.”
“Wait for it…” says Tyler.
The President goes through a laundry list of people to thank, then looks out at the crowd. “As always, it’s great to be in the Buckeye State!” The crowd groans.
“There it is!” says Tyler, pointing at the screen. “Ohio is the Buckeye State. Iowa is the Hawkeye State.” He points at the laptop. “Go!”
I pause for a few seconds, and then my snarky muse hits me with a gem.
@TwitterGirl The President got a GPS as a Christmas gift. Obviously he returned it.
“Ha! That’s terrific!”
“Thank you.”
He points at the screen. “Look at him. He knows he screwed up. But he may not be done yet, so stand by.”
***
Thirty minutes and two scathing tweets later, Tyler and I are whooping it up in the war room as the President wraps up a gaffe-filled speech.
“I’d say you had a great first day,” he says.
“Well, most of what the President said were hanging curve balls over the middle of the plate.”
“Ah, baseball fan. Mets or Yanks?”
“Long suffering Mets fan.”
“Me too. We should catch a game sometime. Nothing but obnoxious Yankee fans around this office and the majority aren’t even from the area. Damn bandwagoners.”
Frank enters the room wearing a big smile. “Great job, Twitter Girl.”
“Ah, you were monitoring.”
“I wasn’t the only one. Those little barbs of yours have already been re-tweeted hundreds of times. The one about the GPS will probably end up as a joke on a late night talk show.”
“Glad you liked ’em,” I say.
“Well, Tyler’s got a conference call.”
Tyler looks at his watch and nods as he gets up. “Yeah, need to hit the phone. Great working with you, T.G.”
“You too, Tyler. See you tomorrow.”
“Won’t be here, remember? Besides, you’ll be on your way to sunny Iowa. If you need me, I’ll be in cyberspace. Operators are standing by.”
***
Dinner is with Frank’s Deputy Campaign Manager, Roberta Willis, a mid-thirties sharp looking gray-eyed dishwater blonde I’ve seen on a few talk shows. While Frank Delavan is running the show, Roberta is the face of the campaign, being a lot more telegenic with a sharp wit. We are quickly bonding, as she also has a background in broadcasting, though she had bailed out of a dysfunctional newsroom (somewhat redundant) five years ago. In two hours she’s covered just about everything I need to know about the campaign.
Of course, I want to know about the candidate. Ripley has already texted me twice to remind me.
What’s the 411 on our objective?
“So, what’s he like?” I ask.
“What, you mean away from the campaign?”
“Yeah, you know. When he’s not the next President is he a regular guy? What’s he do when he lets his hair down?”
“You haven’t been around national politics a lot, have you?”
“I follow it closely, but that wasn’t my beat as a reporter. I’ve covered a bunch of state campaigns, but nothing like this. Ironically I was set to cover the President’s campaign before I got the boot.”
She nods slowly, then takes a sip of wine. “Well, I’ll give you the quick Cliff Notes version of Washington politics 101. There’s one thing that is the common denominator with Democrats and Republicans.”
“Getting re-elected?”
“Very perceptive, Cassidy. They all talk a good game about being public servants, but that term is an absolute joke. They have no more interest in serving the public than we have in washing these dishes after dinner. Most of them are incredible egomaniacs who are turned on more by power than everything else.”
“But Becker’s not like that, right?”
“In some ways he is, but in many ways he’s different, and losing his wife changed him. Humbled him in a way. Most politicians think they’re bulletproof and when his wife died that was a huge dose of reality. It softened him, but in a good way. Made him unsure of himself when before he was always dead certain he was in control. I mean, of course he has a huge political ego… you can’t be shy and modest on the national stage. He desperately wants to be President and he does honestly want to make things better for the country. But he’ll also