Domestic Affairs Read Online Free PDF

that he had occupied the empty afternoon slot with Lori Sanders, who was now going on and on about how much money she was going to raise for the campaign.
    Jacob considered Lori a Blowhard, his term for someone who always promised to raise $50,000 and then never had more than 5K when he showed up at one of their events with his candidate. Blowhards were never short on things to say, especially when it pertained to themselves or their fundraising skills. After wasted appearances happened twice,any self-respecting staffer would never rely on the Blowhard again for anything other than filling time. Jacob had actually thought about using the few hours that weren’t chock-full to catch up on work he knew they both probably had, but idle time on a candidate’s schedule was never left alone. Even if he knew Lori was a waste of time, at least the meeting kept them in the hotel and was completely containable. He rolled his eyes thinking about a campaign’s knee-jerk need to schedule every moment, knowing he wanted this campaign to be different from the others. Long-term planning always took a backseat to putting out fires and rearranging minute-to-minute activities. Today was a perfect example of Jacob himself doing it. When the union meeting had been canceled the day before, he had immediately called Lori instead of sitting back and thinking about what else could have gotten done or referring to a list of the big-picture things that needed scheming. Campaigns and long-term thinking don’t go together well. But they should. This one will. I’ll change that.
    Eight years earlier, before anyone in politics knew who she was, Lori had hosted a presidential fundraiser at her town house on the Upper West Side. It was one of the first events of that cycle and the campaign packed it with their celebrities. It had become the hot ticket. The event wound up raising 1.2 million, an outrageous sum when you consider it came in $2,000 increments. And although the fundraisers knew Lori was only actually responsible for about $10,000 of it, everyone else credited her with the whole 1.2. So the myth was born, and Lori made the most of it.
    For a few years she could still get a few of the celebrities and contributors she befriended to come to her house. She could pull off a fairly decent event. But, as was true for most future Blowhards, it was a slippery slope. Within a few years, Lori could never be counted on to raise more than $10K or so, the only amount she’d ever actually raised. And $10K or so at Taylor’s level was chump change. In his case $10,000 could be raised in a two-minute phone call made during one of their scheduled call-time sessions.
    Jacob peeked at his BlackBerry and replied to a few emails. One of the nice things about being on the road with a candidate as his gatekeeper was that no one ever seemed to mind your constantBlackBerrying, even if it flew in the face of manners. It was as if people just assumed urgent business called. In meetings like this, Jacob relished the slack. He couldn’t stand to hear any more about how connected Lori thought she was.
    â€œOh, I can definitely put you together with Gerry,” she was saying. “We’re super close. He and Becky would probably love to do something at their Southampton estate. Have you seen it? I mean, it’s absolutely gorgeous.”
    Jacob laughed inwardly, hyper-aware that extent to which someone quantified how well they knew someone else was usually in inverse proportion to how well they actually knew them. He thought for a moment about telling Lori that her “super-close friends” had sold their Southampton estate over a year ago but held his tongue.
    That’s why I could never be a candidate , he thought. He watched Taylor listening to her next story as if they were negotiating world peace. He has to have heard this story at least as many times as I have and yet he appears to genuinely enjoy this shit. I wonder if he