Domestic Affairs by Bridget Siegel Read Free Book Online Page B

into the red letters and numbers that she assumed were “her pin.”
    Cool , she typed, still not understanding what the heck a pin was. As the little arrow in the corner started to send the message she flinched.
    I probably should’ve said, “Nice to meet you. So excited to work for you.” Or something. Jeez. Near leader of the free world and that’s the message I send? “Cool”? But before she could think another thought, her BlackBerry lit up. A red message stood waiting.
    PIN 317323: So you ready to raise me millions or what?
    Olivia smiled. She could almost feel his smile through the text.
    PIN 678018: Hmmm. Depends really. You ready to pay me millions?
    Her “pin” was sent back in red. She wasn’t supposed to be this casual. She knew that. But he did start with “Hey, Hoya,” right? She hated these mini nervous breakdowns between messages. You were supposed to be able to discuss and analyze these with at least three friends before replying.
    PIN 317323: If hope and inspiration are currency in your world then yes.
    Ahhh, I get it. A “pin” is how people who totally have you pinned send you a message. Before she could come up with something to write back, another reply came in.
    PIN 317323: I hear you officially start here in a month. How about we pull a test run a little early next week? You, me, and the NY donors.
    It was all starting.
    Olivia walked down the hall to the office of her current boss, newly elected district attorney Tom Adams. The whole floor looked, as most state government offices do, like a midlevel law firm designed and decorated in the eighties, with brownish carpeting and cream-colored wallpaper that was probably a little brighter, maybe even white, when it was put up. Each new occupant changed a picture here and there, the Democrats adding Clinton’s portrait, the Republicans Reagan’s. But all in all, it stayed exactly the same. Olivia peered into some of the offices, saying her hellos to those she knew from the campaign, all of whom seemed eager to get right back to work. Fundraisers were the most popular kids at the table up until the election, but the minute it was over—win or lose—they lost all worth.
    Olivia told her boss she was going to take the day to help Governor Taylor with meetings. When she originally let him know she would be leaving his office entirely to work for Taylor, Adams had flinched,but there wasn’t really any question of whether or not she should stay nor negotiations he could offer her. As expected, Adams was actually glad to let her go. Even he was surprised that she had been offered the high-ranking job, and with Taylor on the brink of possibly being president, having a former staffer on the inside was a total coup. Also, it would connect the two of them in the donor base, and Adams, like any politician considering a future run, saw the upside to that. More specifically, Adams relished the possible access to Taylor’s lists.
    Lists. Campaign Lesson #12: Political fundraising lists are hot commodities. Olivia understood the idea of it: political donors who gave to one person were most likely to give to another of the same ilk. The weight that candidates put on those lists, though, seemed completely irrational to her. They would spend hours going through them, picking out names they knew or making connections to how they could get to them. The candidates’ view was, almost across the board, that the money raised directly corresponded to the number of people on a list. Statistically that made sense, but the truth was that cold-calling a list, no matter how good it was, would warrant only two or maybe three contributions you wouldn’t have gotten anyway.
    Adams was an extreme version of the politician who dreamed that every new list held a fortune just waiting for his campaign coffers. He was obsessed with other peoples’ lists. Olivia was constantly having to download other