Rating: PG for some mild language
Spoilers: Let’s say up through 100,000 Airplanes, just to be safe
Disclaimer: The West Wing and its characters are the property of Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Brothers, and NBC. No infringement is intended on the author’s part. Please don’t sue, unless you’d like my day job.
Feedback: Makes me grin like a Cheshire cat.
Summary: Margaret contemplates the past and considers the future. "I wonder when we started holding onto the fairy tale the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver?"
A/N: For Lin and Flip, who beta and befriend, even in the busiest of times. For Jeanine – who sends emails that make me smile and who understands all about "the look". For Liz – who reminded me that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how much fun you have in the process. For Brian - because he offered to drive eight hours just to hold my hand.
A/N #2: This story has no relation to the series that I am writing for Leo and Margaret. This comes as the result of an incredibly harsh couple of days. Must deal with that bad news somehow!
People call me a pessimist. Not true. I am a pragmatist. Both feet firmly on the ground, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, all of that. Have I always been this way? I cannot remember a time that I wasn’t. Well, maybe during childhood. When the world revolved around how much fun you could eke out of the daylight hours. These days, I’m lucky to see daylight, except from the wrong side of a plate glass window.
As we pass from winter into spring, daylight increases in the smallest possible measurable dose. As we pass from winter into spring, our workload increases exponentially. Some days the in-box overflows, the phone rings constantly, and my name is yelled from the opposite ends of hallways and stairwells, instead of from one office to the next. Arriving at 6:00 a.m. and leaving on the shy side of dawn is common for all of us now. There are days where I don’t see my apartment, opting for 3 hours sleep on someone’s couch and a shower in the locker room. Caffeine and a good multi-vitamin have become my new best friends.
Four years ago, we came to this house, a group of wide eyed, idealistic souls. Even the most hard bitten, war-weary staffer believed in the power of the man on whose coattails we rode. President Bartlet was, after all, the real thing. He swept into office and swept all of us along with him. If the race had been fun, the ride was bound to be amazing. Funny how the daily business of running the country will take the wind out of your sails. A lost bill here, a foreign military coup there, an MS scandal over there . . . well let’s just say it’s been a bumpy ride.
It is no longer enough to fight the battles we can win; now we must fight the one battle that everyone says cannot be won. Reelection: the proverbial brass ring, the whole enchilada, the rabbit hiding in the top hat. Eradicating terrorism and making every citizen of the United States functionally literate would almost be easier. Hell, I’d rather try to broker peace between Israel and Palestine. Do you get the feeling that I’m dreading this? Dreading is too mild a word. Every time someone mentions the words "primary", "poll", or "campaign stop", my stomach knots up and the inside of my mouth feels like an expanse of the Sahara.
Why am I so conflicted about this? There are those who would tell you that I’m worried about my job. That’s ludicrous. I’ve worked to the same man for almost ten years. When this is over, we’ll be off to whatever is next. And if not, then there’s bound to be a position waiting for me somewhere in the federal system. No, it’s not about the job.
It’s because I look around me and I see the people that I have worked with over the last several years. Many of us were sharing hotel rooms and cold meals during Bartlet’s first campaign. We’ve been through the trials of the damned twice over. We believed in the President back when he was still Governor Bartlet. You can’t buy that brand of loyalty. And with loyalty comes the blinders. So many of us saw only the good, we truly believed nothing bad would touch us. And then Mrs. Landingham was killed by a drunk driver, the President went public with the MS he’d concealed for years, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were filled with fear and the words like "subpoena" and "hearing" were part of everyone’s vocabulary.
I’m conflicted because I know and love these people, and I know how hard it was to get to the place where they fully believed in the President again. Some still have not reached that point and may never. But suddenly, we’re ready to take up the standard and march back into the battle that is electoral politics. And I wonder, when did we round that corner? I wonder when we started holding onto the fairy tale the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver. When did we decide to hop on our swaybacked horses and go off tilting at windmills because President Bartlet was riding point?
The exact moment cannot be pinpointed; we all reached that conclusion separately. The only absolute is that now we are behind him, ready and willing "to march into hell for a heavenly cause." Will we win? There are those who say we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. Which may prove true. What do I think? Come back and see me on election night. I’m a pragmatist, but I’m also just enough of a romantic to make it interesting. So come to Manchester on election night and see what transpires. We might be writing a whole new chapter. Just like a rainy night last May, when Leo looked at Toby and said, "Watch this."
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