America 1982-Chapter 551 - 113: Good Luck to Those Cubans_2
David Kenneth hesitated for a long time before finally asking the question. The campaign had already officially entered the stage of fierce competition between the two parties. The Democratic Party, without yet confronting the Republican Party, had already been thrown into disarray with the help of Jeff Rush. All the media favored the unified Republican Party because, after the primaries ended, Eliana Leti was elected as the sole Republican candidate with an 87% party support rate, representing the Republicans in the Eighteenth District. While she won a substantial amount of support from Cuban-Americans in the district, the other Republican Black candidates were all-out in seeking local Black support for her. Many staunch supporters of the Democratic Black candidate, Gerald Richman, switched to the Republican camp after BT Television aired the news, supporting Eliana Leti because she stated during the primary debates that she would not differentiate between Cuban-Americans and Blacks, asserting that everyone was a person of color and all needed to fight for their rights.
President Bush had especially flown in to support Eliana Leti, and national newspapers were optimistic about her election, adding another seat to the Republicans’ tally in Congress, leaving the Democratic Party powerless to retaliate.
All of this had been planned by David Kennedy and Tommy, and everything was going according to plan. It looked as if the Democratic Party had splintered due to not having a plan to divide the political legacy left by the former Congressman Claude Pepper, unable to unify internally, even having opposing campaign slogans. Everything was a hastily thrown together farce, which led to a situation where both parties had Cuban-American candidates, but the Democratic Rona, due to her lackluster performance, caused many Cuban-Americans to switch their support to the Republican Eliana Leti.
But the farce ended there. According to the agreement between him and Tommy, Tommy was responsible for pushing the Cuban-Americans towards the Republican Party, and then David Kennedy or rather his ex-wife Rona had to step in and shatter the other side’s dream of having a Cuban-American elected.
Of course, David Kennedy had already made plans, but the problem was that if things blew up, he and his three wives’ families would probably not be able to stay in Miami. Although the likelihood of it getting out was very low, the chances of being caught himself back in the day had been just as slim. So, he had some concerns, and if he really went through with the plan, it meant that his, or rather his ex-wife Rona’s, balls were in Tommy’s grip, if Rona had balls, that is. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
The only way to ease his concerns was to understand why so many Democratic party members respected Tommy. He knew about donors; a wealthy, hands-off donor like Tommy would certainly be popular, but Bill and Hillary Clinton’s regards for Tommy went far beyond mere liking to a level of extreme importance.
Liking should be what everyone feels towards Stephen Binns. On every major holiday, he would send a greeting card, invite to any party, and share everything, good or bad.
But towards Tommy, their treatment was respectful. Bill wrote a handwritten invitation, which was directly turned down by Diane, who then flew in personally to Miami to ask Tommy’s fiancée to invite Tommy, and to apologize in person. Most importantly, after the couple flew to Miami, the first thing they did was to ask David and Rona if there was any chance of persuading Rona to switch her support to Jeff Rush, whom Tommy favoured.
Before they asked the question, they didn’t even know Jeff Rush was an idiot who believed in the flat-earth theory, just because Tommy Hawk fancied him, they wanted to convince Rona, the former vice-mayor of Miami, to give up the election and support a genuine Florida white fool.
If Tommy Hawk was just rich, he would never receive such treatment.
Tommy lightly scratched his forehead with his finger and then smiled nonchalantly, "It’s nothing, not a story that needs to be hidden. It’s just that the other parts of my life aren’t as high-profile as the television network makes it seem. Many people say Stephen influenced me because of our friendship, introducing me to many of his Democratic friends, and as a result, I naturally became their supporter. That is wrong. For example, if Stephen slept with a high-class call girl and thought she was good, so he introduced her to me, I obviously wouldn’t just give her four hundred bucks because Stephen had been with her. At the very least, I would use a Trojan, try her out myself before deciding whether to tip her or ask Stephen to take the ’damaged goods’ out of my sight."
"From what you said, it’s evident that whether they are aging donors or those in their prime, their perception of politicians is consistently profound. Can’t you have a little respect for the high-class call girl across from you?" David said with a laugh upon hearing Tommy equate politicians to high-class call girls.
Tommy set down his wine glass and lit a cigarette, "My first political donation was in 1984 when I was still at Stanford. The recipient was Democratic Senate candidate Al Gore, a member of the Vanderbilt University SSD Fraternity. I have to admit, that guy really caught my attention at the time. Young, handsome, resolute. He took over his father’s congressional seat at twenty-seven and became a senator at thirty-three, a definite future U.S. presidential candidate. Moreover, his slogans at the time, such as being against homosexuality, against the Federal Government funding abortion for blacks, against prohibiting the interstate sale of firearms, advocating for the Federal Government to support the development of the computer communications industry, were more attractive to me than a real high-class call girl. A call girl would only get four hundred dollars from me for sleeping with me once, but I hadn’t even met him and I had my secretary send him a hundred grand, and then more and more... That’s how my journey of donations began."
