A FINE NOMINEE

An unlikely candidate for a job finds success by just being himself.

This was a submission to NYC Midnight with the following parameters:

Genre: Political Satire

Character: A Nominee

Object: A Mirror

The President of the United States of America and Leader of the Free World slouched at his Oval Office desk, boredly playing Candy Crush Saga while his Chief of Staff attempted to conduct business.

“Mr. President!” Jim Widwell repeated himself for the third time, raising his voice for attention. “Mr. President, we need to discuss the selection of your nominee to head the EPA.”

“What even is that and why should I care?” replied the President disdainfully. “I’m just about to hit 50 million points on Candy Crush Saga.”

“Mr. President, the Environmental Protection Agency, under the control of your predecessor, created a number of policies and regulations that protect the environment. They must be rolled back as soon as possible. Our country’s economy depends on using the resources this earth provides and therefore we cannot afford to protect these resources!”

Jim took a deep breath to compose himself before continuing, “This morning I received a call from Hank Rockford, Chairman of Worldwide Mining & Manufacturing, who expressed his interest in this position. What are your thoughts?”

“Hank? Hank’s a douchebag. He’s too good looking. Steals all the chicks. But we used to party a lot and I think I owe him a favor for some party favors, if you know what I mean. He’s fine. Whatever.”

Jim concurred, “Very well, Mr. President, I agree that Hank will be a fine nominee. We may, of course, need to address the matter of his corporation’s long history of alleged air, water and soil pollution before putting him up for Senate confirmation. As you know, mining can be a messy, misunderstood business.”

“Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.” said the President irritably. “I need to go take a dump. It’s so dumb that the bathrooms in this place don’t have enough gold stuff.”

“You heard the President!” barked the Chief of Staff to his team. “Ensure that we install more gold fixtures in all White House bathrooms at once.”

As his team scurried off to make White House bathrooms great, Jim dialed Hank Rockford’s number. Hank and Jim had known each other for many years, having been college fraternity brothers in undergrad and then roommates during law school.

“Good news, Hank! After much deliberation and vetting of candidates, the President has decided to select you as his nominee to head the EPA.” He didn’t bother to tell Hank Rockford that the President had confused him with Hank Rexford, the financier playboy with the cocaine habit and penchant for underage girls.

Hank chuckled, “Wonderful news, Jim, thank you. I was on pins and needles given the President’s well-known attention to detail. I’m guessing I’ll need a little help getting through the confirmation process, though, given my ‘track record’, shall we say.”

That was certainly an understatement. Several years back, Hank had been the poster child for the evilness of corporations. Chemicals in the air — check. Chemicals in the water — check. Chemicals in soil — check. Honestly, did people really think there was such a thing as environmentally friendly manufacturing?

Then there were the abhorrent working conditions in his mines across the globe — Peru, Brazil, Namibia, Tanzania, Kazakhstan. He had managed to foist those complaints onto the governments of those countries. They’d had to pay a little more into the palms they greased, but that was part of the cost of doing business.

Then there were the sexual harassment allegations in the company’s headquarters, the strikes by the janitorial services workers who weren’t being paid overtime, the fact that the corporation paid no taxes. He really had lost track of all the lawsuits and the documentaries about what they had done wrong.

“Yes of course, Hank. I’ll certainly do what I can with the Senate.” replied Jim. “Your business interests are just the sort of experience this environmental regulatory entity needs to allow corporations to get back to policing themselves without the over-reaching concerns of the environment.”

He continued, “We know our party will fall in line under Mitch, and we may be able to pick up one or two allies on the other side of the aisle, but that still puts us shy of confirmation, so we’re going to need a plan. I’m not sure people have completely forgotten the headlines from a few years back, but the good news is that you’re just the Chairman now, not the CEO. You don’t handle the day-to-day anymore and we can work with that.”

“You know, Jim, I just might have a plan. In fact, it’s an idea to address climate change. I mean, what kind of EPA head would I be if I didn’t spend at least a little time thinking about global warming?” joked Hank.

“Listen, I’ve been in discussions with various partners about building a massive mirror in space — a Space Mirror, if you will — to deflect the rays of the sun and thus decrease the rate of warming by the requisite 1.5 degrees Celsius. People have been talking about this for over 20 years, but the price tag has always been too steep.”

“Interesting!” exclaimed Jim, excitedly. “This Space Mirror is just the sort of thing our administration needs. A big, bold plan that says: Nobody has bigger or bolder plans than we do!”

“Truthfully, this Space Mirror is more of a pipe dream than a plan — my geoengineers have been clear about that,” cautioned Hank, “But what we need to do is get people thinking about future possibilities instead of just dwelling on the — and especially my — past.”

“Agreed.” said Jim thoughtfully. “Let me think about this and circle back with you.”

As Jim hung up the line, he began drafting a memo to his staff.

MEMO

Date: January 26, 2021

To: Chief of Staff Staff

From: Jim Widwell

Re: Confirmation of Hank Rockwell, Founder and Chairman of Worldwide Mining Manufacturing (WWMM), as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

___________________________________________________________________

Talking Points for News Outlets:

1. The EPA under Hank Rockwell’s direction will be ambitiously pro environment.

2. It is time to reframe the climate change conversation from what we are doing to the earth now and focus on creative outside-the-box solutions for the future.

3. We know for a fact that China and Russia are in the process of developing their own geoengineering solutions including the use of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, which is spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. (Note: this is as legitimate of a solution as mirror technology, but it sounds worse, so run with it.)

4. The United States can and should lead the world in Solar Radiation Management — our scientific advancements are the most advanced in the world.

5. Mirror technology is the cleanest technology available in Solar Radiation Management. (Note: Create and distribute data supporting this. Refer to list of administration-friendly scientists.)

6. American jobs will be created.

BAPGAP Strategy: Be Actively Proactive and Get Ahead of Problems

1. Reposition WWMM as an environmentally friendly company — use Chevron, Exxon and BP as models

2. Downplay WWMM business practices in connection to Mr. Rockwell.

3. Ensure all media outlets run the headshot for WWMM’s current CEO with any stories pertaining to WWMM’s past offenses.

4. Find additional fall guys for WWMM’s “missteps”. Budget TBD.

5. Create video footage featuring Mr. Rockwell taking care of small farm animals and children. Will need to focus group what color children and which type of animals are most optically effective.

6. Find or create stories about Mr. Rockwell’s philanthropic activities. (Note: We may need to create a charity organization for Mr. Rockwell. Charitable cause TBD.)

7. Get ahead of possible negative casting for Mr. Rockwell on SNL. Colin Jost is acceptable; Kate McKinnon is not.

8. Repair Mr. Rockwell’s relationships with ex-wives. Budget TBD

9. Address U.S. pull out from the Paris Climate Agreement. Specifics TBD.

_____________________End Memo___________________________

This was a decent start, he thought to himself. It would be a simple messaging campaign, not like trying to explain why the tariff war with China was beneficial for American businesses or why getting into an actual war with Iran was the right thing to do.

The good thing for political strategists like himself was that Congress were a bunch of idiots that could be steered easily for your purposes. Drive them into a circular frenzy of inaction or mold them into a self-righteous cudgel that beat down your opponents with their single-minded, misinformed fury or shepherd them into bleating your sound bites on repeat: “Four legs good; two legs bad!”. If you knew how to play the game, you could create the perfect foil for what you needed to accomplish.

The challenge these days, though, was the over-abundance of information sources and ideologies out there. He wistfully thought about the simpler days of propaganda campaigns when there were finite media outlets and the messaging was less complex. The War on Drugs. Shock and Awe. You’d get your message out through the Big Three. 60 minutes. Maybe 20/20. CNN, Meet the Press, AP Wire, WSJ, NYT, Washington Post. Done.

Now you had to reach out to hundreds of alternative internet channels, social media platforms, the Epoch Times for god’s sake. And it seemed like everyone and their mother had a damn podcast interview show. You had to triangulate through and have an angle for all the niche interests — the evangelicals, the conspiracy theorists, the old guard white supremacists, the new guard white supremacists, the deficit hawks, Joe Rogan bros, the guys in the Hawaiian shirts who just wanted anarchy because they were bored. It was exhausting.

Jim reviewed his draft memo thinking he still needed a silver bullet that would make this a homerun, especially on the Democrat side. He needed a climate change ally who would vouch for Hank’s soon-to-be-discovered environmentalism and champion the Space Mirror project. Someone who wanted to be in the spotlight and get some attention for their own benefit.

He knew Pete Buttigieg and Jay Inslee were exploring Presidential campaigns, but they weren’t exactly influential enough. Al Gore probably wanted to get back into the spotlight, but no one really wanted to listen to Gore. What about Bill Clinton? Now that was an interesting thought. As someone had once said to him: No one can convene, catalyze and cajole like Clinton.

The Clinton Administration was the first to address global warming in any significant way with the Climate Change Action Plan, a 50-point plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions along with the Climate Change Technology Initiative, a $4 billion tax credit package to promote investment in energy efficient technologies. Secretly, Bill had felt a bit resentful that Al Gore received so much attention for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In Bill’s mind, he himself was never fully credited for his administration’s environmentalism.

Bill and Hank had been good friends for a long time, since Clinton’s years as governor of Arkansas, and of course all three of them graduated from Yale Law School, although several years apart. Jim dialed Bill’s number and he answered on the third ring. “Well, hello, Jim, nice to hear from you,” Bill’s smooth drawl came across the line. “How is it babysitting the toddler over there in the White House?”

Jim laughed, “We have good days and bad days, Bill, never a dull moment. But listen, the reason I’m calling you is about our friend, Hank Rockwell. We’re putting him up to head the EPA and we may need a little help in getting this through confirmation for the obvious reasons.”

Bill chuckled, “Well, you know Hank and I go way back and I’m always happy to put in a good word for him. Interesting choice for him to head the EPA but I get it, man. We need to walk the fine line between protecting the environment and cutting into corporate profits. Tell me how I can help.”

“We need you to reach out to Democrats in Congress. Democrats just can’t say no to Bill Clinton these days. And, yes, there’s a joke in there somewhere.” Jim quipped.

“We also have an interesting concept that we want to start getting out into the public to show that this administration has big ideas to tackle climate change in the future. This is Hank’s idea, actually, to show that he cares about climate change. He’s been talking with Northrop and Boeing about launching a giant mirror in space that would deflect the rays of the sun — a Space Mirror of sorts.

Even though we don’t even know if it’s at all feasible or effective, we think it’s the right time to bring this to the American people and the media to get them thinking about solutions for the future, instead of dwelling on missteps in the past.

I say we put you on all the late night talk shows and let you do your thing. We’ve got talking points, obviously, but we need Bill to be Bill. Those audiences love you and you can make this Space Mirror project sound like a downright no-brainer. What do you think?”

Bill let out one of his signature laughs. “Oh, Jim, you’re a hoot. Ok, I’ll do it, but on one condition. I get to plug the Clinton Foundation Climate Initiative as well. I think we’ve done some good work — I’m actually not sure. But I do know we need to increase our fundraising and this is the perfect opportunity. Plus, I’ll finally get to steal the spotlight from Gore on environmentalism.”

Jim hung up the phone, satisfied with his progress. It had been just a few hours since getting the President to nominate Hank Rockwell, one of the least likely candidates to head the EPA, but things were looking good. Reality in this world was just an illusion that you could conjure to your liking — you just had to get a little creative and trust the machine.

He sent a quick text to Hank. “Plan in motion to get you confirmed. Clinton on board. Will be able to get all Democrats to fall in line.”

Back in Dallas, sitting in his office at the headquarters of Worldwide Mining & Manufacturing, Hank smiled as he read the text. He poured himself a glass of whiskey from his bar cart and took a celebratory sip. Then he began to craft his agenda for the Environmental Protection Agency.