Story #167: The Pain of a Campaign

Story #167: The Pain of a Campaign (Content Tags: Humiliation, bedwetting, pantspooping, mocked over youth) (First part of a three-part story for this month!) Politics were the treacherous roads for a vehicle to power. Roles that should have existed purely for benevolent and magnanimous purposes; titles that came with the responsibility of building a better tomorrow for those who you represented. The architects of our society are those who walked the hallowed halls of public service, but because of self-interested bad actors, these are also the people who should have been most scrutinized by those who would allow them power. For as many different constituents that these people were deigned with serving, there were just as many different philosophies for how governance should be handled. For every philosophy, there was an unseen motive at the epicenter; every decision had intent, whether for the common good or simply the personal one. Most vaunted was the desk of the presidency. It was the president that sat at the throne of ultimate authority, and it was their job to give purpose to the immense responsibility that had been set upon their shoulders. It wasn't a role that everyone was cut out for, and regrettably it was those who should be kept as far away as possible from the seat of power, who were the ones that most wanted to plop their butts down on it. The time for deciding leadership had come, and it was upon the voters to decide who they wanted to represent their values, their interests, and their futures. The following month would be one of campaigning and convincing, that is assuming that someone planned to challenge the incumbent. The current president had won before on pie-in-the-sky promises and the strength of their family name; coming from a background of immense wealth and having no governorship credentials to speak of, he had wooed the mindless masses with ideas that couldn't possibly ever see fruition. He'd created division and obfuscated his failures by spreading lies or by stoking the flames of hatred. He had run for president with an attitude of entitlement that could only come from a lifetime of being told yes at every turn. The financial affluence of his name, of his family, were the credentials that he so proudly put front and center. Soundly defeating his opponent in the first election, after having to resort to unsavory tactics, he'd gone on to run unopposed in the second and later the third. It was during that second term where he had successfully done away with term limits, thus giving him an option to run for a third term and then a fourth, which he'd planned on doing without a second thought. His opponent to be would be his polar opposite on all fronts. Someone who was intelligent, compassionate, selfless, realistic, and who came from a background bereft of privilege. Someone who couldn't pay for success, but who had to earn it with their own two hands. Someone who looked at the dire state of things and the utter corruption of the system with disgust. Someone who would stand up for the little guy and worry about what was right, rather than what was convenient. In the election for who would be the next student president, it would be a bout between self-interest and interest for the common good. The students would be deciding between the status quo, which had given them nothing but sweet little lies, and change, which while scary, was ultimately necessary. Reginald "Reggie" Crawford, age thirteen, who was the bloated windbag of an incumbent, and Bobby Jr. Bigsby, age nine, who was the dark horse that dare challenge the powers that be. Bobby Junior, or rather just Bobby or BJ, hadn't been at Oakwood Middle School for too terribly long. He hadn't needed long to see the cracks in the foundation. Bobby had come to the school prematurely, which was plain as the size difference that existed between him and his new peers. At his age, he should have been going into fourth grade instead of sixth, but he'd always been ahead of the curve. He'd skipped first grade and third as well, which had put him on the fast track. With the impressive nature of his test scores and a maturity that was unheard of for his age, it was possible he might finish up through high school by the time he was reaching his teenage years. A special interest to Bobby was the management of systems. His favorite games were those like Civilization, where he could carefully plot out how to best improve conditions for the most amount of people; where he could look at needs and numbers with both logic and empathy. That's why he'd been so appalled by the state of the school. Different student groups were at war over perceived slights and fearmongering lies, funding was stunningly misappropriated, and all improvements seemed to be funneled upward to the top one percent of the student body. For a logistics nerd like Bobby, it was a repulsive nightmare. It hadn't taken very long to understand the last few years and what had caused this downturn. Reginald had assumed office in sixth grade, and now that he was in eighth (for the second time), he planned to keep on with policies that only served to benefit him and his acolytes. If things were going to change for the better, then he needed to be defeated at the ballot box. So when it was time for hats to be tossed into the ring, Billy was the only one brave enough to throw his in. The few friends he'd made so far had tried to warn him against it, that it was too dangerous and too futile, but Billy had been the bright-eyed idealist all the way through confirming his candidacy. He believed in doing the right thing, even if it wasn't easy. Whenever news broke about there being an actual election this year, the enthusiasm had been palpable. Reggie had a dedicated cult of loudmouthed followers, but they were by no means the 'silent majority' that they thought they were; for every kid that genuinely believed the lies that came out of their president's mouth, there was another that despised the deplorable things that he stood for. For every kid here, they hadn't known a time that Reginald wasn't their president. Having been held back a grade, everyone who had seen that first election had moved onto high school. Nobody but Reggie knew what had happened during that campaign, and how a sixth grader had managed to so handily win an election that he was wildly unqualified for. Billy would soon come to understand why his opponent had run unopposed the last two cycles. He would come to learn that politics was a filthy game and that someone decent wouldn't come out unscathed. Billy picked a trustworthy boy in his class, named Jeffrey, to become his campaign manager. Jeffrey wasn't necessarily the best person for the job, but he was also the only kid that was willing to take on the task; Jeffrey had a personal vendetta with Reggie, which had come from the humiliations that Jeffrey's older brother had suffered under the Reginald regime. It was how a fellow sixth grader had already the context to hate their student president, when the other kids in their class were completely disengaged. The next person that Billy added to his campaign was his 'vice president'. Much like in the real world, it was ultimately a ceremonial role; the VP didn't do a whole lot, unless the president so deigned it, but they were there to take over in the event that the student president could no longer take on the functions necessary of their position. Her name was Alice, and she was similarly motivated as Billy. She was a seventh grader who had already seen with her own eyes that Reggie was an inept, misogynistic buffoon; she was like Billy in how seriously she took her own education, so it was in her best interest to destroy Reggie at the voting booth. Alice was also everything that Billy wasn't. Billy was small and somewhat meek, while Alice was large and confident. She easily stood more than a foot taller than the younger boy, which heavily contrasted them against one another. She wasn't shy about sharing her opinions, nor was she as cordial as her running mate. During those first few days of the campaign, when the news had reached Reginald's camp, an impromptu meeting was made. Reggie, and his VP Collin, had come to meet their supposed opponents. "I'm looking for Bigsby. We have things to talk about. You can get us some sodas, huh?" The request was directed at Alice, while Reggie's eyes drifted toward Jeffrey. "You must be Billy Bigsby..." Jeffrey shook his head, "Uh, no, that would be..." He looked over at Billy and Reginald broke out into laughter. "Him?! I thought he was your baby brother or something! Does he even go here? I didn't realize we had a daycare program." Billy felt his face get hot, "I skipped two grades, but I'm in sixth. That means I'm eligible to run." His voice remained polite and professional, taking the comment in good humor. "So you're a wiz kid, huh? Well, isn't that just the most precious thing. I'm pretty smart myself; it's all in the genes. The Crawford family has had all kinds of geniuses, my uncle, he's in nuclear research--" Alice interjected, "--What the hell do you want? We're pretty busy trying to run a campaign here." Reggie frowned for a brief moment, "Well, you're a nasty person. We just came to check out the competition, and to offer a word of advice. You'll only waste your time by running against me, and embarrass yourself in the process, so I'd recommend that you go ahead and give up now." "Thanks for the tip, now piss off." Alice scowled, putting her hands on her hips. Reggie looked down at Billy, who had been rather quiet. "So is she your girlfriend or your babysitter? Doesn't matter. Just thought I'd give you a fair warning; good luck on the campaign trail!" Thus began the campaigning season. During the first week, Billy made big strides. Getting the respect of the voters was going to be his biggest battle, since he was so much smaller than everybody else, but he had something that his opponent didn't: a brain and a desire to actually do good. Jeffrey made a plan of attack for the Bigsby campaign to start finding voters. They were starting already with a decent sized bloc, since there were many kids who found Reggie to be a repulsive person; if Billy could excite them enough to vote, then he'd already have a decent chance of victory. Cutting through voter apathy wasn't easy though, and with Billy being a new sixth grader, his name was basically nonexistent. So the first step was to reach out. Jeffrey got some buttons made and Billy took a couple of lunch periods to go hand them out, all while trying to understand what problems his potential voters had. Near the end of the first week, he did a more formal speech during lunch, and that was where people could hear for the first time how knowledgeable he was on the issues. He had more than weightless soundbites, he had ideas. It was around the same time that Reginald decided he might pose a threat. It was around that time that Reginald decided to pull out his old bag of tricks to make sure his victory was definite. Just like he'd done with his first opponent, he would be slinging enough mud to make sure Billy was totally buried. It started small, in quite literal of a way, because Reggie was attacking his opponent by the measure of his size. Posters started to go up around the school: "There's nothing big about Bigsby." Simple yet effective. "Itty-bitty Billy has ideas that are super-duper silly." That one had a 'preschool' aesthetic to it, with crayon scribbles and backwards letters. "Let Junior take a nap." With a picture of a stuffed animal and a racecar bed. And finally in that first round, where the dirt had really begun to be flung: "Baby Billy Bigsby can't even keep his bed dry, how can he keep our halls safe?" The line of attack had been centered exactly as obviously as one could expect from someone so crude and immature as Reggie. They were smears with no integrity or substance; it wasn't Billy's policy ideas that were being attacked, but the most innate traits of his biology. "Hey, uh, as your campaign manager, I need to know... Is that bedwetting thing true? If it is, then we need to decide whether or not you address it. Reggie has all sorts of connections and he's gonna be digging up whatever he can find, so if you have any skeletons in the closet, then you need to let me know." The bedwetting rumor was true. Billy was only nine, so it wasn't some radical revelation, but for a middle school election, it could do substantial damage to his chances. Billy still wet the bed a few times a week, and he still wore protection for it; he willingly confessed that to his campaign manager, but insisted there couldn't be much else. At his next lunchroom speech, when he was at the answering questions portion of his time, a plant in the audience would raise their hand and bring up the bedwetting allegations. Jeffrey had told him to deny it, since it was something that carried a hefty burden of proof on Reggie's end, and that's just what he would do. Just a couple of days after that, the journalism club would interview a student that claimed to have proof about Billy's little problem. His claims were tenuous at best and he hardly brought forth any real evidence; he said that he had a younger brother that had shared a sleepover with Billy, and also that snooping around on garbage day had revealed a big bag of soaked Goodnites in the trash. Both claims were reasonable enough to sound true, but neither was backed by proof. Whether or not people were convinced by such deceptions, Reginald had made bedwetting a topic to be talked about, instead of anything substantive. Kids weren't debating whether Billy was a good candidate, but whether or not he really peed himself in his sleep. It was setting the stage for what would come next. It was a warning shot over the bow of Billy's ship, as if to say that if the boy didn't drop out, then Reggie wouldn't hesitate to destroy him for real. Billy didn't fold. While he cared about how people saw him, he cared more about fixing the broken system that the rich kid had mucked up. If that meant being known as a bedwetter, then that was a curse he would bear. In Reggie's camp, his own campaign manager had been pleased with how their initial posters had gone over. The voters responded strongly to the inflammatory attacks, and they accepted this current line of attack, which meant that it was the right route going forward. Reggie readily agreed, finding a sadistic glee in humiliating his opponent in such a juvenile way. To a narcissistic megalomaniac like Reginald, there was no greater offence than to be opposed. Especially by someone so puny and pathetic. So on the following Monday, when the school paper came out for the week, there would be a big blurb against Bigsby. An anonymous source who had weighed in on the bedwetting debacle and raised things. The headline read: "Presidential Candidate Bigsby's Dirty Record" "Sixth grade presidential candidate, Billy Jr. Bigsby, has made waves in the last week with his decision to run against incumbent Reginald Crawford. At nine years old, he would be the youngest president in the school's history. While a youthful candidate has an obvious appeal, some troubling news came to light that made voters reconsider whether or not a younger president would actually be a positive thing. In the middle of last week, an interview conducted by the journalism club had Andrew Diaz claim that Billy Bigsby is a bedwetter that wears Pull-Ups to bed. He alleged that his younger brother, Diego Diaz, who is also nine, had slept over at the candidate's house and seen for himself that he was unreliable at night. Billy Bigsby has denied these claims as slander against him and stated that they are 'thinly-veiled' attacks against his character. While voters debate amongst themselves over the bedwetting issue, and whether or not that is disqualifying, the Oakwood Times now have news that may change the conversation. Approached by a verifiable source that wishes to remain anonymous, we have learned new facts about Bigsby that may be more troubling than simple bedwetting. According to our source, who is a close friend of the Bigsby family, Billy's maturity issues go much further than they appear on the surface. To quote: 'Billy wets the bed, sure. But that's not the end of it. He's a thumbsucker too, and a real crybaby; he wears those little footy pajamas, you know, the ones with the dropseat in the back. He's nine though, still just a little kid, so what do you expect?' Probing for further details from the family friend, he added that just last year, presidential candidate Billy Bigsby had soiled himself at a 'TGI Fridays'. When asked if that was a normal thing for the boy to do, the source shrugged and said 'it happens from time to time. That's why those little Buzz Lightyear briefs of his have so many skids.' When finally asked if they thought that Billy Bigsby was a viable candidate for student president, the source laughed and shook their head: 'Boss Baby was a funny movie, but I don't think it'd make for a good documentary.' The source denied to make any further commentary, but implied they might be back for a longer interview if Billy remained in the race. While the facts are hearsay, the Oakwood Times did vet the source as reliable. If these allegations prove true, then voters might have to decide whether or not they're okay with having a president that poops their pants." The race had really just started, but it was looking like things might be a lot tougher than Billy had initially imagined. He could be the best boy for the job, but it'd be hard to convince the voters of that if they listened to more than a month of Reggie's campaign.