Page 16 - Just Deserts

The Decimator

“Why, of course.” The great man beamed. “There I am, as Lunk
Blanchard in ‘Scavengers of the Wagon Trail.’ They sure don’t make
Westerns like they used to, do they?”
“No, sir!” Keller shook his head emphatically, sending strands of
greasy hair down over his eyes. He brushed them back impatiently
and began setting up story boards on an easel facing Hathaway and
Sunderbar. “Not since you hung up your spurs! But I’ve got to show
you what I’ve come up with for your campaign. The staff here
already had reams of demographics for me to analyze, so I could
figure out the target group in your constituency. As you might expect,
it’s the so-called Reagan Democrats, blue-collar workers who can be
convinced to vote Republican if their five-second attention spans can
be diverted from their traditional social and economic interests to
greater issues of patriotic religion and religious patriotism. Ha-ha!
Just a little joke.”
Sunderbar again took a peek at Hathaway; the latter’s face was
fixed in a smile of amused tolerance. The actor had little trouble
maintaining a similar expression. Meanwhile, Keller fumbled through
his papers, a collection of graphs, charts and heavily annotated
typewritten reports.
“Now, looking at that group of voters, and considering your
opponent’s weaknesses—he is, after, identifiably a liberal, and is
therefore vulnerable on crime, quotas and national defense—I
conducted a thorough content analysis of your thirty-two feature
films, searching for clips that would be the likeliest to raise your
stature in the eyes of that population. At the same time, I wanted bits
that would not diminish you among the general electorate, but would,
by implication, hit Kalogeros where he is softest. Having made my
selection, I—that is, Iconoplast—need only your approval to go
ahead with working them into fifteen-second TV spots.”
The aging matinee idol nodded slowly, comprehension dawning.
“That’s a lot of old movies to watch, my boy. Of course, I often
spend an evening looking at them on videotape, myself. It must have
been difficult to choose among all those great scenes I did.”
Keller gave up on his documentation and handed the cassette to
Hathaway, who had been unobtrusively pointing at it and trying to
make eye contact with his subordinate.
15