"If we stamp out cigarettes, cigars, and pipes, our studies show," Rona added, "the smog levels will drop accordingly."
That had brought them to their feet. No one thought to ask what "accordingly" meant in terms of cubic volume. Had they learned that tobacco smoke was a negligible contributor to the California pollution problem, they would have denounced the results as a cover-up perpetrated by big business and the tobacco lobby.
When Rona Ripper added her personal belief that smoking had contributed in not-yet-understood ways to the six-year drought, they carried her through the streets on their shoulders.
That night, the Southern California ACRC came out in total support of Rona Ripper for Governor. The fact that she had no economic recovery plan, no strategy to deal with the drought, and no interest in the illegal alien crunch other than to note that California had belonged to Mexico before it belonged to the fascist United States, meant nothing. She was against smokers' rights. In a state where local laws already had sent tobacco users slinking and skulking, to exercise their right to smoke freely in woods and back alleys and under freeways, that was enough to mobilize a political organization and get Rona Ripper on the ballot.
The early weeks of the campaign had been promising. She had been polling even with the traitor, Barry Black, Junior.
Then Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, having narrowly escaped assassination, had begun moving up.
It had presented Rona Ripper with an incredible dilemma.
Esperanza was a Hispanic, and therefore above criticism. There was no way the Executive Director of the ACRC could publicly criticize an Hispanic candidate. They belonged to the underprivileged underclass. To criticize one of them would have been tantamount to heresy.
"We have to get something on this guy," Rona had complained to her inner circle. "Something that will knock him out of the race, and keep our hands clean."
"He's a straight arrow. Son of an immigrant. Built a vineyard in the Napa Valley and, made good. He's clean."
Rona Ripper's black eyes narrowed. She frowned like a thundercloud.
"Has he ever . . . smoked?"
"Not that we can prove."
"But it's possible," Rona pressed.
"Doubtful."
"Maybe we can doctor up a photo showing him with a Camel in his mouth. I hear they can do that with computer-enhancement now."
The campaign director of the Ripper for Governor organization shook his head. "Too risky. Could backfire."
Rona's frown deepened. "You're right. We can't take the chance. If I lose, this state is doomed."
Around the conference table, heads nodded in solemn agreement. There was no question: Without Rona Ripper of the ACRC to guide the Golden State, it might as well fall into the Pacific.
"Then we have no choice," Rona had decided. "We'll have to run on the issue."
"Issues, you mean."
"There is only one issue," Rona Ripper said tartly. "Making California's air breathable again. And the only obstacle is the evil weed called tobacco."
When it was reported that Barry Black, Junior had escaped an assassination attempt, Rona Ripper had greeted the news with wide eyes and a shift in strategy.
"It's a two-issue race now," she decreed. "Tobacco, and the right to campaign in safety. I want round-the-clock protection."
"I'll put in a request with the authorities."
"Are you insane? The way we've been suing them for years? Those Neanderthals are probably behind this campaign violence. I want everybody armed and ready to lay down their lives in the name of Governor Ripper."
This presented the Ripper for Governor campaign with a new crisis. They were against private ownership of firearms.
"If we arm now," Rona was told, "the National Rifle Association will throw it back in our faces into the next century."
Rona stood firm. "My election is more important than mere principle. I want one sacrificial lamb to buy a gun and stand by my side, ready to kill or be killed."
In the end, they drew straws. One of the press liaisons drew the short straw. He bought a .22 Ruger and showed it to Rona Ripper the same day.
"Is it loaded?" Rona asked, curious.
"Good question," said the press liaison. He lifted the shiny weapon to his face and looked down the barrel. He squinted.
"Well?" Rona demanded.
"I don't see any bullets."
Someone suggested that he pull the trigger. The press liaison did just that, neglecting to remove his face from the line of fire.
Fortunately, the campaign manager for the Ripper campaign understood that pistols sometimes go off even when pointed at unintended targets. He lunged for the press liaison's gun hand and attempted to wrestle it free.
He was both just in time and too late, simultaneously.
He was just in time to keep the press liaison from blowing his head off, and too late to prevent the bullet from snarling out of the barrel.
It burned past the liaison's head, ricocheted off an overhead pipe, and imbedded itself in the most generous target in the room.
Rona Ripper suddenly found herself seated in the middle of the floor, with a surprised look on her face and a dull pain in her ample behind.
"What happened?" she gasped. "Is it an earthquake?"
No one wanted to tell the probable future governor of California that she had been shot in the ass. They weren't sure, but somehow her rights probably had been violated. And there was an excellent chance she would sue them all into bankruptcy. She had done it to major corporations all over the state after a lot less provocation.
Rona Ripper had solved the problem for them. She tried to stand up. Her body refused to work. She looked around her and saw the blood.
Then, with a soft but vicious "I'll sue" issuing from her lips, she fainted.
Rona Ripper had awoken on her stomach, with her backside swathed in bandages, repeating that same mantra over and over.
The doctor on staff immediately put her under with an injection, then transferred to another hospital. He knew Rona Ripper had single-handedly raised malpractice insurance rates all over California.
So it was that, when Rona Ripper finally regained consciousness, she was reduced to describing her symptoms to an anonymous doctor on the other side of the closed hospital room door.
"How do you think I feel? I have a bullet in my butt!"
"Is there anything else we can do for you?" the doctor said, smiling inanely, as if at a homicidal maniac.