Leo Owns the Messaging Failure
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo reflects on their failure to adequately communicate the benefits of the ethanol tax credit, acknowledging its importance to Iowa's economy.
Leo reveals Sam's ongoing efforts to salvage the ethanol tax credit vote, indicating the impending conclusion of their efforts.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Attempting upbeat reassurance but edged with defensiveness; trying to assuage fear with technical qualifications.
Ed walks with Larry and Leo, supplies the conversational counterpoint that outside Iowa the ethanol percentages may not resonate, and offers a small, defensive reassurance — 'At least we're going to win' — reflecting a wish to anchor hope amid uncertainty.
- • Clarify the policy's real-world impact to temper panic
- • Offer reassurance to colleagues to steady the team's morale
- • That the policy has measurable benefits even if politically under-sold
- • That retaining optimism can stabilize the team and help them act effectively
Concerned but controlled; inclined toward damage limitation and conversationally supportive of Leo's admission.
Larry follows Leo into the office and parries between reassurance and arithmetic: he agrees with Leo, repeats the job numbers, and presses for clarity about whether the fight is still winnable, playing the practical donor/optics interlocutor in the room.
- • Confirm the political consequences and whether the situation is recoverable
- • Frame the facts (jobs, numbers) as salvageable selling points
- • Avoid panic and keep the staff focused on concrete remedies
- • That concrete economic figures (jobs, stats) still matter politically
- • That acknowledging the problem doesn't preclude practical mitigation
- • That presentation and phrasing affect voter and legislator reactions
Weary and rueful on the surface, shifting quickly into controlled urgency — a leader who recognizes failure but immediately narrows toward action.
Leo walks from the hallway into his office, delivers the rueful admission that the administration failed to make ethanol's benefits plain, listens to staff tally facts, signs papers, and issues an immediate order to get the Vice President over — moving from confession to command in a single beat.
- • Acknowledge the messaging failure to recalibrate strategy
- • Buy time and salvage the close Senate vote by mobilizing the Vice President
- • Contain fallout internally so public confidence is not further eroded
- • That the campaign's messaging gap has materially cost them political leverage
- • That the Vice President's presence or intervention can still change the tactical outcome
- • That blunt, honest acknowledgement will improve internal focus and decision-making
Calm and professional with a quietly personal melancholy; she is steadying but personally affected by the lost trip and the administration's demands.
Margaret enters, processes Leo's signature requests, answers the ringing office phone, hands it to Leo and relays it's Sam; she also shares a small personal exchange about travel with Leo that humanizes the moment and underscores private sacrifice behind public duties.
- • Maintain orderly office operations by handling calls and paperwork
- • Provide quiet human ballast to Leo during a stressful moment
- • That routine tasks and small courtesies preserve normalcy during crises
- • That personal sacrifices (missed trips) are an expected, costly part of public service
Sam is off-stage but directly referenced: he has been calling senators from the plane for the past hour and a …
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Ethanol Tax Credit functions as the substantive axis of the exchange: staff cite its 20% Iowa corn-account and 16,000 jobs to lament that the campaign never emphasized those tangible benefits, turning abstract policy into the concrete casualty of poor messaging.
An office telephone (mapped to the canonical intercom handset) rings and becomes the narrative trigger: Margaret answers, hands it to Leo, and through it Sam’s urgent outreach from the plane imposes immediate operational demands on the room.
Sam's passenger plane is the remote workspace from which continuous, hour‑and‑a‑half-long calls to senators are being placed; it functions as the temporal pressure device — distance plus time compress the team's decision window.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Iowa is invoked as the concrete source of ethanol's political claim: staffers use the state's agricultural statistics to argue the real-world, vote-winning effects the campaign failed to emphasize.
The narrow West Wing hallway is the transitional stage where Leo, Larry and Ed move from analysis toward action; it compresses urgent exchange into brisk, clipped lines and propels the group into Leo's office where decisions crystallize.
Leo's office serves as the operational hub where private admission and immediate action meet: papers are signed, Margaret tends domestic details, the phone delivers Sam’s report, and Leo issues the order to bring in the Vice President.
California is named as the electoral prize that will demand future travel and attention; it functions as the looming strategic theater driving campaign logistics and underscoring the geographic tension in resource allocation.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"LEO: "We didn't say it enough.""
"LEO: "Sam's been calling senators from the plane for the past hour and a half. The next time my phone rings, it's going to be him telling me it's over.""
"LEO: "Get the Vice President over here.""