Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 54 - 42: Standing on the Pinnacle of the Forest
The next day, Leo sent the same message to both Sarah and Frank, who were still fuming.
"Seven p.m. The office. We need to talk."
He had originally planned to talk to them separately, thinking it would be a better way to soothe their respective tempers.
But Roosevelt stopped him.
"Don’t talk to them separately," Roosevelt said. "That will make them think you’re forming cliques, playing petty office politics. That’s not how a leader should act."
"You need to call them both into your office at the same time and, face to face, announce your decision like a true leader—clearly, forcefully, and unequivocally."
"What you need isn’t some wishy-washy mediation. It’s a consolidation of will."
At seven p.m., the office door opened right on time.
Sarah and Frank walked in, one after the other.
When Sarah saw Frank was also there, her brow immediately furrowed.
She had thought Leo would talk to her alone—a comforting phone call, perhaps, or a private conversation to persuade her.
’What is he trying to do, calling both of us here? A public showdown to escalate the conflict?’
A flare of anger rose in her heart, but at the same time, a thought flashed through her mind. ’Fine. This is good, too. We can lay everything out in the open, put all the problems on the table.’
Frank was just as surprised.
Seeing Sarah, he let out an almost imperceptible snort.
’What the hell is this kid up to?’
He had expected this to be a talk between men. He hadn’t thought Leo would also call in this girl who was so desperate to get to Washington.
But he had to admit, Leo’s move was upfront. No sneaky games behind their backs.
Neither of them looked at the other. Sarah sat in the chair closest to the door, while Frank walked to the far side of the office and stood leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
The air in the room was heavy. The only sound was the distant drone of machinery from the construction site, where work continued into the night.
Leo sat in the main chair, looking at them both.
He didn’t waste time on pleasantries and got straight to the point.
He first looked at Frank, who was leaning against the wall.
"Frank, your fighting spirit is this team’s most valuable asset," Leo said. "Without your courage and determination, we could never have won the battle for the community center. We wouldn’t be standing here."
"But street activism alone can’t bring about any lasting change."
"We can storm City Hall once, and they might back down due to public pressure. But as long as they control the rules of the power game, they can take back everything we’ve worked so hard to win at any moment."
Frank immediately cut him off, his voice dripping with contempt.
"Rules? To hell with the rules! Leo, the rules were written by those rich bastards to protect themselves! You can’t beat them at their own table, playing by their rules! The only way is to flip the whole damn table over!"
"We’ve already flipped it once, Frank." Leo’s reply was calm and forceful. "With the community center, we won. We flipped their table. And what was the result? They just turned around and, in the city council, custom-built a new table just for us. They wrote new rules to choke off our funding."
"We can’t get stuck in an endless cycle of flipping tables only to wait for them to build new ones." Leo walked closer to Frank, his gaze intense. "What we need to do is storm the factory where the tables are made, kick out the owners, and become the bosses ourselves! We’ll be the ones who make the rules!"
With that, Leo turned to Sarah, who had remained silent in her chair.
"Sarah, your talent is the foundation that allows us to turn our ideals into reality. Without your professionalism and hard work, our voices would never have been heard across Pittsburgh, and that two-and-a-half-million-dollar grant would have been out of the question."
"But if we’re content to just hide out on these few small construction sites, if we don’t continue to expand our influence and engage in higher-level political struggles, then everything we’re working so hard to build right now could be overturned at any moment by a single executive order from Mayor Carter Wright."
Sarah finally looked up, her voice filled with disappointment.
"More political struggles? Leo, I’m sick of it! We spent weeks playing that dirty game of digging up dirt, scheming and backstabbing with those politicians. Now that we finally have a chance to settle down and do some real work, you want to drag us back into that quagmire?"
"Our best protection is to do our jobs perfectly. Let all the citizens of Pittsburgh see the changes we’re making. Make it so Carter Wright wouldn’t dare touch us. Let our results speak for themselves!"
"Let our results speak for themselves?" Leo shot back. "Sarah, have you forgotten? The better we build our sites, the more of a thorn in Carter Wright’s side we become. Our results didn’t protect us. They brought us a fire and a stop-work order!"
"If we didn’t have Representative Murphy, if we didn’t have Senator Sanders, if the State Attorney’s office hadn’t intervened, all our work right now would be nothing but a pile of charred ruins!"
He looked into Sarah’s eyes and softened his tone.
"I understand your exhaustion. I hate all that dirty stuff too. But you have to understand, right now we need a sword. Its purpose isn’t to fight endlessly with others."
"Its ultimate purpose is to create an environment where we can build in peace. An environment where we no longer have to worry about the Mayor finding some random excuse to shut us down, or the city council passing some bill to snatch away our funding."
"This sword is the ultimate weapon to protect what we’ve built."
Leo stood up and walked to the center of the office.
He looked at his two most important partners.
"Both of you are only seeing the tree right in front of you. I’m asking you, from now on, to look at the entire forest with me."
"We need to fight, and we need to build."
"And there is only one way to combine those two things perfectly."
"We must not just influence power. We must become power itself!"
Frank and Sarah were both stunned. They stared at Leo in confusion.
"Become power?" Frank asked. "What do you mean? The current mayor is Carter Wright, and the city council is controlled by those bastards. How can we become power?"
Leo walked over to the map of Pittsburgh hanging on the office wall.
He jabbed his finger firmly at the very center of the map, on the building that represented the heart of the city’s power.
Pittsburgh City Hall.
He turned around and, word by word, announced his final decision.
"So, I’m going to replace him."
"I’m going to run for Mayor of Pittsburgh."
