Wednesday evening, John had a meeting with some old Hanoi Hilton buddies and Sarah opted not to attend. She had other chores on her mind. Today, when she saw inside Joe, she’d seen an advertising meeting that he had attended. The Obama campaign and the DNC were coordinating a series of new ads that were known to be false, but were so powerful that they’d be run anyway. This troubled Sarah. With the election rapidly approaching, there wouldn’t be enough time in which to refute the ads and fight back. The DNC had planned it that way.
Fortunately, the ads were being produced here in Cleveland and Mighty Mom knew where. She’d pay them a visit while Sarah was “resting” in her room.
It was the Cleveland facility of a Washington, DC company, Lying Eyes Ltd. Mighty Mom thought it and whoosh, she was there. Peeking through windows at the people working, she picked out a couple of guys who were looked to be in charge. She would “detain” them long enough to look inside and see what was planned. She’d be able to “see” the ad spots as they had seen them and then she’d know how to combat them.
Frank N. Sense left the building to pick up some supplies and MM caught him as he walked to his car. He never saw the flying masked woman (wearing a snappy red, white, and blue frock) slip up behind him and apply a Vulcan neck pinch to render him temporarily unconscious. She looked in and saw three ads, two in full detail and one that seemed to be unfinished – she hoped the other guy would have the missing parts of that third puzzle. She released the pinch and almost immediately, Frank began to recover. MM flew up into a nearby tree and waited.
The other guy came out shortly after Frank had come to his senses and driven off. This one was Terry Ahkey, the production manager for the Cleveland operation.
In a flash, Mighty Mom flew down and applied another neck pinch to Mr. Ahkey – down he went. “Yes, there it was, the completed third ad.” “Jeepers,” she thought (shades of Beaver Cleaver). “These are damming ads – they could cost us the election – even if they are lies.” She really needed to figure out how to stop them, if possible, or negate them if stopping them wasn’t possible. She let go of Mr. Ahkey and returned to the tree to think.
Lying Eyes planned to distribute the spots as attachments to e-mails. They’d send them to the ninety-eight stations in markets where they’d bought time. All three ads were scheduled to run tomorrow morning and would be sent out at 6 am in the morning. She would have to get access to the files on their computer.
The first one, called “Bad Man,” showed footage of John really raising hell with someone. He was obviously extremely irate and appeared to chase someone towards the camera. The voiceover was that of a small girl, in tears, asking her mom why the bad man had run the children away from the playground. The “mommy” said, “I don’t know, honey, he’s always mean to kids, he doesn’t like kids, he’s just a bad, bad man.” That fifteen-second spot sure showed John in an extremely bad light, it sure wouldn’t help his image especially since they’d tried to paint him as bad-tempered earlier in the campaign.
The second one was a 30-second spot titled “I don’t know” and looped a close-up of John saying “I don’t know” over and over to questions asked by an off camera voice – again, the voice of a child. The child asked “How are my mommy and daddy going to keep our house,” followed by John saying “I don’t know.” Then, “Why is my daddy going to lose his job.” “I don’t know.” That went on for a full thirty seconds with question after question being answered by “I don’t know.” It was made to suggest that John didn’t have any answers at all – about anything – “he knew notting.” Not good.
The third spot was called “I can see Russia,” and “starred” SARAH. Now they did it. Using a similar theme as the “I don’t know” ad, its subject was foreign policy and Sarah was shown to respond “I can see Russia” to every question. The voiceover was audio from Saturday Night Live using Tina Fey’s voice. “Grrrrr, The DNC would pay for that.”
Mighty Mom had to fly back to the hotel so Sarah could make an appearance. Sarah would “go to bed early” and Mighty Mom would return to Lying Eyes.
She hovered around the windows and found lights on in an office with one guy working at a computer. She waited … and waited … and waited.
Finally at 3 AM, the guy started to leave. He went out and turned to lock the door and promptly got a Vulcan neck pinch. She looked inside Phil and found that the ads were finished and ready for delivery. She gathered the information she needed to modify the ad files. His name was Phil Herupp and she got his login, passwords, file names, and generally how she could change the voiceovers and let Phil’s existing linkage handle the synchronization with the video.
She checked the door lock and found that she could get out without a key. She “collected” the security codes so she could set the alarm when she left. MM released the pinch and Phil started to come around. She quickly went inside and hid. Phil regained consciousness, tried to figure out what happened and gave up and checked the door – he hadn’t locked it. He set the alarm, locked the door and left.
Mighty Mom found the right pc and pulled up the first ad. She overwrote the voices with her own narrative. She told how John had chased a child molester away from a playground (that’s what really happened) after the pervert tried to abduct a little girl. MM was pretty pleased with her voiceover, it sounded sincere and professional. John had been a hero once again. She put that one to bed.
Next, she attacked the “I don’t know” spot. This one was more difficult because she needed more time than what was assigned for “I don’t know” to say what she needed to say. Then, a EUREKA moment: she searched the files for some Obama speech or ad. The spirits must be helping her ‘cause she found an Obama speech with a good close-up of his heavenly face and audio that included a statement by Obama saying “and ya know, all John McCain could say was “I don’t know.”
A search and replace took care of both the Obama close-up replacing the McCain one and a clip of Obama’s voice saying “I don’t know.” So, the original child’s voice remained but the visual was now Obama saying “I don’t know.” “The caped one” was satisfied that she’d successfully morphed a McCain-negative ad into an Obama-negative ad in one swell foop. Cha-ching!
The last one was personal. Sarah had been undergoing intensive education on foreign policy – daily classes with experts. She really knew the answers to the questions that were asked in the spot. The audio was easy to replace by inserting new copy and cutting the excess time from the end. But, the visual would have to be changed too.
She found some stock footage of Sarah, Todd and the kids at home in an informal setting and ran that behind the modified audio. The result showed Sarah with the family at ease, and at home. The original questions were answered in Sarah’s own voice with strong, knowledgeable responses.
To finish things up, she overwrote the original file names with the revised ads. The people working on the spots knew the file names and would attach those names to the e-mail distribution. So, when the ninety-eight e-mails were sent in the morning, they’d be distributing ninety-eight copies of the “new and improved” ad spots.
Mighty Mom felt good about what she’d accomplished that night. Now it was time for a flying masked woman with superhuman strength (and wearing a snappy red, white, and blue frock) to get a couple of hours of rest.
Sarah could hardly sleep knowing the “fit would hit the shan” at the DNC tomorrow.