Everyday Canvas

A Campaign for Honesty

Prompt:
Use these words in your entry today: reach, slogan, extort, cooperate, campaign, leader, fiction, and reluctance. Have fun!

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* Here's a story too far-out to be true. In a more realistic political environment, the main character would either be murdered or accused of some wrongdoing and jailed. But fiction is fiction.

A Campaign for Honesty

A campaign was underway in Verityville, a campaign steeped in fiction and the reluctance of its alliances. The charismatic leader of the campaign was Ben Wright, an office worker for the city who was running for mayor.

Ben Wright was famous for his ability to reach out to the people. His aim was not only to challenge but also to cooperate with the existing leaders. "Unite for a better Verityville," was his slogan with which he hoped to stir the dreams of a brighter future.

Ben Wright knew as a secret that, within the city's leaders, corruption was afoot. He thought he could extort their cooperation in his campaign, using the threat of exposure of their misdeeds as leverage.

For this purpose, he recruited Evelyn Dawn who was a brilliant but morally conflicted political strategist. Evelyn had never liked the harsh world of politics in Verityville but she had found herself unwillingly entangled in a web of intrigue.

As the campaign advanced, Ben's charisma drew the people to his side and Evelyn Dawn's strategies succeeded as the slogan became a mantra for the disillusioned citizens who were longing for a change.

Fearing Ben's actions, the city's leaders had no choice but to cooperate, and so, they funded the campaign with their resources and networks. The alliance was iffy and uneasy because it was built on mutual distrust and Ben's threat of exposure of most of the existing leaders.

Yet, as the campaign progressed, Ben realized that the power he held over the leaders could be used for good. What he really wanted was to reform the system from within and possibly expose the corruption, too. This, he confided to Evelyn who agreed on a plan to transition the campaign from its fiction to one of redemption.

In a dramatic press conference, then, Ben Wright revealed his own past involvement in extortion for his campaign, concerning the city's leaders, and he said he wanted to change and pledged the use of the power and resources to eradicate all corruption.

The city's elite were shocked by Ben's public confession, but they also saw that they had no way out unless they, too, committed to honesty and reform. Thus, Ben's slogan took on a deeper meaning and the city folks rallied behind Ben Wright, choosing him as the new mayor of Verityville.

Ben and Evelyn worked tirelessly to implement change by making the city's leaders pass legislation to hold the corrupt accountable and to reform city's institutions. So, at the end, with its flashy slogan and all, the campaign did achieve its goal, not through extortion and deceit, but through Ben Wright's willingness to confront what was ugly and to unite the city not by fear but by hope.


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