Marianne spent the rest of the day googling Tad Tucker, whose political career she had followed in the pages of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and whose voice she knew through the popular radio show Talking to Tad, which she sometimes listened to in the car. Elected two years ago as a state representative, Tucker had once been a college baseball star, a slugger who washed out in the minor leagues, and had emerged from a muddled business career that sought to capitalize on his waning regional fame. Marianne found references to fast food franchises, batting cage operations, and a for-profit scared-straight-style boys’ camp, but he was most known through the radio show. Now that he was a politician, he was officially retired from radio, but he was a guest host so frequently that they’d kept the name. He railed against his opponents, promoted his unconstitutional legislative bills—including fetal personhood—and defended the records of his businesses, which had become the targets, he claimed, of trial lawyers attempting to pay him back for his support of tort reform. On talktotad.net, Marianne listened to clips from the show. The most popular, with more than three hundred thousand views, involved a civil lawsuit brought against one of his batting cage operations. “I mean, let’s get real!” the clip began, in Tad’s outraged southern drawl. “A kid gets beaned in a batting cage and we gotta get lawyers litigating? What’s next? Support groups for spelling bee losers? Are we gonna timidly turn to touch football? I’ll tell you the same thing I told the family that brought the suit, which is that kid is welcome—free of charge—to attend my Time for Toughness boot camp.”

Marianne appreciated Tad’s commitment to alliteration, and marveled at the way he used one misfortune to promote another of his businesses, but a quick follow-up search revealed more damning details. The beaned child had been severely concussed, and the trial lawyers found that neither the helmets provided nor the pitching machines met federal safety regulations. Doctors claimed that the child might have brain damage and would need months of physical therapy; in any case, he was in no shape for a Time for Toughness camp, and the family had settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.