Tad had recently achieved some national notice through his vigorous pursuit of antiabortion and school reform bills. He opposed abortion in all cases, and through his personhood bill wanted to officially define life as beginning at conception. He also claimed that Florida’s public education system, from kindergarten through university, was wasteful, in-effective, and rife with liberals (who else would accept such low pay but liberals? he radio-ranted). It did not take Marianne long to find out why GWGW was interested in his cause. He wanted to privatize the state’s community colleges, making more funding available to training and vocational schools run by private companies. By backing his personhood efforts—investing millions in ad buys and billboards and robocalls and direct mail—GWGW would later ensure a steadier stream of paying high school graduates for its Florida campuses.

But Marianne thought Regina was wrong when she said that the students would not be bothered by the politicizing of their campus. They would see right through Regina’s plans and would take a stand for the school they loved—for the rickety folding chairs and long readings, for poetry under the trees and tai chi on the beach. Surely she could count on them for that much.

She logged on to Facebook to check her Ranch feed and saw nothing out of the ordinary—not yet. Davonte had posted a bathroom shot of his scale along with “27 LBS!!!” and had received a flurry of “likes” and positive comments. Janine had sent messages of encouragement to a few classmates. Manfred had made a few cryptic comments about a visit to his mother. Marianne searched for “Tad Tucker,” and could see that several students “liked” him—some had even posted to his wall, but Marianne could not see their comments unless she “liked” him as well. Perhaps they were arguing with him, or maybe they lived in his district and needed to plea for some sort of assistance or pet project—

Oops. Hovering over his page on her tablet, Marianne let her finger slip, and now she liked him too.

Horse trading, Eric called it, when he finally called her back. He explained what she had already figured out—that GWGW had calculated that by supporting personhood today, they would feed funding and students to their cosmetology, medical billing, prelaw, and predentistry schools tomorrow. Shifting funds away from public community colleges gave GWGW a huge advantage in recruitment, Eric said, as their schools accepted anyone with a pulse and a student loan.

“I thought nonprofits couldn’t donate to political campaigns.”

“They’re not going to donate to his campaign. They’re going to donate five million dollars to an outside group that raises public awareness about social issues, not candidates. They’re going to pour it into TV ads, right before the election.”

“What I am having trouble understanding is how you can so calmly explain it to me, like there’s nothing wrong with—”