The Walking Dead

October 31, 2011 By wesleydonehue

Day 88 – We were being hammered for weeks. Support for the national Fair Tax was starting to catch up with Congressman Jim DeMint during the final weeks of his campaign for the United States Senate.

The Fair Tax is a pretty good idea. Eliminate all taxes, get ride of the IRS and just stick a 23% sales tax on everything. The problem is that its hard to argue that in a 30 second ad, but it’s real easy for your opponent to argue that you want to raise taxes by 23% on EVERYTHING. Groceries, gas, clothes, you name it, Inez Tenenbaum said that Jim DeMint wanted to raise taxes on it.

It was a painful hit and the public polls showed it. The gap was narrowing, and something had to be done. We were all sitting around a conference table when someone blurted out “She’s such a one-trick pony.”

BOOM! That was it. Campaign Manager Terry Sullivan immediately responded, “We need a pony.” He ordered me, political director George Ramsey and communications director Geoff Embler to find a pony and get it to the next Tenenbaum press conference, which just happened to be in five hours.

As you can imagine, finding a pony and getting it to a press conference in five hours is no small task. All credit goes to George and Geoff. They somehow pulled off a miracle and coopted the Tenenbaum press conference with ‘Peaches: The One Trick Pony.’

It’s one of my favorite stories, and one that I told the staff today when I sent them on a hunt for a Starbucks apron.

It turns out that Starbucks won’t just sell you or give you an employee apron. You pretty much have to find one from a current or former employee. As I explained to the team “If we can find a pony in five hours, you can surely find an apron in seven hours.”

And they did. Big props to Jonathan Williams and Renee Williamson for snagging the goods.

The apron was the finishing touch to my awesome Halloween costume tonight – a zombie Starbucks barista.

Yes, I know that zombies are all trendy this year, but I’ve been a pretty big zombie fan for years, and The Walking Dead is my second favorite show… right after its sister AMC show Mad Men. And of course, you know how big a Starbucks fan I am.

One apron, a Starbucks cup, a black t-shirt, khakis, green paint, white paint, black paint, 3 scars and a ton of blood later…