The fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose continues, as they juggle marriage, parenthood, and career ambitions while living in a world not designed for them.
Fair warning: Chapters 12 and 13 extensively discuss contemporary American partisan politics as Lily and Rose get involved in a political campaign.
Part 4 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 11: Parents and students
Chapter 11: Parents and students
Nick couldn’t get any time off from his mandatory summer internship, but we knew that would be the case. Our mother, Nick’s mother, and our sister Daisy all took turns helping us out those first few weeks as we got used to being mothers ourselves. Our six weeks of paid maternity leave were way too short, and we decided to take an unpaid leave of absence for another seven weeks, for a total of three months. After all, we could afford it.
By the time we returned to work the day after Labor Day, Nick had already completed his internship and had begun the fall semester. And so we began a routine that would pretty much continue through early May, of starting work early so we could leave early, Nick getting twins up and ready and to daycare before he started class, us picking them up and coming home, making dinner for everyone, playing with the twins and putting them to bed.
We never felt like we had enough time with Tommy and Sandy, and felt rather guilty about it, but we’d talked to enough stay-home moms to know many of them felt like they were going insane at home all day with little adult interaction. We came to the conclusion that finding the right balance of baby time and adult time can be pretty elusive in our society.
But the twins had adjusted to daycare well and by all accounts were happy, healthy babies. A few times during that year we were able to leave them with their grandparents and get away with Nick for a weekend. But even during winter break, he was mostly busy with writing his master’s thesis. We realized we’d be experience much the same thing before long ourselves, when we started grad school in the fall.
By spring, the twins were starting to become vocal, and we realized we needed to figure out what we wanted them to call us. Calling both of us Mommy would be confusing, and would cause them to think of us as, and make us feel like, the mom with two heads rather than as individuals. But we didn’t want them calling us by our first names, either; that just seemed wrong… disrespectful, somehow. However, Nick pointed out that our niece Mia called us each by our title followed by our first name – Aunt Lily and Aunt Rose, respectively.
We mulled over our options for way longer than it should have taken. Should we go by variations of terms for mother – Mom and Mommy, for instance? Nick reminded us that most young children call their mothers ‘Mommy’ but then transition to the more mature-sounding ‘Mom’ as they get older, so those probably wouldn’t be good choices. What about less commonly used terms – Mama, Ma, Mammy, Mum, etc.? None of those really did anything for us. Maybe we could borrow informal terms for mother from other languages. Some of those seemed okay; we both liked the word Matka used in eastern European countries. Lots of languages used the word Mama in the same way we use Mom.
Nick suggested thinking from our kids’ perspectives – how would they most naturally distinguish between their two mothers? We found a frontal photo of ourselves taken by someone else, and studied it for a while. Left Mom, Right Mom, maybe? Lily Mom, Rose Mom, from the flowers or jewelry we frequently wear? White Mom, Red Mom, from the colors of those flowers? Dank Mom, Cheugy Mom? We laughed and mock-argued over which of us deserved which title.
Ultimately, we decided we could live with any number of variations that included our first names and a respectful, informal term for mother. Lily Mom(my) and Rose Mom(my), or Mama Lily and Mama Rose, or anything similar would work for us. We’d just see how things evolved naturally from there. We’d teach them to use their preferred term for mother in the plural when calling or referring to both of us – Moms, Mommies, Mamas, or whatever.
We started consistently wearing our respective flowers in some manner when around our kids, despite knowing that they’d constantly try to knock flowers out of our hair or pull on our jewelry. We compensated for this by having clothing made that had lilies on one side and roses on the other, painting the respective flowers on our cheeks, and so on. After a while, we decided to have small, tasteful, color tattoos of our flowers applied to our wrists. We taught our kids the names of those flowers very early, and to associate us with our respective flowers.
As the twins became fluent in speaking, we found it interesting that Sandy usually called us Mommy Lily and Mommy Rose, while Tommy usually called us Lily Mommy and Rose Mommy.
As Nick got closer to finishing his master’s degree, he began looking into getting rehired into state government. He decided to not try to get back on at the Human Resources department, but to broaden his experience by joining just about any other state agency.
However, we very much wanted to get a vacation in between him finishing grad school in May and the two of us starting grad school in August, and if at all possible, with our English friends Liam and Chloe. We discussed the various options with them. They’d had a baby a couple of months after we had our twins, and while that wasn’t going to prevent them from going on vacation, they wanted to limit it to only a week this time around. That worked best for us, too, since we’d be leaving the twins with their grandparents.
But we also had to take into consideration that Nick would have a new job with no accrued vacation time, and also that recent political events had made the world less friendly to Americans and the U.S. less hospitable towards foreigners. Some countries that had formerly been very safe and welcoming to Americans tourists were no longer that way, and likewise, many countries were now advising their citizens to avoid visiting the U.S. Many of the places we and Liam and Chloe would have liked to visit together were no longer viable options.
After considering and rejecting lots of possibilities, we ended up deciding on Bermuda. Bermuda is a much smaller island than Iceland, and a week would be enough time to see everything. While a British territory, Bermuda was much more hospitable to Americans than was Great Britain proper, partly because their economy is so heavily dependent on American tourism, and partly because U.S. government actions hadn’t really directly affected them.
However, Bermuda is located in the western Atlantic and is quite prone to hurricanes in the summer and fall. If we went in May, we could avoid hurricane season and Nick could start his new job after we returned. Liam and Chloe were receptive to going in May, so it seemed like we had everything worked out.
However, Chloe suggested that we also invite the other couple we’d met on our cruise, Austin and Megan, who are American like us. They hadn’t been able to travel to Iceland because they had a baby due that same month. So we contacted them and told them what we had in mind, and they eagerly agreed to join us in Bermuda in May. It was great fun hanging out with both couples again.
After applying for and interviewing for several positions, Nick accepted a position as a budget and management analyst with the state Department of Transportation, and worked out a start date that was after our Bermuda vacation.
For a few months, the three of us were all state employees again, but we, Lily and Rose, resigned from our jobs in early August in order to begin grad school. The following summer was our turn for a mandatory internship. Our college had a similar policy to Nick’s university, not letting us intern with the state government since we’d been employed by them. We ended up with the Capital City School District, the largest school district in the state.
Chapter 12: Wildest dreams
As our time in grad school neared its end, we were in the same position as Nick two years earlier, trying to plan a vacation with our friends and find a job, and keeping the two from interfering with each other.
But finding a job was going to be easier said than done. Practically since we first started college, we’d had a strong interest in civil rights or human rights, and especially the rights of people in categories not protected by law. We’d intended to make a career of this at the state Human Rights Commission, and had planned to return to that agency once we had our master’s degrees. We truly felt that we were making the world a better place there.
But across the country, government civil rights and human rights agencies at all levels had fallen out of political favor and were being defunded, hollowed out, and abolished completely. Conservative members of our own state legislature and our governor were openly talking about eliminating the HRC. Morale there was at an all-time low and some of our former co-workers were finding other jobs and quitting. We could see there was no longer a future in our chosen field. This had been our passion, and it was very disorienting and discouraging to know we could no longer pursue it. We felt so lost.
We were about to earn master’s degrees in public administration, which would qualify for any number of important positions in government. But important or not, a job we had no passion for would be mere drudgery that would wither our very souls. We could never do Nick’s job, a budget and management analyst for the transportation department, even though we were just as qualified as he was to do it. We needed a job, some job, any job, not only where we felt like we were making a difference in people’s lives or making the world a better place, but also in a way that we really cared about.
We realized we needed to talk to our former roommate Gabi Vernon, or whatever her name was now that she was married. She understood what it meant to be passionate about one’s chosen profession, and hers was closely related to ours; she’d become a civil rights attorney like her father.
It had been way too long since we’d talked to Gabi last, and she was thrilled to take our call and catch up with us. Then we got to the reason for our call and explained what was going through our minds, and asked her for her thoughts.
“Yeah, it’s a bad time to be in the human rights field right now,” Gabi agreed. “Even for attorneys like me and my dad. You’d think business would be booming since all the human rights agencies are scaling back and shutting down, and you’re right. But it’s become harder and harder for us to win settlements or win cases if we go to court. If we don’t win, we don’t get paid. Plus, we’re regularly getting threats and intimidating messages now. We have to be constantly vigilant.”
“We had no idea this was affecting you, too,” we replied. “What do you plan to do?”
“I guess we’re going to have to start taking on other kinds of work. We haven’t figured that out yet. Immigration law would be the most closely related, but that would be jumping from the frying pan to the fire. Dad’s been talking about taking on employment law cases. I kind of like animal rights cases, but I don’t know if that would be steady work.
“I guess that would be my advice to you, too. Don’t think of it as turning your back on human rights forever. Think of it as just doing something else in the meantime until the pendulum swings back the other way. Use this time strategically. Use it to gain experience and develop expertise that’ll be relevant when you do return to protecting human rights.
“You might want to get out of government altogether for a while. You can do other things with MPA degrees. Work for a charity or a non-profit association. Leverage your experience to work in government relations for a business. Whatever you do doesn’t have to be your passion, and you’re not committing to it permanently. It just has to get you by until you can return to doing what you love.”
“That all makes a lot of sense, Gabi,” we replied. “We knew you’d be able to help us.”
“I think you should also talk to my dad about this. I think he could give you his perspective as a state senator about what’s likely to happen to the HRC,” Gabi added. We told her we’d do that.
Mr. Vernon told us that the Republicans in the state legislature would have already abolished the HRC if they had the votes to do it, but since they didn’t, all they could do was make noise about it. The governor had tried to block its funding, but that was currently being contested in court and the judge had ordered the funding to continue in the meantime.
“In the short term, the HRC isn’t going anywhere, but the Republicans have succeeded in destroying employee morale and undermining the effectiveness of the organization,” he said. “I highly doubt the governor will prevail in his quest. But this is an election year, so the fate of the HRC is very much riding on the outcome of the election in November.”
“What’s your prediction about how that’ll go?” we asked.
“It’s anyone’s guess at this point,” he replied.
“What can we do about it?” we asked.
“You can’t do much of anything about it,” he replied. “As state employees, you’re very limited in how much you can engage in partisan political activity, and what you can do wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”
“We’re not state employees currently,” we replied. “We’ve been in grad school for the past year-and-a-half and we’ll graduate in May. We always intended to go back to work at the HRC, but now we don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“I forgot about you being in grad school. That’s an interesting twist. Since you haven’t worked for the state in over a year, you have no restrictions on what you can say or do in a political campaign. However, if you did anything to become known as a partisan, it would about destroy your chances of ever being hired back into civil service again. Career state employees are supposed to at least have the appearance of being non-partisan.”
“What about Nick being a state employee? Could we get him into trouble?” I, Lily, asked.
“As long as you leave him out of it, and he stays out of it, anything political you do shouldn’t reflect on him in any way. Why? What are you thinking about doing?” Mr. Vernon asked.
I, Lily, replied. “Rose and I haven’t talked about this, so this just me thinking out loud. We’re passionate about human rights and are having a hard time imagining working anywhere but the HRC. But if it’s dismantled, we’ll have no choice. Maybe we need to pull out all the stops to save the HRC, even if it means we can never work there or in state government again.
“Maybe we could make a TV commercial and identify ourselves as former HRC employees and tell the public about all the important work they do. We’ll explain that the commission is non-partisan and we’ve always personally been non-partisan, but the Republicans are now trying to abolish the HRC and to save it, everyone needs to vote for the Democratic candidates for governor, state senator, and state representative.”
“That’s a very risky thing to do, Lily,” Mr. Vernon replied. “Whether it succeeds or fails, you’d almost be guaranteed to never work in government again, at least as career civil servants…” He paused and made a face like something had just occurred to him. “But you could be political appointees, or run for office yourselves. Well, it would be tough to do the latter, unless you got another exemption from the HRC.
“But anyway, that got me thinking… One of the HRC commissioners’ terms ends next January and he’s not eligible for reappointment. I can’t promise anything, but maybe, just maybe, if you were to do that, and the Democrats win the governor’s office and retain control of the legislature, you could earn yourselves an appointment to fill that slot. You’re rather young and inexperienced to be commissioners, but that’s not an insurmountable obstacle.”
“I like this idea,” I, Rose, replied to both Lily and Mr. Vernon. “I think it’s worth the risk. It would be worth it if we could just save the HRC without any promise of a return favor, but if we could get a commissioner appointment out of it too, that would be beyond my wildest dreams!”
“Let me float this idea past the governor candidate and some of the leaders in the legislature, and I’ll see what they think, said Mr. Vernon. “Remember, I’m not in a position to promise anything. It’ll be entirely up to them. In the meantime, stay focused on completing those master’s degrees. They’ll be essential for you to have any chance of being appointed.”
We filled Nick in on what we’d discussed with Mr. Vernon that evening. He thought the plan was a brilliant one, and was thrilled about the possibility of us getting appointed to the commissioner slot, even though that was nothing more than speculation at this point.
Chapter 13: Politics
A few weeks later, we heard back from Mr. Vernon. “Everyone thought our little idea had potential,” he said. The Attorney General would like to meet you at a mutually convenient time. State attorney general Craig Holmes was the Democrat running for governor. “I’m sure he just wants to get to know you a bit and get a feel for whether you might be able to make a positive impact to his campaign.”
We worked out a date and time with not only Mr. Holmes, but also Mr. Vernon, who would also be attending. We were grateful there’d be a friendly face there with us.
At the meeting, Mr. Holmes acted like he encountered conjoined twins every day, which was unusual but worked to put us at ease. It was a nice change not to have to explain ourselves to someone we’d just met. Obviously Mr. Vernon had prepared him for us.
We discussed our education and our work experience at the HRC, and also how the bill that Mr. Vernon had sponsored had enabled us to obtain an exemption from the state marriage law from the HRC. We discussed our passion for human rights, and especially for the rights of people who were not in a category protected by law from discrimination.
We discussed at length our future career options, and explained that we had intended to spend the rest of our careers at the HRC, but if it were abolished, we really didn’t know what we would do; that working in some bureaucratic position at another state agency had no appeal to us. We told Mr. Holmes that we felt so strongly about the mission of the HRC that we were willing to risk having to leave state government altogether if that’s what it took to save it.
Mr. Holmes said that Mr. Vernon had told him that we normally try not to call attention to ourselves and prefer to lead private lives, and pointed out that if we went ahead with what we’d been discussing, that would change forever, regardless of the outcome of the election. He asked us if we were prepared for that and willing to sacrifice our privacy and anonymity for the sake of saving the HRC. We’d already thought hard about that and discussed it between ourselves and with Nick, and so we told him that we were.
We then worked together on a rough concept of what we’d actually say in a television commercial. Mr. Holmes seemed very much on board with the entire idea and agreed it was an important message to get out to the voters.
Then he told us, “I’m very impressed with the two of you. Your passion for human rights is contagious, and you’re very poised and articulate. No wonder Walter pushed so hard to have me meet you and discuss this idea. There’s just one thing that’s holding me back, and please take no offense at what I’m about to say – it’s not personal. It’s the conjoined twin thing. I honestly don’t know how you’re going to be perceived by the voters. You’ll certainly catch their attention, but will they be too busy staring at their TVs with their jaws hanging open to hear what you’re saying? Will they find you fascinating and endearing and credible, or will they be repulsed and sickened by what they’re seeing and change the channel?
“Yes, that sounds offensive and discriminatory, and I know how you feel about that, but we have to put that aside and focus on what’s best for the campaign. I could see this potentially going either way. You could give it a big boost, you could derail it, or anything in between, I suppose. So what I’d like to do is this:
“I want you to work with my campaign manager and media people and shoot a pilot ad. They’ll then show it to a test audience and get their impression and feedback. If they love it, we can air it as is. If they think it would work better with a few tweaks, we’ll make those tweaks and try again. If they hate it, we’ll scrap it and move on to the next idea. Fair enough?” We agreed that it was.
“One more thing,” he said. “I understand that you’re about to complete grad school and don’t have jobs lined up. I’d like you to consider coming and working for my campaign, regardless of whether the TV ad works out. You’re experienced policy analysts, which we can use, and I like the way you think and make a case for what you believe in. I think you’d be a strong asset to our team. The only thing is, it would have to be on a volunteer basis, at least to start out. It’s possible we could pay you a modest salary after a bit, but I can’t promise that.”
The two of us exchanged a glance and could tell we were both thinking the same thing. I, Rose, spoke for the two of us. “That’s a very kind offer, Mr. Holmes, but I think it does matter whether the ad is actually aired. If it is, we’ll have just about destroyed our chances of working in civil service again, and then we’d have nothing to lose by working in your campaign. If it’s not, then just working in your campaign might be enough to keep us from being re-hired into state government, and we’d rather keep our options open.”
“That’s not true,” he replied. “Working behind the scenes for a political campaign doesn’t preclude you from being hired as a state employee.”
We realized there was no reason to question this; he was the state attorney general, after all. I Lily, then replied, “In that case, we’d love to work on your campaign once we finish grad school.”
On our way home, it occurred to us that Mr. Holmes never mentioned an appointment to the HRC commissioner’s position. Not that it really mattered; as we were willing to do everything we’d discussed regardless of whether there was any reward. It was just kind of curious. Then, I, Rose, recalled that even what we’d discussed was largely tentative. We’d make the video but they may or may not use it. They’d bring us on to work for the campaign, but they may or may not pay us. It was obvious that they were going to see how things went before committing to anything, and so it was way too early to even think about anything that might occur after the election.
All things considered, we came to the conclusion that there would be no vacation for us that year until after the election in November. We did not want to give Mr. Holmes and the other Democrats any reason to think we weren’t 100% committed to seeing them win the election. We let our friends know, and while disappointed, they certainly understood. Our English friends Liam and Chloe in particular were very impressed about our willingness to take professional and personal risks to try to stop the Republicans from taking over our state government. “Your country would do well to have a lot more people like you,” they told us.
We decided that we’d wait until we graduated before working on the TV ad. We were brought on as campaign volunteers and that was our first assignment, to work with the team who’d make and edit the video. Our first order of business was to figure out what we were going to say and how much time we’d need to say it. Of course, this had to be discussed, debated, and signed off by the powers that be. Meanwhile, other people spent a lot of time trying to figure out the ideal camera angles, lighting, and so on, and how much of us to show on screen. Here’s the transcript of the final version of the video:
Lily: I’m Lily Spencer…
Rose: …and I’m Rose Spencer. We are real, live people, not some computer-generated image.
Lily: We’re conjoined twins, but this message isn’t about us.
Rose: It’s about the important work the state Human Rights Commission, or HRC, is doing and about how Republican politicians and candidates are conspiring to shut it down.
Lily: For over five years we worked as policy analysts for the HRC, so we know what they do.
Rose: The HRC is responsible for enforcing the state’s anti-discrimination and humane treatment laws related to employment, housing, public accommodations like hotels and restaurants, and union membership. It also educates employers, landlords, businesses, organizations, and individuals on their rights and responsibilities under state law regarding human and civil rights.
Lily: The HRC hears requests and makes rulings on granting exemptions from or modifications of state and local laws that it deems are inherently unfair to individuals with unusual or unique circumstances that these laws fail to take into account. As conjoined twins, we have some unique circumstances and we’ve personally made use of these services.
Rose: If neither you nor your loved ones have been discriminated against or treated inhumanely, first, consider yourself fortunate, and second, wait long enough and you or they will be, and then you’ll need the services of the HRC or another human rights agency.
Lily: Your Republican state senators and representatives are calling for the Human Rights Commission to be abolished. If that were to happen, you could find yourself being discriminated against by your employer or landlord or a business and have no way to fight it.
Rose: Maybe you’re white, male, and straight and don’t care about civil rights. But wait until you’re over 40 or become disabled and you could be the victim of discrimination, too.
Lily: The legislature hasn’t already abolished the HRC only because they’re a few people shy of a Republican majority. Meanwhile, Governor White is attempting to block funding of the commission already approved by the legislature, which would also put it out of business.
Rose: We no longer work there, but we believe strongly in the mission of the HRC, and we need your help to prevent it from disappearing and leaving you and millions of your fellow citizens with no way to fight discrimination.
Lily: First, we must stop Governor White from winning a second term in office. Second, we can’t let the Republicans gain control of the state legislature.
Rose: We urge you to vote for Democrat Craig Holmes for governor and send Roland White packing, and we need you to also vote for the Democratic candidates for state senator and representative in your district.
Lily: Only with enough people voting Democratic can we be assured of the Human Rights Commission continuing its essential work protecting the rights of all people in this great state, including you and your loved ones.
Rose: Thanks for listening. We’ll see you at the polls.
The campaign media people tried it out on some test audiences. The general consensus was that it was kind of long and boring, but the novelty of seeing a woman with two heads kept people watching and paying attention. Most importantly, people were able to remember the message that Republicans were trying to take away people’s rights and Democrats were fighting to preserve them.
If it meant people thinking of us as the woman with two heads in order to save the HRC, we could live with that. The campaign approved the ad as we’d recorded it, and a short time later it was airing on television stations statewide. The cat was out of the bag; the world now knew we existed, at least in our own state.
The ad created quite a buzz, which we honestly weren’t expecting. There was a lot of chatter online about us, especially regarding whether we were real or not. Mr. Holmes, the candidate, was getting asked about us at his campaign appearances. Even though he’d asked us to work for his campaign as policy analysts, it didn’t take long for him to ask us to start accompanying him as he went campaigning.
We kind of became his opening act, warming up the audience for him. Not by telling jokes, but by talking politics. But what really surprised us was how well we were received. When we walked up to the podium, people cheered and whistled. Every time, without fail. We think they were surprised, and pleased, to discover that we were in fact real. In a way, it added to Mr. Holmes’ credibility for the voters to see that he hadn’t tried to deceive anyone with AI trickery.
There was even backlash directed at us from Governor White’s re-election campaign. In one of their attack ads, they said something to the effect of, “You know Craig Holmes is desperate when he has to resort to a freak show to get attention.” Politics sure can be ugly.
We had mixed feelings about the whole situation. We never wanted to be on display because of our anatomy; we wanted to be taken seriously. But we were kind of both. People wanted to see us, but they were also listening to us as well. Fortunately, we were still doing policy analysis work for the campaign in between appearances, and that helped.
Going out in public away from the campaign trail was now surreal. We were recognized everywhere we went, and got all kinds of reactions, from smiles of recognition, to spontaneous exclamations of things like “It’s that two-headed girl from TV” and “I didn’t think you were real!”, to some very hateful things that we won’t repeat here.
What surprised us more than anything is that we’d inadvertently become the faces of the Human Rights Commission. At campaign appearances and in public, people would come up to us and pour their hearts out about how they or someone they cared about had been discriminated against or abused. Sometimes they told us they never knew there was an HRC available to help them until they saw our ad; some thanked us for the way the HRC had helped them or their loved one.
But what broke our hearts more than anything were the stories of discrimination and abuse that the HRC couldn’t do anything about, because they were outside of our mandate. Horror stories from how people were being mistreated in schools and nursing homes and mental health facilities and prisons. The HRC had no jurisdiction to address problems in those places. In some cases, there was no state agency they could appeal to other than the one running the facility and allowing those abuses to happen in the first place. These stories deeply affected us. We realized that for all the good work it did, the HRC barely scratched the surface of the problem of mistreatment of minority and disadvantaged people in our state.
We discussed this on multiple occasions with Mr. Holmes and his campaign manager. Mr. Holmes seemed to be especially moved by what we repeated to him about seemingly rampant abuse occurring in state-run facilities. He’d heard allegations of such things, but none of them had seemed credible or compelling until now. However, he was still the sitting state attorney general, so he was in a position to do something about it now, before the election.
And so Mr. Holmes, as attorney general, announced a sweeping investigation into allegations of human rights violations routinely occurring in state-run facilities as well as those receiving state funding, which covered schools and nursing homes and the like, and a complete review of whether existing laws and regulations intended to prevent such things were being properly enforced by the agencies responsible for doing so.
As the gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Holmes began speaking more about human rights issues, and promised that if elected, he would seek to significantly expand the scope and mission of the HRC. He always made the point that he’d need a sympathetic state legislature to make that happen, as the power to put a bill on his desk for his signature authorizing that was completely in their hands.
It was only after that that he spoke privately with us about our future after the election. “Lily, Rose, when we win this election, I think you need to be back at the HRC. The entire state now associates you with the HRC. That’s clearly where your passion is and probably where you can make the biggest impact.
“So, if you’re agreeable, I would like to appoint you to the commissioner slot that’ll open up in January. You’ll serve a five year term. Also, if all goes according to plan with the expansion I’m proposing, the commissioner positions would change from part-time to full-time. That won’t happen immediately, but hopefully before too long. Is this something you’d be interested in doing?”
We exchanged a glance and replied, “That’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite a while now. We’d very much like to serve as an HRC commissioner; in fact, we can’t think of anything we’d rather do. We accept!”
“Great! First, though, we still have an election to win. I can’t appoint you if I’m not elected governor,” he said as if we needed to be reminded.
Nick was extremely proud of everything we’d done to raise awareness of the threat to the HRC and support the governor’s campaign. He was almost as excited as we were when we told him that Mr. Holmes had offered us the commissioner slot and we’d accepted. Even our twins Tommy and Sandy, now three years old, had seen us on TV and bragged about it to their teachers and classmates in daycare.
Not long after that, the campaign manager approached us about shooting another commercial due to our continuing popularity and the public’s perception of us as being credible and believable. He wanted this one to be shorter and more to the point and easier to understand, but he didn’t have any specific topic in mind.
We suggested that we could talk about us being unaffiliated voters that planned to vote for the entire Democratic ticket, and our reasons why. He didn’t realize we weren’t registered Democrats. He thought about it for a minute, and asked us to come up with a draft script for him to review.
We were able to do that in a matter of a couple of hours and submitted it to him. He was amazed that we’d done it so quickly. He briefly looked it over, thought it was very good but suggested a few minor changes, which we agreed to. He got the ball in motion for us to record the video a few days after that. Here’s what we said:
Rose: Hi, it’s your favorite conjoined twins Lily and Rose once again.
Lily: We want to talk to you about the upcoming election.
Rose: It used to be that the two major political parties actually stood for something. They each took their respective positions on various issues, and voters could choose the party that most closely aligned with their personal views. You don’t need us to tell you that those days are over.
Lily: Now, the Republican Party is a personality cult. Their only reliable policy position is that they’ll support anything that Donald Trump says. They know if they don’t, their political careers are finished.
Rose: You’ve seen what’s happened to our country as Trump has careened from one crazy idea to another. All he’s done is sown chaos, shut down essential government services, made everything more expensive, taken away our freedoms, undermined the Constitution at every turn, and turned our closest friends into enemies.
Lily: As Trump’s lackeys, Roland White and other Republicans are trying to do the very same thing here in our state. We can’t let them succeed.
Rose: We’ve always been independent voters, not aligned with any political party, and we still are. We don’t like everything the Democratic party stands for, but that doesn’t matter anymore.
Lily: Democrats are our only hope to stop the Trump worshipers from completely destroying our state and country. Democrats still believe that the Constitution matters. They still believe in separation of power and checks and balances. They still believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press and all of the other freedoms we once took for granted.
Rose: That’s why we support Craig Holmes for governor along with the entire Democratic ticket.
Lily: If you’re independent like we are, or third-party, or even if you’re Republican but are shocked and dismayed at what your party has done and is trying to do, we urge you to join us and vote for Democrats down the line, regardless of whether you agree with everything they stand for.
Rose: If you love freedom and democracy like it used to be; if you want a stable and sane government, please vote Democratic in November!
Lily: Thanks for listening. See you at the polls!
The election results in our state were all that we’d hoped for. While not a landslide, it was a solid victory. Democratic challenger Craig Holmes defeated incumbent Republican Governor Roland White, 53% to 46%. Democrats gained a good number of seats in both houses of the legislature, improving their majority from a slim one to a safe one. It would seem that our dreams were about to come true.