Respected in his community of Paris, Texas as a faith leader, Jim Balmer had first decided to run for office out of a desire to ensure that Christian and family values continued to be represented in his community. Running on a platform of 'Faith and Family First', Jim comfortably won election to the town council and during his tenure played an important role in getting various laws passed, his proudest being the law that barred girls at school from wearing skirts that ended above the knee. His work got the attention of state party officials, who approached him with the idea of running him as a primary opponent against a member of the state senate who was considered not conservative enough. Jim declined the offer, saying that he had his hands full with his council work, raising his family and running his ministry.

Jim genuinely had no ambitions of a political career, that is until he arrived at his office one morning and found an unmarked envelope on his desk. Inside the envelope was a DVD and directions to a meeting place. Jim locked the door to his office and inserted the DVD into his computer. There was one file on the DVD, a video recording of Jim having sex with his family's maid Consuela in the basement of their home. The recording, were it ever to come out, would mean the end of everything for Jim. In addition to being unapologetically pro-faith and family, the issue of how to deal with illegal immigrants in their town had become a key issue for him. He was being blackmailed and decided that he was just going to give whatever the person that had sent him the video wanted and put the whole episode behind him, he had come too far to have all that he had worked for taken away from him because of a careless indiscretion. Granted, he and Consuela had been sleeping together for five years and in all of that time he had been secretly garnishing her wages, but he had always felt guilty about it and had, from the first time it had happened, wanted to put a stop to it, he just couldn't bring himself to do it because the truth was that he had fallen in love with the woman. She embodied more fully the family values that he preached about with her willingness to do whatever she had to do for her family than his materialistic wife and children did. And her body was nothing but curves. And the sex was amazing. Paying Consuela for sex wasn't something that they had agreed on. Consuela told him about how she worked three jobs to support her four children and Jim felt so bad for her that he felt compelled to help her so that she could spend more time with her children. Consuela was so grateful to Jim that the next time they were alone in the house together she snuck up behind him and put her hand down the front of his pants, and thus their affair had begun.

Jim removed the DVD from his PC and immediately got in his car and set off for the meeting place that was in the letter. The location was an empty parking lot behind a storage facility downtown. When he arrived and saw nobody there, Jim thought that somebody was playing him for a fool. He stood around in the parking lot waiting, completely alone except for a black bird that was perched on a dumpster and staring at him curiously. As he waited he grew more and more agitated by the bird staring at him until he couldn't take it anymore.

"What are you staring at?" He marched over to the bird and asked irrationally.

"Why, you of course."

Jim fell to the floor upon hearing words exiting the birds beak. A black bird that could talk could only be the work of the devil, sent to him as punishment for his affair with Consuela.

"What the hell are you?"

"I am an agent of change, Mr. Balmer, and I am here to present you with an opportunity."

"I have no interest in making a deal with the devil."

"I can assure you, Mr. Balmer, I am not quite as well connected as that. I've come here to discuss a small political matter, that is all."

"What interest do you have in political matters?"

"All in due time, Mr. Balmer. For now I have come simply to give you a message: You are to run in the primary election for the state senate seat, and if you do your indiscretion with your housekeeper won't become public knowledge."

"This is blackmail!"

"Yes, but as you'll soon discover, in pursuit of my goals there are no tools that I am not prepared to utilize."

Jim Balmer ran for the Texas state senate and was elected in a landslide, defeating his Democratic opponent by a margin of 83%-17%. Two years later he ran for congress and won handily, and now he was the prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination for president. Despite his initial reluctance to become a professional politician, Jim Balmer was enjoying life on the campaign trail. He enjoyed meeting everyday Americans and listening to their struggles and being able to offer them the promise of hope. He was especially moved by the stories of the economically disaffected. He could see no other explanation for the agricultural crisis in the country other than that it was a divine plague, and the more he traveled the country the more people he encountered who shared his belief and the more convinced he became that he was right. He took to the stage at his rallies with the utter conviction that his words were rallying the spirits of those who received them with an irrepressible resolve to reclaim the American dream, and it was no different that afternoon in Erie, Pennsylvania.

"My fellow Americans, you are all here because you recognize the same thing that I do: our country is facing divine retribution! Just like when God punished the Egyptians with the Ten Plagues for disobeying him, so too have we been made to suffer the Lord's wrath for our failure to remain true to his word! We have invited this wrath upon ourselves, the plague that has destroyed our farmlands is the divine punishment that we have been selected to suffer because of our tolerance of homosexuality, of pornography, of abortion, of divorce, of sex before marriage and any number of other sins that I could name! The path forward that we need to take is clear: we need to demonstrate to the Lord that he can once again look upon us as his faithful disciples by returning morals and values to our government and our society! Vote for me and for every Republican candidate down ballot and we will outlaw homosexuality and the murdering of unborn children and every other sin that we have been guilty of! When we do that our country will be cleansed and I guarantee you that the Lord will forgive us and lift this plague and our farmers will once again be able to do the work of feeding America and the world!"

He went on for another half an hour, hitting on the theme of divine punishment over and over again. Robert stood in the audience at Jim Balmer's rally and could feel the energy radiating from the people around him. These people believed wholeheartedly that their salvation rested in the hands of Jim Balmer. Looking around him, Robert could see that Jim Balmer was no whack job, he was the real deal, and for the first time since the election began, Robert thought that he was looking at the next president of the United States.