Sara ́s strange nightly dreams began right before meeting Mary Jo. They seemed to mirror the uncomfortable situations she faced each day. Her real dreams of becoming a writer were getting lost in the shuffle, as she coped with a murderer following her around town. How would she and Mary Jo solve this when they didn ́t really know who he was and couldn ́t prove he did it? It was unfortunate that he knew they suspected him. This is what they thought was the mystery, until the real mystery unfolded right under their noses. Chapter 1 Late one afternoon, Sara had started to feel tremendous vibrations underneath her feet. Although she realized the implications, she felt a certain calm inside. She went to find Athena. Sara waited outside the room until Athena ́s next patient came out. Then she went inside. "You noticed it too, I guess," sighed Athena. "It would be difficult to ignore the intensity." "Yes, I noticed it," replied Athena with concern. "I wonder how much longer we have left." "Not much longer I imagine," said Sara. "Do you think we...." Just then Lucas rushed in. "You must come to the solarium with me. It is urgent." They quickly followed Lucas. "What ́s going on in the solarium?" asked Athena, as she tried to keep up with him. "There is no time to explain," said Lucas. "You will see for yourself as soon as we get there," he added abruptly as they hurried down the hallway. As soon as they reached the doorway Athena and Sara knew what Lucas meant. The once beautiful sunny sky had changed to a dark and gloomy afternoon. The ocean was enraged. The treacherous waves were crashing against the shore, provoked by the powerful eruptions of the nearby volcano. The three friends knew that the disastrous end to their time on Poseidia had come. Outside they could see people running around in the streets. The water was quickly rising up over the land and everyone was scrambling to reach higher ground. It was everyone for himself, just as it had always been. Lucas, Athena, Sara and their friends sat solemnly by the great window and watched. They had done all that was possible and now had to accept their own limitations. When the island of Poseidia finally went in to the sea, many drowned. Some had fled to other areas, for there were several occurrences of destruction in Poseidia before that final one. When the time came, Athena and Sara and Lucas and the others let their spirits withdraw from their bodies and rose above it all to watch, wishing that more of the others could have joined them. They looked on as the once-beautiful island was completely, and finally, consumed by the immense and powerful ocean. The only evidence that life had ever existed here was the glowing embers of the burnt remnants of the city. This had been their home, and now floated gently upon the surface of the water. "It ́s so sad to see the demise of our own community," said Athena wistfully. "Yes," said Lucas sadly. "But we ́ve known it was coming for a long time. And we ́ll be back." Sara sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide open now. "What was that all about?" she wondered. She looked at the clock. "2 AM," Sara thought to herself. She took a deep breath and lay back down, but did not close her eyes................
This book explores the origins of Political Action Committees (PACs) in the mid-20th Century and their impact on the American party system. It argues that PACs were envisaged, from the outset, as tools for effecting ideological change in the two main parties, thus helping to foster the partisan polarization we see today. It shows how the very first PAC, created by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1943, explicitly set out to liberalize the Democratic Party, by channeling campaign resources to liberal Democrats while trying to defeat conservative Southern Democrats. This organizational model and strategy of "dynamic partisanship" subsequently diffused through the interest group world - imitated first by other labor and liberal allies in the 1940s and '50s, only to be adopted and inverted by business and conservative groups in the late 1950s and early '60s. Previously committed to the "conservative coalition" of Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, they came to embrace a more partisan approach, and created new PACs to help refashion the Republican Party into a conservative counterweight. The Rise of Political Action locates this PAC mobilization in the larger story of interest group electioneering, which went from a rare and highly controversial practice at the beginning of the 20th Century to a ubiquitous phenomenon today. It also offers a fuller picture of PACs as far more than financial vehicles, but electoral innovators who pioneered strategies and tactics that have come to pervade modern US campaigns, as well as transform the American party system"--
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