Talk:Stacia Apelbaum

Fun fact one: Very loosely based on Anne Coulter, who, I am sure, is the favorite person of almost everyone in this story.

• You realize that only adds fuel to my theory that Kenny = Dubya. --Xstryker 19:19, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Fun fact two: The congressman I briefly worked for was named Applebaum. I named this character before meeting him, though. --Celiose 18:58, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Kenny is actually more closely based on Lyndon Johnson. Both have records as savvy legislators but struggle in the executive branch; both have massive domestic policy dreams cut short by their needs to deal with foreign affairs, a realm they have little taste and aptitude for; both struggle with extreme depression; both have to wrestle with the light of better-loved predecessors. And Dubya had only been President for a year when I wrote Pebble in the Sky (11/01), which marked the beginning of Kenny as a main character. To say nothing of the fact that Kenny's politics are probably closer to Johnson's at any rate. I have a bit of a hard time buying this Kenny-Dubya theory.

I concede, however, that the foreign policy struggle in his administration is similiar to that that took place in Bush 43's in the lead-up to Iraq, except the positions are reversed: the doves are the majority, and hawkish Mountbatten plays the Colin Powell role of odd man out.

While we're on the subject, I conceived of the character of Grover Steuber after reading George Stephanapolous's "All Too Human". (Like Dick Morris, Steuber worked for both political parties). Steuber was inspired by his account of Dick Morris. The fact that he could just as easily be seen as Karl Rove shows the durability of the amoral poster as a villainous archetype in democratic societies. --Celiose 22:26, 5 September 2006 (CDT)