In Search of the Next POTUS: One Woman’s Quest to Fix Washington
By Judy Frankel
In this raw memoir, Judy Frankel walks away from her 15-year marriage without a career to fall back on. Worried that she will literally “lose the farm”—her house and organic edible landscape in southern California—she bets her savings on an extraordinary venture. As a master gardener and mother of a special needs child, Judy knows little about politics yet she decides to fulfill her most urgent needs and those of other Americans by taking on the biggest disaster of all: the U.S. government.
Believing that bribery is the root cause for what’s wrong with Congress, she develops a strategy to convince voters to choose new representatives who won’t accept big money. Judy designs an ambitious political website, moderates Presidential debates among outlier candidates, produces an infomercial, and hosts a fundraiser, all with a small staff of colorful independent contractors and capricious volunteers.
Despite her fear of the limelight, she thrusts herself into the world of venture capitalists, wealthy philanthropists, the entertainment industry, the media, candidates for federal office, and finally into activism to fix Congress.
Weaving fantasies and prophetic visions with facts and current events, Judy uses earthy wisdom to shatter complex boondoggles. When the challenges seem overwhelming and her personal demons come back to roost, the garden and its gifts ground her, providing a path for redemption.
Never forgetting the size and scope of the United States political machine, Judy charts a six-point plan to modernize Washington so that it functions as a true government of the people. Her dogged determination and positive approach toward addressing the world’s problems of war, economic peril, and corruption aspires to rally the (mostly) silent majority to rise up and take back the White House.