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Becoming a politician had never been in Blaine Anderson’s life plan. Quite the opposite, actually. Back in high school he wanted to become a performer. He even went to college with the specific goal in mind to get a degree in the performing arts and make it big on the stage. But then, as a partial credit in his senior year, he’d taken a class on social injustices which turned out to be the grooming pool for the future generation of politicians, and his life had changed.
At first he’d thought he would never fit in because, let’s face it, he wasn’t exactly what you would call the best candidate for becoming a politician. But two weeks into the semester, they’d stumbled headfirst into the argument about the pros and cons of universal health care. Before he even knew that he had strong opinions about it, he’d piped up with the question what exactly was so wrong about not having to foreclose your house if you had the misfortune of getting cancer. His immediate opponent had looked at him like he’d grown a second head, then tried to rip into him.
Needless to say, it came as much of a surprise to Blaine as it came to the rest of the course when he countered each and every point argued, backing his points up with educated opinions and actual facts he didn’t even know he possessed. When his opponent finally ran out of arguments and started to become personal, Blaine held up his hand, stared at him and said, “And seriously, if you don’t have any other reasons going for you except the all-time favorite, ‘But we’ve always done it this way and I don’t want to change anything’, including the petulant stomping of your foot, then this debate is over.”
The eerie quiet was broken when his professor started clapping, a mischievous smile on his face, and declared Blaine the clear winner of this round of debates due to lack of productive arguments from the opposing party. And when class was over, Blaine went out of the room not only being the winner of the debate, but also with a new perspective in life.
He cared about things. He always had, but he’d always thought his passion for music and performing was his wish and the key to expressing that desire. He’d never really thought that politics could be it for him; too dry, too many snakes in the grass, too homophobic an atmosphere - the list went on and on. But the exhilaration he’d felt when he won the argument, the passion he felt at making himself heard was unparalleled to anything he’d ever felt before.
In a fit of self reflection, he decided to at least take a closer look at politics in general and see if it could be a life for him. So he volunteered at the local office of the Democratic party as much as he could. It didn’t take him long to realize that there were so many issues and topics he felt passionate about, and about which he had opinions that he wanted to be heard and acknowledged and respected. His life had definitely changed by taking that course.
Never a quitter, Blaine got his degree in the performing arts, even graduating with honors. The ink on his diploma wasn’t even dry yet when he signed up for pre-law and also took some PoliSci classes on the side. Being an alumni of the Dalton Academy certainly helped getting him into a good school; they’d always tried to groom their future leaders, after all.
It was hard, and the law side of things wasn’t exactly something he loved, but it was a means to an end to get his voice out there, and by god he wanted to be heard. If that meant sitting through course upon course in law school, and internships with self involved lawyers, he would grit his teeth and endure it.
His father, at least, was ecstatic that Blaine had finally seen reason and had given up his ridiculous dream to make it in the music industry.
But Blaine didn’t lose his passion for music and performing. He still sang once in a while, albeit in a smaller setting than before, and rarely in public. (Unless it was Karaoke night, because who could resist that?) So yes, he still made music, but most of his energies these days had found another outlet for expressing himself.
Politics, in a very loose sense, was just like performing. You had to win the crowd over within the first ten seconds or you had already lost. If Blaine was good at anything, it was charming a crowd. He’d never quite understood why people ate up whatever he said, but he always tried to be sincere and honest, and one of his professors once told him that this attitude was mostly what put people at ease and made him believable.
There weren’t many politicians around these days that were believable, much less likable.
When exactly Blaine had gotten the idea in his head to become a U.S. Senator, he really couldn’t say for sure. But after he’d made it through law school and gotten his degree, had joined and worked at the local chapter of the Democratic Party in Columbus during university and did some internships with one of the two acting Ohio State Senators right after he graduated, he knew - just knew - that this was his calling. He wanted to make a difference, and where else could he do that better than in the U.S. Senate?
So when he turned thirty, one year before the next seat became available in the senate, Blaine called up his old school friends David and Wes and asked them to be part of his campaign. Wes, having a major in business management, and David who’d gone into social studies and had worked as a social worker for the last five years, readily came on board.
And against all odds, they made it. They did the campaigning, did the fundraisers, organized speeches, and got Blaine’s message out there: the message of equality, and the right to choose, and that you did not have the right to do whatever you wanted if you had a certain amount of yearly income. In short: basically every message Republicans hated and even some Democrats these days wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
And it got him elected. Of all the surprising, craziest things that had ever happened to him, his agenda got him elected.
“People want to see change,” David had screamed into his ear while hugging the living shit out of him as soon as they’d heard the news. “And who better to present them than a charming, sincere, openly gay guy like you?”
Blaine could only laughed and hugged David back just as hard.
So Blaine did it. His life goals may not have included becoming one of the youngest, openly gay U.S. Senators in the history of the country, but he sure as hell wouldn’t complain. He actually loved what he was doing, and charming the crowd with his words instead of his voice wasn’t that bad of a trade. In the end he got what he’d wanted all along: changing the lives of so many people with what he did, and so god was willing, making them happy while doing it.
And if he cranked up the music in his office real loud sometimes and danced his way over furniture, belting out the lyrics to whatever pop song had captured him in its allure, nobody needed to know.