Copyright 1996(c)
            An installment of Running for your Votes

                    THE IVORY ROLLER-COASTER

     "Button, button, who's got the button?" asked Ruby.
     "What button?" Bill Clinton glanced down at his suit coat and
back up at Ruby.
     "It's just a play on words, hon," said Ruby. "I was actually
wondering about them billing records."
     "Isn't everyone?" Bill responded.
     "You kidding? That and waitin' for O.J. to get his is all
America is living for." said Ruby. "What do you really know about
it?" she asked.
     "Shhhhhh," said Bill. He tossed her a borrowed coat and
grabbed his own, silently motioning her to follow him. He led her
outside to the rose garden. She handed him a battery-powered voice
deciminator, placing her handkerchief, wrapped around a loose fist, 
to her own lips. 
     "I'm happy for my wife to answer your questions, but I'm
afraid I can't really be of much help because I just don't have any
answers, myself," said a voice that could never have been deduced
as Bill's. It was either Daffy or Donald Duck.
     "But they were in your house," said Ruby. "Even if she ain't
Holly Homemaker, ain't she eventually gonna stumble over them if
they're in the family quarters?"
     "Hardly," said Bill, whose voice deciminator sounded more like
Donald Duck than Daffy. It was kind of cute on him.
     "Hillary's got a million things to do, from the health care
plan to the hairdresser," he said. "You can't expect her to notice
every little pile of paper everywhere, now can you? Besides, it's
a bunch of paper with another bunch of paper, and it all looks like
paper. These didn't emit a 'billing records...here we are' signal
or anything," he said.
     "You're telling me that your wife don't know where everything
is at all times?" asked Ruby.
     "In living quarters the size of a football field? Three
tiers?" he scoffed.
     "You got a point," said Ruby, who remembered living in an 8
by 40 foot trailer and sitting in the bottom of the closet
muttering 'where is it? I wouldn't buy just one shoe, no matter how
hot I thought it was'.
     "My wife is a busy woman and she wears many hats," said
Donald.
     "And lovely they are, too," said Ruby. "I particularly liked
that blue one she wore with the blue coat. I didn't think it worked
with the hair-do, though. Too Jackie'ish," Ruby judged. "I think
everybody thinks it's okay, to be fashionable. We just don't
want'cha to make it your religion, like Nancy Reagan.
     "I really liked that coat she wore to the Grand Jury," said
Ruby.
     "Trade you for this," said Clinton, motioning with the voice
deciminator. "It's kinky. I like it." 
     "No mating calls! Promise?" Ruby bargained, trying on
Hillary's black and gold coat.
     "You kiddin'?" asked Bill, disbelieving. "This is better than
a hand puppet."
     "Ah what the heck?" Ruby decided, viewing herself in the lush,
silky-lined fur of the black coat with the gold-roped cuffs and
gold back insignia on its A-line ankle-length expanse. Gold buttons
and a small gold pin at the neckline richened the coat's look. A
good Democrat-fur coat. She wondered about a purse-sized dog named
Speckles. Pedigreed, of course.
                              -30-