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Mercy Alexander is stepping out. To trod on Brenda’s toes. No more Ms Nice Gal, she has picked up the cudgel, and on it is written, Education. She has grabbed Brenda’s original topic and to make matters worse, added her new one.

Why, she asks, are the Democrats so hot for choice when it comes to abortion, and so cold when it comes to school choice? Could it be that the Democrats don’t really care about children?

In a long, curvy dress covered with flowers, under a cone studded with black-eyed-susans, she is at a garden club on a famous old estate. It doesn’t matter where she is, the cameras are there, if only to record her fashion statement of the day. Rarely do her words air, but today they do, because it has been promised that there will be a dignitary present, and the press needs some words to go with the face.

Our local Democrats know this is happening. They have not been invited and wouldn’t have gone – the parties must show disdain for each other. Neither have they headed to Mitch’s. This one they endure in the bosoms of their own families.

The Shapiros are having a late dinner in front of the telly, to the tune of the evening news.

They sit through cuts of Obama. He is backing away from the educational propaganda package slated to go with the Tuesday speech to a joint session of congress and the schoolchildren of America. There is no intent to establish a presidential cult following, only to encourage our kids to work hard and stay in school.

Then the cone-head flashes on, and Mercy is saying, “Black children can’t get a break. Even with a black man in the oval office, they’re still sitting in the back of the educational bus. They are not allowed to escape the past. If they live in bad neighborhoods, they must stay in bad schools. If they’re in bad schools, they can’t move up.

“Come on, America, heed their cry. Let my people go. Let them go to the schools that make presidents, not penny-ante criminals. Don’t hold their parents’ lack of funds against them. It takes no more tax-payer money to send a child to a private school than it does to send him to a public school. The only difference is that union teachers get the money if the kids go to public school, and they don’t get it if they go to private school.

“That’s it, ladies. The teachers unions that claim to care for the child won’t let him get a decent education because they want those union dues. They want the public school to be as big as possible so their revenue is as big as possible, and their power is as big as possible. In exchange for this, teachers deliver the federal message – think Dem.

“I’m here to try to try to buy your votes and give them to the next generation so they can walk away from their overcrowded, crumbling, stuck-in-the-past institutions, and come out into the bright white world. Let’s get these kids an education!”

The crowd erupts in loud applause.

Brenda groans. “She’s stealing my themes and twisting them around.”

“Then twist back,” Jason advises. “Don’t let her get away with it.”

But as we already know, deep down in Brenda’s heart, she agrees with Mercy. She teaches in a good public school, but she knows what the other ones are like. Her student teachers tell her. Parents with relatives in other districts tell her. Even the media tells her when they can’t help themselves.

But the word has come down from on high that she is against vouchers, which would allow the children to escape. The most she can support is charter schools, because they’re part of the public system. Same guys setting up shop in a different building, and sometimes, not even that. Sometimes right under the nose, and therefore under the thumb, of the public system.

The cameras have been panning back and forth between Mercy and a man whose face is hidden by the hood of a sweatshirt.

“A friend of mine is here today, to talk to you about something near to his heart. My dear, will you please join me up here?”

The man in the hood stands, a bit bulkily, and creaks his way out of his row. When he hits the aisle, he straightens and, almost jauntily, makes his way to the stairs and up onto the stage. He turns and faces the audience and, his mouth slightly open, his eyes laughing, pushes down the hood.

In his dark loafers and college sweat suit, he stand up there twinkling his innocent little sweet-boy smile. The audience goes crazy.

“Oh, no!” Brenda is up on her feet. “No. No. No.”

“What’s the matter Mommy?” Zeke asks.

“It’s not fair. Not FAIR!”

“Who is that man, Mommy? Why are they yelling?”

“It’s Bill Cosby, you fool,” Sheba says. “Don’t you know anything?”

“Who’s that?”

“A very famous person, honey,” his mother says.

Yes, indeed, it’s America’s black darling – of the previous generation. The Black generation, not the African American generation. Actually, Bill Cosby came of age in the Negro generation, but we don’t talk about that anymore.

He’s grizzled, but game.

The lips curl in a naughty curve. “I’m usually speaking to men,” he says. “Not nearly so pleasant.”

The ladies titter.

“I’m usually bawling them out. About being bad daddies. Now, I look around at this crowd; I know there are no bad daddies here. No daddies of any kind. It’s a pity that the poppas don’t take to flowers the way the mommas do. Gardens keep people at home.

“But I’m not here to yell at anybody today. I’m here to tell you pretty ladies you’re doing a fine job, and I want you to keep it up. Keep on raggin’ those men. Make ’em take out the de garbage, keep de lawn mowed. It’s good for them. Good for their souls.

“My message isn’t about men, or women, it’s about people. It’s about persons. It’s about personal responsibility. That means more than keeping your hair combed and your nails in polish.” He smiles. It warms the cockles of their hearts.

“It means taking care of your portion of the world. Now I don’t see too many black ladies here – a few, but not many. And maybe that’s because not many black people have a portion of the world.

“Black people have settled for something else. Being taken care of by the government. How different is that from being taken care of by the plantation owner?

“Black people have to get over the notion they’ve got a free ride. They’ve got to take their place in society. Take personal responsibility for the feeding, the clothing and the sheltering of themselves and their children.

“So why am I bothering you about it? You made your donation to the NAACP. You voted for Obama. You gave the black man a leg up. Well, ladies, now you’ve got to give him something to stand on.

“An education. An education like you had. Like your own kids had. An education that leads to where your kids are going.

“Personal responsibility goes further than taking care of your family. And here’s why. The outside world affects you, affects your family.

“I know you ladies are Democrats. You’re here because the Republicans are the ones who own the big estates, who give jobs to gardeners, who grow beautiful flowers. Liberal ladies love flowers, and I love liberal ladies. Because they not only have hearts, they have heads. It’s time to vote for somebody who wants the same things you do, and is going to try to get them for you.

“My friend Mercy believes all God’s children should have the same opportunities. After that, it’s up to them. She wants them to be able to pick the school that will help them become the best that they can be. If they say that’s public school, so be it. But if they say it’s not, I repeat what this fine lady said, ‘Let my people go.’”

At first there is silence. Have they been reprimanded? Is this just the other end of the stick he’s using to beat up on black men?

But he’s still standing there, beaming out at them, his cheeks puffed with affection for his audience. This is Bill Cosby, who used to tell jokes about his family. They were always funny, never mean.

They remember Fat Albert. The applause starts low, undecided. Then it bursts from the women – a high, clacking clapping of little hands.

These are the women who Brenda counted as her sure votes. Women with gardens who go to garden clubs. Women who want to preserve the environment, who eat organic food, who send their children to the best schools. Women who take personal responsibility. They’re giving a standing ovation to a man they love, who is telling them to vote for the other candidate.