Emilia knew that the current president of Oriana used to be extremely popular, and to say that some people would refuse to vote for anyone but him wouldn’t be an understatement.
After all, to be able to bring an impoverished country to the state it was in today was no small feat, even if there were many things that were far from ideal.
That being said, the number of these ‘fiercely loyal’ voters wasn’t actually that high, and although they voiced their support the loudest, Emilia didn’t feel the need to take them into consideration at all.
After looking into the situation carefully, the crimson-haired girl felt that it was actually a combination of multiple factors that led to the president being able to maintain the status quo for so long.
With the scale already being at the tipping point, pushing it completely over wouldn’t be difficult at all.
”I’m aware that your popularity right now is nowhere close to the president’s, even in the state he’s in now, but that’s fine. As long as you’re willing to side with us, the White Deer will help you with public relations, in more ways than one.”
Of course, if he refused to cooperate, he was far from being their only option.
Mr. Fionn had intended to initially prove himself as a minister of finance in this term, and make his real move in the next election. But now that he received such an offer, he couldn’t help but frown.
Was it worth risking his whole career this time, or should he lay in wait longer, and strike at the right time?
The second option was definitely better, but only if all the other conditions were the same. But with the White Deer’s stance… that clearly wasn’t the case at all.
Many people in Oriana’s older generation still remembered how desperate their lives used to be before the White Deer and Black Tiger truly rose to prominence, and their biases went without saying.
The amount of control these two had over the population couldn’t be underestimated. Almost every second or third household had an employee that worked in one of the two corporations, after all.
Their tacit support for this government was just enough to offset its decline in popularity before, but things clearly weren’t so simple now.
With the Black Tiger and White Deer’s rapidly intensifying conflict, and the government’s untimely interference… the pot was clearly about to boil over, and the only thing that remained to be seen was who it would end up burning the most.
The Black Tiger had already switched to openly supporting the government, but their corporation was already in decline. And there was no way that the White Deer would just allow itself to be suppressed just like this.
Their intention to support a candidate was already clear from Emilia’s words, and Mr. Fionn realized that this was a golden ticket that he couldn’t afford to miss at all.
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The disaster of the third day’s broadcast made many competitors gloat, as Prancing Media’s viewership dropped to almost ten percent of what it was on the first day of the event’s broadcast.
While it still couldn’t be considered abysmally low, for the fortune they had poured into marketing the whole thing, it was still a joke.
Some people even tried to use this opportunity to reach out to the White Deer’s headquarters and offer their ‘expertise’, blaming Prancing Media’s executives for ‘not handling marketing properly’ and ‘being insensitive to the audience’.
Even though they never made any comments about Emilia, it was still enough to put Noelle in a bad mood. After all, even if it was all done on Emilia’s orders, on paper, she was the one calling the shots.
Weren’t these people scolding her while trying to pander to her at the same time?
She thought that Emilia had to be one of the cheekiest girls in the universe, but these people clearly took shamelessness to a whole another level!
Gritting her teeth angrily, the gray-haired beauty spent the next ten minutes setting up call diversion rules for all the media executives who had her direct line. “Wasn’t one of those cultists in the external relations department? I’ll just let her handle these fools from now on.”
Who knows, maybe she could even brainwash the negative bias they had for Emilia because of their jealousy towards Prancing Media’s success.
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Fortunately, the activities after the debate were much more suitable for the small screen, and Prancing Media’s viewership slowly climbed back up to almost half of its peak within two days.
In fact, there was a clear pattern that the channel executives had wanted to exploit, but Noelle didn’t intend to let them do so.
Every time Emilia showed up, their viewership would climb, and if she was absent from the screen for too long, it would start to drop.
Noelle wasn’t sure if it was just her appearance or the girl’s charisma that had won so many people over, but she still felt it was better to not overdo things.
What they needed now was not just hype for Emilia’s beauty, but a well-rounded appreciation of her character. In that case, showing her face too much would actually be counterproductive.
Noelle had even recommended that Emilia try to use some makeup to change her appearance just a little, so that it wouldn’t overshadow her character and personality in the viewer’s mind, but the girl was simply too prideful.
”As long as they’re willing to listen to me and let me help them, I’ll be able to prove my character and ability sooner or later. There’s no need to complicate things by masking myself.”
Noelle still believed it a little, at first, until she inadvertently mentioned it in the group chat to see if anyone ‘more eloquent’ could help her convince the stubborn little beauty.
Knight-Lady (Dixie): Wait, why would you want to convince the princess to look less pretty? Isn’t that… impossible?
The gray-haired girl couldn’t help but blink after looking at her statement, not sure if this ‘impossible’ was referring to ‘being able to convince Emilia’ or ‘making her look less appealing’.
With this girl’s brain circuit… it was probably the latter, and Noelle felt more depressed the more she thought about it. ‘Does Emilia have some IQ reducing aura around her, or does she just naturally attract idiots?!’
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