Wallace enters Si's spacious office, only to find his boss lying half-naked on his stomach. Startled, Benton does a double take -- could it be Tuesday already? But then a buxom blonde appears to massage Si's back, and Wallace's trouser-peril is no more. "I had a disturbing telephone call," Si says. "It seems Minton has considerable political potential." Si doesn't want a Democrat in office, and asks Wallace to find the skeletons in Minton's closet. Wallace posits that perhaps Minton is clean. "Come on, you're telling me there's a politician who doesn't have an intern with a blue dress festooned with spunk?" Si grins. He asks Benton to find the stained blue dress, and as Benton is about to shout out that Brooke was wearing it last week and that the Beekman masseuse might have it on an hour from now, Si specifies that the soiled cloth had better be hanging in Minton's closet. Which could mean it belongs to Nikki. And now, a reading from the Tao of Si: "If he was a Republican candidate, you'd all be bounding up and down with glee like a bunch of monks in a whorehouse." Amen. Wallace says Nikki will escort him to the soirée in Minton's honor, at which he'll make up his own mind about the man. Si grunts, as he's wont to do.

As an enraptured crowd swirls around him, Minton addresses his supporters. He's a tall guy, bald on top with brown hair and a beard -- he could be the strapping younger brother of Toby on The West Wing. Minton confesses he's never held public office, nor harbored any particular political ambitions. "I don't know double-talk, and I'm too old to learn a new language," Minton says. "So if you ever see me dodge a question or act like a politician in any way, slap me around with a sea bass or something." Nikki watches, drooling, while Wallace hugs a pole and laments his lack of sea bass, then wonders if his own private salmon could do the trick. The crowd claps enthusiastically for Minton and shouts things like "Terrific" and "Yay." Minton blazes a trail to Wallace and shakes the reporter's hand, commending him on an "excellent piece about the stripers coming back to Harlem River." Wallace commends Danny's suck-up skills, which is a natural catalyst for turning the conversation toward Nikki Masucci, object of lust. Devouring her with his eyes and shaking her hand, Danny asks Nikki whether she got his message and wants to go out Friday night. She's shocked; apparently, he left it on her home machine. There's a long pause while the two of them mentally undress each other and Minton fingers Nikki's trembling palm. Nikki has three mental orgasms. Wallace jealously hisses that Nikki should drop his hand. "Oh, I'm just learning how to press the flesh," Minton says, kissing Nikki's hand despite her obvious interest in offering a few different square-inches of flesh on which to practice. Right on cue, orgasm number four comes and goes. Nikki slinks away.