"This is completely ridiculous, the man is just another case of Illinois politics gone wrong and now he's the democratic frontrunner?!"
Olivia squared her shoulders, "He's a good story. A man who came from prostitution charges, a man who spent time in prison and now he's the governor of Illinois and running for the president of the United States. He's a success story. We need to handle this now, before his lead in the primaries gets any bigger. Restin, we can handle but Florrick? He's dangerous and he has a good team behind him, a team that got him from virtually unelectable to state governor in four years."
Fitz stood up from his chair. He had listened to Cyrus and Olivia spout tactics for an hour. It didn't matter if Cyrus thought that going to Chicago was pointless, Olivia had her heart set on it. Maybe it was because she wanted to help his campaign but Fitz suspected that the escape from D.C., the escape from him, that was also a factor.
"Go. Take your team and go to Chicago—"
"Fitz…"
"Cyrus, she's right. Getting the information now would be better than waiting for him to attack first. We can hold onto it and at least if he wins, we would have something."
Olivia smiled self-satisfactorily. "We'll leave tomorrow"
Olivia put a picture of Peter Florrick on the board and gave a summation of his background. Married at 25 to his law school sweetheart Alicia Cavanaugh. Rose to the office of State Attorney and was taken down by a colleague. Spent almost a year in prison on charges of dropping certain cases for sexual favors. Won his appeal and was reelected as State Attorney, only to rise to the governorship in January. He seemed fully forgiven by his constituency, the state of Illinois, and his family. He and his wife had renewed their vows shortly after their election. He was good, worse than that, he was smart. He had found religion after his affairs and had managed to win back his wife, despite them separating shortly after he got out of prison. This would be a tough case to crack: touching the prostitution charges would be impossible, not only because Florrick had seemed to change since the charges but because it would open up their own issues with morality, a road Olivia didn't want to head down. Both men had had infidelity issues and both seemed to have gotten their wives' forgiveness. However, while Mellie seemed to do everything for her own political gain, Alicia Florrick was a mystery. She seemed to love her husband, more than that, she didn't seem politically motivated at all. That was what worried Olivia. While Alicia and her children were constantly around in photo ops, Fitz and Mellie's eldest children were away at boarding school. Put the two head to head and Fitz may not have a criminal record but the fact that the case was retried and Florrick was set free meant that didn't matter. She had to find something else, something that would show that Florrick hadn't changed his ways.
After the briefing, Abbie spoke up. "So who's going to Chicago? We can't all go, we have the cases here that need attention."
"I'll go," Harrison offered. Olivia nodded, "Abbie and Harrison will come with me, Huck and Quinn can stay and continue to work on our cases here." Olivia thought about asking Jake to come to Chicago but knew that it wouldn't work. Things were too complicated since Vermont for Jake to go with her. Besides, she wasn't even sure where things were with Fitz so taking Jake to Vermont wouldn't exactly help things. She just needed to be away for a while; her mother was gone, her father was…her father, and Olivia just wanted a vacation. Even if it wasn't really a vacation, she needed the time away from D.C. to think about everything and to really figure things out.
"We have a flight at 8am tomorrow, and then we get to work."