towards Mary to soften her up, but she holds her ground. The two combatants are attracted to each other though. They spend a lot of time together while Rip secretly gathers information for his survey. One of Rip's colleagues warns him that he is becoming too involved in the subject he is supposed to be studying, but Rip is blinded by his attraction to Mary. Rip starts coaching the school basketball team, and attends a school dance where he meets Mary's family. When Rip later slips away to talk to his client over the phone, Mary follows him, eavesdrops on the conversation, and finds out the truth about Rip being in town. Angered by his deceit, she publishes the story in the newspaper the next day. A larger nationwide paper picks up the story, and soon the town is crawling with reporters. The town is called "the public opinion capital of the U.S." and its inhabitants start selling their views on consumer products on every street corner. The city council start making bold plans to expand the town, and both Rip and Mary feel ashamed of what they have done to change the town structure. Rip leaves Grandview and Mary and returns home. Soon enough a strange poll from Grandview says Americans would want a female president. The town is ridiculed in the press and the expansion plans get an abrupt ending. But Rip cannot forget Mary, and he returns to Grandview to reveal his true feelings. Mary admits she has feelings for him too, but also tells Rip that they have to fix the mess they have caused in Grandview before they can start a relationship. Rip starts by talking to a Grandview U.S. Senator Wilton (George Irving), to get help from him raising money to save the town. They display their plan in front of the city council, but the lead council member, Richard Nickleby, is negative. Upset, Rip tells Nickleby that he is "walking out on the team". Later, Rip learns from Nickleby's son Hank (Mickey Kuhn) that his father already has sold land where the main expansion would take place to a company. To stop this, Rip manages to publish parts of the council speech a few weeks earlier, where it said that they would expand the town "with their own hands". A lot of inhabitants who read the article start demanding that the city council