JILL SMITH (30's) is a small town librarian with big dreams, mostly about visiting France. But for some reason she never made it there. She's bored with small town life and only has one real friend, DEE JOHNSON, who tells Jill she's moving out of state. Jill's devastated at the news.

Jill's a member of the Rosedale town council and gets 'volunteered' by Mayor DAVE "Smilin' Dave" HOGAN to chaperone a class trip to the Reagan Library. The bus ride and visit to the museum is a mad house of out-of-control teenagers, a food fight, and sex in the back of the bus. Jill's frustrated beyond all hope. She sits near the tomb of Ronald Reagan and appeals to God for help. An apparition of Ronald Reagan appears and talks to her. She's in disbelief, convinced it's an illusion. She gets back on the bus.

Shortly after the trip the Mayor visits her at her work. He demands that she resign from the Council so he can appoint his nephew, and would then have the deciding vote for a new highway that seemingly goes to nowhere. Jill refuses, the Mayor then blackmails her with photoshopped pics of her in "compromising" positions. She's forced to resign. Later on, Jill's at home watching news of a terrorist attack on her beloved Paris. She's at the end of the line and calls on the former president for help. He appears and she explains how she was blackmailed to quit the council. He convinces her that the only way to change things would be for her to run for office and offers to mentor her to run for mayor, with sights set, perhaps, for national office.

Thus Jill begins her journey to beat the Hogan in the upcoming election. First she gets a total make-over, contacts, a new hair style, new clothes, and even gets a catchy new name: J. C. Smith. Reagan coaches her on how to speak in public, the basics of economics, international relations. Jill gains confidence, morphs into a decisive, outspoken candidate. But her talking with an unseen 'person' she calls "Dutch" gets the attention of the Mayor's henchman, BIGSEY Dalton. Bigsey's not too bright, and he tells the Mayor she's got a high profile boyfriend, maybe even connected to the Mob. The Mayor has Bigsey follow her, but Jill discovers she's being followed and sets a trap for Bigsey outside a local bar. She follows him, and when he leaves the bar she forces his car off the road. She confronts him, he's drunk, and has prior DUIs. She threatens to turn him in to the police unless he signs a confession about her being extorted by the Mayor. He agrees, signs the confession, and passes out. Jill calls the police and reports him anyway. Two weeks later the Mayor's indicted for extortion and sexploitation of a public official and thrown out of office. Later, Jill gives an inspirational speech to the local Woman's Club. She impresses the women who head the party and they offer her the position of Acting Mayor. She accepts and Dutch coaches her on how to run a political campaign. Dee agrees to be her campaign manager.

One day Jill gets a call from an aide to a senator who offers to help her campaign and suggests she meet him at his local office. She goes to her car and is attacked by Bigsey! It was a set-up by someone higher up than the Mayor. She fends off Bigsey, he accidently shoots himself. The publicity only enhances her image and her campaign is going well. Soon after the attack she gets another phone call from a guy, JERRY "JER" JENKINS, who also claims to be an aide to a senator. Not to be fooled twice, Jill and Dee Google Jer and discover that he's legit, and they meet with him. He explains that he knows why Hogan wants that road Jill was opposed to funding: the land that the road would have accessed is owned by Hogan and a criminal consortium. Beneath part of it is a humongous deposit of a lithium bearing ore, pegamite, worth billions of dollars. It's also underneath land owned by the town, so Jer has plan to help Jill get elected so she can vote against the road and get the land for the town. Meanwhile Jer is having an updated mineral survey done to confirm the boundaries of the pegamite. While this is going on Hogan, who's out on bail, plants a fake news story about Jill harboring an illegal alien housekeeper who's overstayed her visa. This news puts Jill's campaign in jeopardy so they devise a plan to combat the fake news.

Jill and Dee have a meeting with Hogan. They propose a scheme where Jill will vote FOR the road if Hogan signs a document stating that the housekeeper story is fake, that he agrees to build a sports stadium for the town, and gives Jill and Dee a 10% kick-back on the lithium, to be deposited in a bank in Eastern Europe. Hogan readily agrees, but unbeknownst to him Jer planted a hidden microphone in the meeting room. Everything he agreed to was recorded. When Hogan leaves the meeting he's arrested by the FBI for various bribery, fraud, and conspiracy crimes . Hogan takes a plea deal and flips on his co-conspirators, revealing that a sitting senator is in on the bogus land deal. The senator's arrested and resigns.

Jill wins the election and become Mayor. Later on Jer visits Jill and tells her that there's a problem with the pegamite survey. It seems that the original survey was wrong.
When the geologist wrote the report he was stone drunk and put RoseDALE on the survey instead of the correct town, RoseVALE. So, they were looking in the wrong place! The actual pegamite is under state land and the grateful governor is going to build the sports stadium for the town.

One day Mayor Jill 's at work and gets a call from the governor. She was so impressed with how Jill handled the pegamite matter she wants Jill to fill the seat of the disgraced senator. Jill accepts, and asks Dee to be her chief of staff. Dee says she didn't want to move away and accepts offer. Jill leaves for a lunch date with Jer, and on the way out she sees Dutch by the door. She high fives him on the way out with the usual result.