here goes

Heaven-sent balcony

The election is over (10 days ago to be precise).  I'm still trying to recuperate.  A nasty ear infection that started two weeks before the election has pretty much wiped me out.  The ENT doctor I saw today says the fatigue will go away once I get off the Cipro and that the plugged up feeling will be gone in another week to ten days.  That's what someone told me two weeks ago!

Anyway, even though I lost, I gave the incumbent a run for his money. Our results were less than 10% apart.  I got around 9,300 votes compared to his 11,000.

Eventually, I'll post more about my adventures from the campaign trail (probably). Since this is the Thanksgiving season, I'll try to post things I'm thankful about, sort of a countdown to the big Thanksgiving holiday, the Thanksgiving equivalent of an advent calender. 

While campaigning for city council, I got many more opportunities than usual for public speaking.  We had five candidate forums and dozens of endorsement interviews.  Many of these events offered opportunities for us candidates to make statements ranging from one minute to five minutes long.  During the first candidate forum I participated, one sponsored by a local chapter of the AARP, I did not set anyone's heart on fire with my poise and elegance.  Instead, I got half-hearted wishes of "Good luck" afterwards.  By the close of the last forum, I got a much more enthusiastic responses of "I'll vote for you!" and "I'll take a lawn sign."

I attribute my improvement to two factors.  First, I threw out the text other people wrote for me and I wrote my own. Second, I memorized my speeches.  That is to say, I had them memorized when I went to the events, but I still used notes to prompt me. (The experience of and results from the newspaper endorsement interviews warrant their own blog post.)

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak publicly again. There was nothing much at stake this time, and my purpose was not to promote myself, but the audience could have seemed a bit intimidating in its own right.  The CEO of the multinational Fortune 500 company where I work was in the audience as was a co-founder of said company, a bunch of politicos, an editor of a major newspaper, several professors, and a judge or two. 

(For once the CEO was obliged to listen to me at a meeting!  I confess I enjoyed turning the tables a bit.)

The subject matter of my speech, while not self-promoting, was quite sensitive.  I was to make a memorial speech about a boy who died nearly 10 years ago and present a plaque to his father, a well-regarded judge.

To prepare for my candidate speeches and my memorial speeches, I needed a place to practice.  Most people say, practice in the mirror.  I find that of limited usefulness at work.  To refresh my memory, the last thing I want to do is to stand in the women's bathroom and wave my arms about and practice smiling.  Creepy. 

Empty offices are also bad choices.  The walls are thin. The offices are in high demand and they all have glass panels by the doors.

Fortunately, at the building where I work, only 20 steps from my desk, is a nice, deserted second-story balcony that overlooks the parking lot and the busy intersection I see right outside my window. I went out on the balcony to practice 10 times a day on the days I had practicing to do. The traffic noise kept people in nearby cubicles and people walking through the parking lot from hearing me. The height and configuration made me feel like Eva Peron stepping out on a balcony to talk to her adoring (and in my case, imaginary) public below, a definite psychological boost.

I could step away from my desk every couple hours, run through my 2-minute speech four or five times and be back at my desk within ten minutes.

As I practiced and slaved to memorize my memorial speech yesterday, I realized just how glad I am to have access to that particular balcony. It's an ideal place to practice.

My speech went flawlessly.  The judge and I brought people to tears, I later heard.  I'm glad for that, too.

Slipping into the Groove

I know I am a half-hearted blogger, but now I have a visual to consult for proof. Dave Pollard, a loooong time ago in blogland, devised a flow chart for bloggers.  I do almost none of these things (even though I know that to "excel" at blogging, I would need to do them).  I fantacize about getting with the program and tell myself I will do them someday.

Now I'm advising others of what to do in internetland.  Teaching and advising always makes me more mindful conscientious at whatever I'm teaching, in this case, connecting better with others online.

I've just added links to activists and activist groups on my sidebar.  I've been volunteering for a group called United for a Fair Economy.  My assignment has been to collect advice about best practices for people who use the web for social change.  So far, calling experts in the field has been a fun and enlightening experience. 

David Swanson has been especially helpful.  He shared all kinds of insights with me about the current state of getting the word out there, especially about his experiences with his site, After Downing Street.

I've even used some of what I've learned for my own campaign.  Speaking of which... it's off to bed for me!  Big candidate forum tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep.

Jumbling, tumbling thoughts and a new love

The only unjumbled thought I've had lately is that I've neglected this blog a bit recently because I have a new love.  My new campaign website is up and running and I've been setting up comment capabilities, hovering over the logs to see how many hits it gets.  I think that, at this rate, by the time the election rolls around, it will have gotten more hits than my blog has in it's lifetime so far.

(To be fair, the campaign website has a built in audience and I'm sending out tens of thousands of mailers with the URL on it.)

Jumbled thought #1.  One of my campaign volunteers, the kind of volunteer that comes over to my house to help stuff envelopes and read volumes about how to report campaign contributions, just got a new job.  She had time to work with me because she was looking for work. She told me that she put a volunteer job I had given her eight years ago on her resume because it boosted her claim to have experience serving diverse groups.  She sent this resume to highly regarded institution of higher learning (she's an administrator). She subsequently got a job there.  While I'm sad to see her go from my campaign, I'm delighted something I set up years ago maybe helped someone get a job now.

Jumbled thoughts #2 and #3 (give or take). As I ate my standard "gee-I'm-under-a-lot-of-stress" supper of Ben and Jerry's Frozen Yogurt the other day, I realized that I often have one food that I associate with stressful times. These foods change over time.  For instance, when I was in fifth grade and reading Gone with the Wind during a blizzard, my mother introduced me to the joys of putting applesauce and cottage cheese in the same bowl. I ate that mix as a snack for the next year or two. In college, I ate stove-popped popcorn and drank bottles of Diet Coke for Sunday night supper without fail for a couple years.  When I was applying to grad school, I ate English muffins every morning without fail till I stopped them to go on the South Beach diet. Now, during campaigning, it is frozen yogurt. Each pint has about 800 calories.  Usually, I eat half that, or maybe three quarters. Last night was so cold, that I had to take a hot shower after eating the frozen yogurt for supper.  The impending arrival of fall, with it's cold nights, may soon force me to find a more suitable, easy comfort food.

Well, off to tend my other site.  If you want to see it, leave a comment and I'll send you an email.

First fundraiser

My first fundraiser is Saturday.  I hope it goes well.  We are scrambling to organize it even now.

Even though the restaurants who said they would donate food said they only needed a few days notice, I still feel massively anxious that I haven't picked out any food yet.

I wanted to have 100 people (the space couldn't handle that frankly), but I think I will have 60 people attend.

By this time tomorrow, I hope the food -- at least -- is all set!

Ready? Set?  Aghh!

Shocky, must drink warm, fatty milk

The shock of campaigning is quite jarring on my system.  I've developed some coping mechanisms to deal with insomnia.  For instance, I usually drink fat-free milk, but fat-free milk just does not do the trick when I drink warm milk as a home remedy for insomnia.  Lately, I've started drinking 2% and, let me tell you it doesn't last long.

Last week, I raised $3,080 for my campaign.  Not bad for an hour's worth of phone calls.  Frankly, I should have spent several hours this week making phone calls.  Did I?  No.  Instead, I worked on my questionnaires for the Sierra Club and realtor's association and labor, the local party-affiliated endorsement groups.  One aspect of the parade of candidates is the endorsement interview.  Candidates answer questions and are interviewed by groups.  All this bunches up around the two weeks or so after filing closes.  Now the requests are pouring in, except for the groups that tell me they already endorsed my opponent.

I have spent hours upon hours investigating city policy, city council actions, advocacy group position papers, poll results and newspaper reports for a wide range of issues.  (Even if I don't win, I will be one well-informed voter.)  I even threw in a get-acquainted meeting with the editor of the local newspaper.  We chatted for an hour or so, strictly off the record.  I'm sure I will miss that informality in the coming months.  However, I feel I left her with a good impression, even though she told me her paper's reporting has to "remain balanced.'

The reason I made the money calls I did was that I needed to describe how much money I've raised.  I should also have made endorsement calls, too. 

I took pictures for my mailer.

To cap off another week of campaign craziness, I had my first face-off with my opponent for political action committee endorsement.  According to everything I've read, PACs tend to favor incumbents.  This particular PAC is stacked against me.  One of the movers and shakers has contributed lots of in-kind donations (thousands of dollars) to my opponent.  It would take 5 out of 7 votes for the PAC to endorse me.  Also, the one person on the PAC I know would have put in a good word for me was conspicuously absent.  After I got home, I wondered aloud to some friends and supporters over the phone if my opponent's lackeys had tied him up and stuck him in a closet somewhere. Simple addition and subtraction give me pretty much a the same chances that Howard Stern has to be named the world's next Roman Catholic Pope.

When I got home after the meeting, I was so shocky that I left my briefcase, my purse and my keys on the front doorstep.  Fortunately, I missed these things after only half an hour or so and they were all still there when I went looking for them.  The next item on my agenda was to edit and send in my next questionnaire for my next interview next week. Today, I received two more questionnaires AND a call from a powerful PAC member who set up a phone meeting with me for money.  I would put the odds at 99% or more that he wants to tell me they already endorsed my opponent and do I really want to waste everyone's time by going through the interview process.  The answer will be "yes" because I'm masochistic and because I want people to know who I am.

If this sounds like a grind, it is.

On the plus side, some fun things happen, too.  I went to the downtown area to take pictures of me talking with business owners and shoppers.  I ran into half a dozen people I know, and asked some of them to be in my brochure photos.  They agreed and invited me to walk around their neighborhoods so they could introduce me to people.

If only the questionnaires could end, I could walk with friends, call about endorsements, call to ask for money and so on and on.

My list of things to do is so long, I don't even bother keeping a list anymore. I'm learning the art of strategic list making. For instance, each night, I should make a database of people to call.  I should spend a minimum of three hours on the phone each day.  Alas, I have job.  So calls are a problem. Too bad I can't call people after midnight. I went to bed an hour ago, but I kept running through today's futile little exercise in interviewing.

The gist of these ruminations are that I answered some questions better than my opponent and I totally choked on others (I have a chance this week to recover credibility somewhat, so I fantasize about that). I turned in my fair campaign practices pledge well ahead of time, but we all had to wait while my opponent filled his out.  We each made little digs at each other (but things were very civil over all).  I expressed my concern about the potential bias on the PAC committee (they assured me the group accounts for such bias when making decisions as a group -- yeah, right). I handed out my brochures and shook everyone's hand.

My opponent seemed giddy as we left, like I was such a lightweight he thinks he can breeze into office for a second term. He told me, as we stood on the nearest street corner in the bright California midday sun, that there are plaques in my town of all the mayors for the past 70 years (or maybe he said 30) and that he doesn't know any of them before the 9 years he's been involved. So, he said we should keep things in perspective because no matter who wins, no one will remember us in 10 years.  He told me some of his precinct walking horror stories (a favorite topic among candidates, sort of like talking about the weather, not controversial).  Frankly, I've heard worse.  His was that he almost got bit by a dog once.  I've heard of other people who have had guns pointed at them, or who show up a door at the exact moment a violent domestic dispute breaks out.

And thusly run my thoughts.

Well, maybe it's best if I warm up my milk, drink it and try to get some sleep.

Making the paper

So, I filed my papers on Monday. The next day I heard that I have been certified as a bona fide candidate. Now, no matter what, my name will be on the ballot.

(Oooo. Scary, kids.)

On Wednesday, I made the newspaper, answering rumors and accusations that have already been flying around about me.

If you want to see it the coverage, email me or leave a comment with your email address.

High and Low

Of all the emotions I feel during my campaigning, the lows seem to dominate. I feel elation sometimes, of course, but what gets to me is waking in the night when all the fear sets in. I had hoped to smooth out the ups and downs by being philosophical about it, but politics is not a lifestyle conducive to cool detachment.

For instance, last Friday, I took the day off from work because I felt I just had to spend the day making phone calls and getting organized.  It is a good thing I took it off because I got my first call from a reporter who was calling to check out a fairly lame rumor circulating about me.

I know exactly who is spreading these rumors, and frankly, I find it hard to take them seriously. Still, I'm glad the news editor who called and left a message told me exactly what the issue was.

My advisors reacted with delight and suggested several ways to respond to my advantage.  I took their advice, and my return phone call seemed to go very well. However, the article will probably come out Wednesday and I'm in a sort of first-level-of-hell limbo waiting to find out if the article will favor me. If it does, I will feel elation.

The nasty thing is that this specific fear is not at all unique. Campaigning is full of uncertainty and strategy and caring and fear and hope and there are still three months to go.

Ack! Only three months!

(See what I mean?)

It's official

I pulled papers today.  I'm officially a candidate. It took the city clerk and her assistant 2 hours to go over the contents of the 3" binder they prepared for me. I have to collect lsignatures and get my papers together as soon as possible.

I haven't been doing so well at blogging about my adventures, however, I've been having them.

For instance, last night, I took a photo with my cell phone of a local official at a moment he later found very embarassing (he was on his knees asking a prominent woman for an endorsement).  He posed.  He was aware of the photo op he presented. I took the photo.  Later, he was appalled at his own lack of care, even though  I assured him that the resolution was so low on the photo that no one (who did not witness the moment) could possibly tell it was he.

The official later offered me money for it (jokingly) as did several other people.  My cell phone became the center of an animated circle of people who had missed the moment. Thus begins my political career.

Pomegranate wine, pleasure and politics

Yesterday, had the distinctive pleasure of having some pomegranate wine.  (I can't believe I spelled pomegranate correctly on the first try! My spelling is almost never right.)  The wine was concocted in 1998 and had been "aging" peacefully in a hard-to-reach shelf over my refrigerator ever since. When the friend who brewed it and gave it to us came over, he noticed almost right away that I had it sitting out on a counter.

He told us all the bottles he had attempted to age had gone bad, so he did not hold high hopes for our lone bottle.  However, -- amazingly -- it was still good.  By "good," I mean it was not soured or spoiled.  Pomegranate wine does not have enough sugar to keep the yeast happy, so it is by nature very dry and sour.

It is not good to drink on its own, so we decided to use it in margaritas. The drinks I mixed and we enjoyed were some of the best and most unique drinks we've ever had.

I'm expecting my political campaign to be like the pomegranate wine, that is, difficult to take on its own, but quite a pleasure when mixed with other things.

To keep my sanity, I'm starting to plan fun times with friends who have absolutely nothing to do with my town or my campaign.  Sunday, I'm talking with an old college friend and taking my chiropractor to visit a coastal town she's never seen. Thursday, I'm going to see a play with another friend, a funny and controversial one.

Day by day, I'll get by, I think.

Decline to state

Even the bright California sunshine and a half an hour to spare on Friday did not entice me to drive to the Registrar of Voters office to set myself up as a newly minted Democrat. I'm still "declined to state."  I just could not bring myself to join the Democratic party.

The political consultant I interviewed yesterday expressed sympathy for my dilemma.  He happens to be a Republican who sometimes works with Democrats. He said that changing my party affiliation at this point would probably not gain me much, so why bother?  I told him of my other adviser's arguments, which he acknowledged, but attempted to counter. 

As we sat in a busy Applebees at an outlet mall on a Saturday (a really odd place to meet, I thought), we talked about our political pedigrees. He showed me brochures and I slurped down three tall Diet Cokes. Near the end, buzzed on caffeine, I confessed that my past as a McGovern supporter.  I worried about it so much on the way home, that I emailed him my credentials as a potential Republican.

I get nervous when I interview consultants, therapists, coaches, trainers, teachers or whatever.  I worry that, for one reason or another, they will decide not to work with me.  In this case, I don't know why I should be so worried. I have the names of four or five other consultants.

This particular one suited me well enough (beside the odd choice of meeting place). His optimism about the timing of my campaign helped me feel optimistic and nearly giddy on the drive home.  I even missed two turns because I was thinking such happy, dreamy thoughts.

When I called the person who referred him, I could tell my friend was having a bad day.  The mood swings have already hit me about my campaign (such as it is).  Some days, I feel invincible (well, not a lost cause) and other days, I feel I should just call everyone and say, "I've reconsidered. Sorry! Maybe next time."

The fun thing, the thing that got me excited, is that this consultant will help me get my platform and campaign organized while my opponent languishes in ignorance that I plan to run against him.  For some reason, he has gotten the impression that I am running for another seat.

I hope the calm lasts just a few more weeks while my opponent remains unaware of my impending announcements, of my stating something at last.