I wrote here about searching for, and finding, a candidate for the state legislature:
He’s a Steelworker. He’s been married 32 years and has 4 children. He spent 2 years in the military. He worked 2nd shift his whole life, and only became politically active with the Steelworkers in 2002
I met with the candidate the day after Christmas at the law office and he chose a name for his fundraising committee, appointed a treasurer, and submitted his initial campaign finance statement. The first one was simple because it’s a waiver: he doesn’t have any campaign funds. We are relying on the Ohio Campaign Finance Handbook, which is (surprisingly!) easy to use as a reference. It even has pictures: picture of candidate at a podium, picture of stacks of cash and scattered coins, (true), picture of a calculator. Looking at the pictures we need: a guy in a suit, a big stack of cash, and a 1980’s calculator.
In our two prevous conversations he had mentioned “skeletons in the closet” so I asked him about that. Turns out “the skeletons” are a single minor misdemeanor “no contest” plea in 1989.
In my work, I have noticed that people who have a complicated past or youthful indiscretions often don’t have an accurate or rational view of the relevance or importance of those incidents. They seem to go to extremes. They either dismiss fairly serious incidents and behavior completely, or get down on their knees and beg forgiveness for minor infractions.
John takes the second approach, so I told him in my opinion he does not have to start every speech or campaign event with a full, tearful confession complete with vows to never, ever veer from the straight and narrow again. If it comes up – and I’m sure it will because everyone but me apparently already knew about it – he should just cop to what was momentary stupidity and move on.
Working in this office, and in this profession, I sometimes think half the ordinary people in this county are walking around feeling like criminals, which is interesting, because many of the most successful and celebrated people in this country don’t seem to feel they have any moral or ethical duty at all.
I had some names of local people he might want to contact or meet with, and I was pleased that he knows, or knows of, all of the names I mentioned, in that tangential way that one “knows” people: “my son’s wife works with her.” Like that. I love to talk politics, so I also had some (perhaps unwelcome) suggestions for what he might talk about in his campaign, but it turns out he has has very firm ideas of his own and his are cleaner and less complicated than mine. The first time I spoke with him he told me he wasn’t a Republican anymore because “trickle down doesn’t work” and that’s what he’s going to talk about. Sounds good to me.
His is a long shot candidacy. This is an overwhelmingly Republican district and the incumbent is a practiced pol. A culture warrior. A person who sponsored a bill last session regarding Lake Erie that was so environmentally unsound, so clearly the work of business interest lobbyists, that a former Republican Governor and US Senator testified that the bill should be vetoed by the current Governor, and it was. It’s got to be pretty bad for Kasich to veto it. This law would have both violated an agreement with Canada and destroyed Lake Erie. So we have the worst of conservatism: a guy who screams really loud about issues like ABORTION to cover the fact that he’s busy selling public assets like Lake Erie. But for the intervention of two GOP heavy-hitters, a former Senator and a former Governor, he might have succeeded.
Before he left I told John he’s already better at this than the current Governor of Texas and a certain former (disgraced, granted, but still) member of the US House, because John submitted his ballot-qualifying signatures on time. Compared to Leroy “Newt” Gingrich and Rick Perry that makes him a model of campaign professionalism his first time out.
redshirt
Wonderful post Kay. I hope more “real” people get involved in politics. If it’s all become a reality show, let’s enter some good contestants.
Scuffletuffle
Best of luck to you both. If I ever have disposable income again, I’ll send some his way.
WereBear (itouch)
Reformed Republcan? That’s powerful.
As a lifelong Dem, I don’t understand the visceral pull of “I want a sane Republican to vote for!” But I’m all about what works.
REN
I hope he can make headway, we need him and others like him.
A story out of Wis today I haven’t seen get much coverage. Yesterday the Walker admin announced they were removing the cap on a medicaid program called Family care designed to keep elderly and disabled out of nursing homes and other long term care facilities. Gov announced he had found efficiencies allowing the cap to be lifted.
Sounded very suspicious to me.
Today it came out that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had ordered him to remove the cap in a letter two weeks ago.
That’s Walker, even trying to take credit for something he was forced to do. Typical.
Mnemosyne
And this is why I got so very pissed off at a commenter in another thread who decided to post some “voting is stupid” bullshit from George Carlin. You and a lot of other people are working your asses off to try and improve things, but apparently it can all be hand-waved away with a snarky Carlin routine and I just need to get a sense of humor and admit that voting doesn’t matter.
Feh.
Ken
Turns out “the skeletons” are a single minor misdemeanor “no contest” plea in 1989.
That won’t do at all. He’s running for Congress, for heaven’s sake. Have him put down graft and sexual deviancy.
(Stolen from Blackadder of course. Wishing you every success.)
kay
Mnem, you know, it’s fine.
He wants to do this. All I did was help him w/ OH forms, and campaign forms look like all other OH forms, thank God.
He’s excited about it.
Elizabelle
Look forward to hearing how John does. Rooting for him.
jl
Congratulations to your district on finding a good candidate.
Who cares if he used to be a Republican? Does he talk the talk and walk the walk now is the issue. What guarantee is a Dem pedigree, either hereditary and/or personally (for example, Bayh, Perry, Bachmann) for honesty, ethics, and sanity anyway?
@Mnemosyne:
Any adult should understand that anyone, even a brilliant and insightful comedian (of all people!) is not right about everything. Carlin’s schtick on not voting was grimly funny and delivered a grain of truth about the difficulty of changing the system. But taking it literally?
Sounds like your friend is either simple minded, or looking for an excuse not to be bothered with anything difficult or disturbing.
Sly
@WereBear (itouch):
The Democratic Party represents the interests of _______ and therefor anyone running for office as a Democrat can never ever be trusted. At all.
A) Blacks
B) Jews
C)
the IrishHispanicsD)
CatholicsMuslimsE) Atheists
F) Homosexuals
G) Labor Unions
H)
CommunistsHippiesI) Feminists
J) Intellectuals
K) Welfare Recipients
L) All of the Above
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Well, it’s kind of a pet peeve of mine, so it set me off more than I think was intended. But I was really bored at work and, well …
(Yes, other people drink and post; I get bored at the office and post.)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Maybe I’ve missed it, but does John have a web page for donations yet?
Thanks for the update, Kay.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mark Jablonski
Kay,
I live in Cleveland, and am interested in knowing which district you’re talking about. Sorry if I missed a previous post revealing this. Thanks, both for the post and the work you’re doing. And if other Juicers are anything like me, they will enjoy reading future updates on any and all minutia relating to this candidate’s quest.
Steeplejack
Jeez, what happened to the thread downstairs? (“Another Open Thread,” not “Open Thread.”) I went away for a while and came back to find a gaping hole. Actually, not even that. Even the rubble has been swept away.
ETA: Ah. I see a new post just came up: “Listen, Assholes,” by Fearless Leader. All will be made clear, no doubt.
kay
Scott,
He’s not ready for donations because he needs a dedicated bank account for that purpose.
Pursuant to the Big Book of Campaign Finance :)
But I’ll let you know.
kay
Mark in Cleveland, I’ll let you know,too.
I’ll keep you posted w/ more info as I determine it is prudent and timely :)
Martin
Fucking Catholics, how do they work?!
Martin
@kay: I bet the big book of campaign finance doesn’t have a picture of a banker that looks like Snidely Whiplash.
That should be a BJ contest – re-illustrate the big book of campaign finance.
Chuck Butcher
As a generic suggestion keep it simple and avoid memorized speeches unless he has practice as a public speaker, assuming not. A few index cards with a general outline of points and a few run throughs to get a sense of time and timing.
Rote speeches sound just like that unless you’re practiced at giving them.
And for pete’s sake, if there are three things… write them down. ;-)
kay
Martin, few of them are Catholics.
They’re guilt-ridden Germans, mostly. Of German descent. This individual is himself proudly German.
I think they crave order :)
Chuck Butcher
@Martin:
The US one is a bit of a bitch and you can’t run afoul of the state either – though in OR the Fed will keep you out of trouble that way.
kay
Thanks Chuck.
I know you’ve done this, so I appreciate the advice.
I liked listening to him talk in the office and I listen to a lot of people so I think he’ll do fine unscripted.
He’s appealing, generally.
RalfW
@kay: Please do let us know. I like to give modest amts to folks like this. I suppose I c/should give party funds, but just can’t get myself to do it (except some recall Walker WI state dem funds). I dabble and support some on-the-ground Dems, even if – or particularly if – they’re not a shoe-in. Usually not out of state, state-level candidates, but this guy sounds like he’d be worth giving a few bucks. Dunno if he’d get hooked up thru Act Blue??
Nellcote
Sadly, I bet that keeps a lot of great candidates out of the pool.
I love these posts about real things.
JoeShabadoo
@WereBear (itouch):
There are a few reasons I think.
1. They have long identified themselves as Republican but can’t anymore because either they have changed their beliefs or they have seen the Repubs unearthing the beast that was once covered up and only seen in glimpses. Changing how one sees themself is difficult and political affiliation is in particular. That is why people say “the party left me” even if it isn’t necessarily true. They may realize that Rs are terrible but that doesn’t mean they want to vote for the guys they have been hating and believed were terrible for ages.
2. A lot of D’s want a sane Republican party. Having one party be batshit only encourages the other to do the absolute minimum or whatever they want as long as it has some grounding in reality. If the R’s had policies that worked and everything wasn’t based in fantasy land the Dems would need more pleasing ideas and not rely so much on hating the the other guys more. Not only that but your party won’t be in power forever. Wanting the guys who will inevitably be in charge not be loony bin rejects seems pretty normal.
polyorchnid octopunch
It would have been very amusing to see Ontario sue their ass over that law. Very amusing indeed…
Ronbo
Trolls? Oh, is that what you call someone who has a different opinion these days?
Debate (real HS/College debate), we’d actually argue facts. If BJ starts out calling people silly names and whining, then do you expect it to actually get better?!?
Name-calling simply conceals/reveals a lack of thought. Thanks BJ (snark) for setting the bar so very, very low.