|
Local politics can seem foreboding, but it's pretty easy to dive into that if you're willing to just take the plunge. I filed to run for local office (township supervisor) just because a friend visited me and nonchalantly suggested it. The paperwork involved getting a petition filled with the requisite number of signatures, which was fairly easy for here. The township I'm in has a population of around 6000; as a result, I only needed 3-10 signatures to get on the ballot. Campaign finance has also been painless, since this supervisor election is small enough that I felt confident in signing the "This campaign won't raise more than $1000" waiver, which means I don't have to file campaign finance reports at the same frequency as larger campaigns. Support for a race of this size is lackluster from both below and above, but that's still workable. There's just not much volunteering to do, really. I can piggyback on broader Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts at the congressional level for voter turnout (the party's congressional candidate for our district has her office right on the edge of the township where I'm running), and honestly the main two things that need doing are some door-to-door canvassing just to introduce myself, and getting some folks to help with hashing out a bit of campaign literature. Conversely, because this is a midterm election and the state party has to deal with gubernatorial and senatorial races, there's very little support from above to help since all the big resources are being used elsewhere. Essentially, local politics lets you do your own thing without much pressure from above, little paperwork to deal with and relatively little demand for a complex campaign. If you win, great! You're now a politician and can start climbing the ladder. If you lose, oh well! The state party apparatus didn't care that much about the plight of your locality anyways.
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2014 22:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 00:24 |
|
|
Jackson Taus posted:If you have the endorsement of your party (and it sounds like you do), make sure that you're invited to every event that Congressional/Senate/whatever candidate does in or near your locality, those other campaigns are carrying your literature (even if it's just a quarter-sheet with your headshot and "Ofaloaf for Township Supervisor" and nothing else on it), and that you wind up on the sample ballot. Obviously still campaign on your own because you need to win on your own merits, but any coat-tails you can get from those guys really helps, especially if their race is winnable. The local party apparatus is a bit fractured, and although I'm familiar with the local group I'm not entirely sure how official that group is now that I think about it. See, smack in the center of the county is a major university, the biggest city in the county, and the most liberal part of the county. The county party organization is based out of that city, focuses its efforts on that city and may not actually know the part of the county I live in exists. Ten or fifteen years ago, a state congresswoman representing part of the district established an organization solely and explicitly for the western part of the county, and it's that organization I'm most familiar with, know people in, and have dealt with up to this point. On the other hand, the state congresswoman who established that group a decade or so ago is now the candidate running for a seat in the House at the federal level who has her offices right at the edge of the township, and I've volunteered for her in the past, so that might still work out. Sometimes in politics you just forget which groups are legit, formal affairs and which are just informal with a lot of clout.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 05:37
|
|
|
Will do on the further clarification with the party. I've tried going to what meetings I can, but scheduling for everything's an awful mess. How key are things like candidate mixers, invitations from X Chamber of Commerce and questionnaires from the Organization-For-X-And-I've-Never-Heard-Of-These-People? I've already committed to a mixer this afternoon, which is primarily for the mayoral candidates in the county's big city but other political hopefuls like myself have been invited. I'll bring along business cards to pass out as befits the situation, but no brochures or bigger bits of literature.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 18:17
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm a Democrat. Of course I'm pro-business, I only wish the best for our community's economy, respect the role job creators have played in stabilizing things during the worst of the recession and etc. & so forth. Mainly I just want to get the township's emergency systems re-integrated with the county*, prevent the board from voting another round of raises for themselves** and expand the new practice of livestreaming all board meetings and saving the recordings online. If everything worked out it'd be great if a previous supervisor's efforts at consolidating our township's fire services with a neighboring township's services could be worked on and approved, but that's unlikely even in the best scenario. *An EF3 tornado tore through the township back in 2012 and damaged something like a hundred homes, although there were no casualties. Afterwards, the township spared no expense in purchasing new sirens and equipment for another such emergency, but in the process they disconnected the sirens from the county-level emergency management system. I volunteer with the county and was in fact the first to spot that tornado in 2012; since the equipment overhaul, I know that from county management's point of view the township has become a black hole where no information comes in or out. This is dumb and dangerous. **The township board voted for a round of raises for all board members just this spring, despite a huge public outcry. If I could get the raise outright rescinded and bring pay back to 2006 levels until other township employees get a raise, that'd be great, but at the very least I'd want to make a public show of donating the difference between the 2006 pay rate and the current rate if the board's stubborn about it all.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 19:41
|
|
|
Jackson Taus posted:I honestly feel like the raises thing is probably kinda hit-or-miss. Unless the raise was huge, it's probably defensible as COLA if it hadn't changed in 8 years. And folks may well not remember it by November. Since you're not running against an incumbent, those sorts of negative attacks won't work well because your opponent can just be like "hey, wasn't me, I wasn't there".
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 20:17
|
|