For the past 4 months I've been working on a local campaign for alderman. That's what we call the people who make up our City Council. The hubby's helped out in his own way. Ella's been to meetings & played patiently on her own while I made phone calls at the campaign office or at home. Tuesday was election day (thus the radio silence since Monday). Did we win? Well...

In Chicago you need 50%+1 to win. With weeks of phone calling & canvassing, we figured that we had the votes to win based on what the incumbent was getting in past years and turnout. Well, you don't win when only 30% of the city comes out and you only tally about 2/3 of the votes. If everyone who said they were going to vote for us, we would have won outright. Instead, the incumbent did get his vote out, but not enough. He came up just short and we came in second.

That means we get to do it all again. RUN OFF!

I hate to think of it this way, but for many voters it will seem like we're starting all over again. They are going to hate getting more mail, more phone calls, more knocks on doors...and believe me, we're gonna hate it too. This time it'll be head to head and hopefully we can really get the vote out.

For the past month for sure, the hubby says more, I've checked out of the familia. The house is a mess and Ella knows half of my voter speech. She's also become friendly with the candidate's 3yo son. So the hubby is weary of the thought of me working on this campaign...again...until April 17th. As am I. I put off a lot of other work to focus on this. Now I need to make another round of calls and say, sorry, but I'm still not available. I also need to mark some more clear boundaries with the campaign about my time.

That said, it was a lot of fun working on the campaign. And Tuesday night really brought home the message that yes, your vote counts.

It also brought home the idea that I am not meant to be a candidate. Some have the temperament to be a candidate, I don't. I may be able to debate, kinda, but I'm too mouthy. I went to pass out lit outside a poll and the election judge has to put these cones at 100 feet from the poll. I was half joking that it looked too far. He got pissy right away and said if I made him measure, the cone would be at the corner. I of course know my rights and pissed back about calling someone (Atty. General).

But I know where I fit in on the campaign. I'm good at calling and going door to door. The hubby's good at helping with communications. We all just need to figure out what we are good at and do that to help. Election day there were people at the office whose job it was to keep the food coming.

So not only does every vote count, but sometimes we can't get that vote without every volunteer doing their part. After spending 6 hours straight door knocking on Tuesday, my thighs still burn, but I'm happy knowing that I did everything I could to bring about change in my neighborhood.

So why don't I tell you who she is? I don't want this blog coming up on google searches for her. If someone is looking for her, I want them to go to her blog. Plus I swear a lot.

Labels: politics