Well damn, I guess it’s time…
Another Independent? Well, okay then. I hear the name of a woman who is petitioning for a spot on the ballot, just like me. So out comes the phone and I look her up on Facebook and send a message that leads to a meeting. We meet up and I introduce myself and start the convo. I preface by saying, “I completely respect her choice to run.” I have to say that because that is a big reason I am running. I asked where she was at in the process and she said she was in. So that is that. We talk for a bit more, we shake hands, and I tell her I’ll see her on the trail. Now what do I do? Well damn, I guess it’s time.
Quick explainer. Until I discovered my new opponent it was going to be a 2-way race to November. The other 2 candidates are both Republicans and in Kentucky we have closed primaries. That means one of those 2 would be voted on the ballot by just their party’s registered voters in May. Until I popped up the winner would have won the general election because they would be uncontested, I do not care for uncontested elections, obviously. They are a product of the sad state of apathy towards government, especially at this level.
Anyway, I have to announce now. I pick a date, exactly 200 days until Election day November 3rd, April 17th. I now have one work week to get it all together. I gather all my signatures sheets and verify them against the voter list I received as a candidate. I confirm 234 out of 251, not to bad in just over a month. So that’s good. I line up my camera guy to help me shoot a video, within 4 days with no real notice. He obliged me, he’s awesome. I write out the video script. Yeah, I am a script writer now too. I come up with something I thought was pretty good, now I have to become an on-screen content creator. Yep, I'm doing that now too. We shoot on Wednesday. I am not bad in the morning video shoot but that afternoon I sucked. Now it’s up to my guy to salvage something out of that dumpster fire. Wednesday, I also took my petition and checkbook up to the County Clerk and made it all official. I paid my filing fee and handed over my signatures. Shit is real now. Time to put it out there and let the world, well my world, know what I’ve gone and done. I stayed up late Wednesday (because it wasn’t a long day already) drafting an AP style press release and put together emails to local news outlets. Thursday, noon, I send them out. I figure that's ample time to prepare for the Friday edition and confirm via a phone call to the Clerk's office. I think it’s huge story. All the media around would be drooling over getting this bombshell out there. Turns out that they didn’t think it was the same huge deal I did. Back to talking with people and learning about what I am getting into.
It is here Friday April 17th. Nothing out of the local media about my huge news save a 2 paragraph blip on the front page of the paper that read, “Two Independents file to run for Judge/Executive” Great we are now lumped in together. Of course no press release. Grrr.
Good news, My awesome hero video guy sends over the final edit of my video. Not bad, not bad at all. I watch it once because I can’t stand watching myself on video, weird. I sit on it. We do a family picture shoot since that is what you do for campaigns, The wife was cool with this part. We change and head to the University Baseball game. All the while, trying to decide when to put this video out.
