Campaigning is Tough!

Chroist!

I was out for close to six hours Saturday circling my four by three block division getting signatures. I settled in in front of Whole Foods for several hours. I collected about fifty signatures for Chuck Pennacchio and all of one for me in my division. So, very unscientifically, I've deduced that people from my division don't go to Whole Foods during the Saturday afternoon peak time [Lady and I don't, we go late at night during the week].

Then I went door to door in my division for a few hours collecting enough signatures to get me on the ballot. I have nineteen right now and even met another person who is running for committeeperson in my division. We won't be running against each other per se since there are two seats up for grabs. I did, however, learn something very interesting. She's lived in this division since 1998 and has NEVER met the two committeepeople. That is a complete travesty. The whole purpose of committeepeople is to be the first point of contact between each small precinct and the upper levels of the government which represents them. I can understand they didn't get to her one year or maybe even two, but eight years without seeing them in an official capacity? She told me that she's been to just about every committee meeting for the past two years and had not met them. I guess they've REALLY dropped the ball. And she and I plan on changing things.

I still have five spots to fill up on my petition to get me on the ballot; a little more extra insurance over the ten required signatures. I already know that one of the signees is out of my district, but only after he had signed did I notice that he lived on the wrong side of South St, arg.

I'll be heading out early tomorrow to run some errands, but after that, I'll be petitioning with a friend on the other side of Center City in the afternoon for his run for committeeperson [we're fucking taking over!] and me with my Pennacchio petition for more sigs.

I was hesitant at first, but things got going and I was confident enough to go door to door which is something I really didn't think I'd be able to do. But I'm glad I did. Getting involved in this manner really felt... right.

And now, at 1a, I'm poofed. After petitioning all day, we went out to dinner with some friends and after that, I still had more work to do! I had one more shoot for my AOL CityGuide gig in West Philly. At 11.30p my day was done and I was too tired to head on over to Hannah's 30th birthday par-tay. Arg. I really wanted to go, but I was/am dead tired. She's the one who finally pushed me to run and I'm sure she'll understand I was beat after all this. I'll see her soon enough. Hopefully after finding out I qualifiy to be on the May 16th ballot. That's going to be weeeiiird. Going into a voting booth and seeing my name right there!

Comments

[Frank]

The iFlipFlop Person of the Week: Albert (Dragonball) Yee.

[acm]

good work on the blitz outreach!
yeah, it can be really satisfying to make contact with real people; I think everybody's hungry to replace an anonymous machine with concrete friendly neighbors...

glad you found a running mate too! maybe you can team up on a mailing to your voters or somesuch...

[Andrea]

Sorry I can't sign for you Albert! And my friend (who was with me at the last Philly Bloggers meet) lives just on the wrong side of Pine Street. We're wishing you luck though :)