Myth - A widely held but false notion
Paulie Brading
The blurry eyed, clearly exhausted candidate stepped into our home with his campaign staffer in tow after 10 P.M. He had been on the road for hours before attending a small private dinner with supporters over in the next town. Fresh sheets were on the guest room bed, the young staffer was relegated to one of the bunk beds normally reserved for our grandsons. Dutifully, he chatted and let our dog Jane pester him. Close to 11 P.M. I suggested it was bedtime. He and his staffer agreed to rise at 7:00 AM to begin another day of campaigning.
My early-riser husband made the coffee, set the table, sliced up fruit while readying to prepare his not-to- be-missed incredible omelettes. The staffer arrived in the kitchen first then I slipped in to get down enough java in hopes of being able to speak in complete sentences. When the canidate appeared he had just minutes to spare before his first meeting at 8:00 A.M. A half class of juice, a few bites of his omlette and he and his staffer jumped into his car which he was driving to arrive for his first meeting with just one person, a Democrat with a long history of our county. From there he met with a mayor of one of our 11 towns in the county, hustled to another town and gave a speech at 10:00 AM. He continued to drive to different locations meeting with one or two people at a time. I met up with him at 2:00 PM and listened to him speak to a group of ten community leaders and organizers. He wound up the Q&A session and passed out fundraising envelopes. It was 4:00 P.M.
I shook his hand and wished him well. He told me he was headed home at last. The first person who correctly guesses who the candidate was will receive an explanation of the title of this post. Of course you have to stop watching football in order to do that. Go Beavs! Go Ducks!
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5:52 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
John Kroger, maybe?
6:33 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
Sorry Jenni, it wasn't John Kroger.
6:42 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
Thanks... I've been so busy - my sister, who is the only family member to follow me to Oregon, got married yesterday. Between that and Drupal upgrades, I haven't kept up with which candidates have been out and about. I haven't even made it to the library to drop off my ballot (but I will do it tomorrow... gotta get my hubby to fill out his).
But I remembered seeing a blog posting or something about Kroger being out and around the state.
Nov 3, '07
Jeff Merkely
7:24 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
Anonymous is correct!!! The title came to me when I remembered all the fuss about how fancy Jeff's campaign would be. Turns out Jeff has to come up with some strong numbers in order to qualify for dollars from the DSCC. Looks to me like he's slogging for every supporter just like everyone else. Granted, Greg Macpherson, John Kroger, and Steve Novick didn't arrive to announce their campaigns in an RV. Kate Brown flew into town in someone's private plane to announce her run for SOS. Just thought I'd pass along the equalizer for all candidates seems to be their ability to work harder than the other candidate in their race to gain supporters/funds. The people Jeff Merkley met with were his list of contacts he'd put together before he arrived in Medford.
Thus, a myth was busted, for me at least.
Nov 3, '07
Which ever candidate it was or was chosen by guessers would have been accurate. For any candidate in a primary covering large distances time and energy are shortest in availability and they are followed closely by money. Money is hard to come by in a primary, the contributing public is a smaller percentage to begin with and then narrowed by party affiliation and farther narrowed by the number of candidates. While none of us can do much about temporal/spatial difficulties money can be addressed.
Nov 3, '07
"Turns out Jeff has to come up with some strong numbers in order to qualify for dollars from the DSCC".
Very interesting development, and ought to put to rest this idea that Merkley is being foisted on us by the DSCC the way Bruggere was.
I've been involved in federal campaigns in the past which were just as bare bones/ down to earth.
Statements like "arrive for his first meeting with just one person, a Democrat with a long history of our county" are always encouraging. Some things require money, others (like that) require institutional memory and "street smarts" which all the money in the world will never buy.
I recall someone who was instrumental in an upset primary win one year was given the VIP treatment by another candidate in another election year (personal invitation to an event, that sort of thing). It reflected well on the candidate to have that knowledge of someone who had been so actively involved in a previous Dem. primary.
11:32 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
Jeff appeared and spoke at the Oct 24th Central Committee meeting of the Washington County Democrats. It was his birthday, and he addressed the audience for about 20 minutes, took questions, ate a slice of birthday cake and left for home to spend a little time with his family before (I would guess) collapsing from a long day on the road. See the video at http://www.washcodems.org/node/308 PS Steve Novick spoke to the Washco Dems several months ago, unfortunately we did not yet have a vieographer. I'm sure he will see us again. Vid from the Oregon Summit with these and other candidates in the Video Galleries.
11:58 p.m.
Nov 3, '07
"Very interesting development, and ought to put to rest this idea that Merkley is being foisted on us by the DSCC the way Bruggere was."
How so? Even if they DID decide to withhold the money for the general (which would be stupid, of course--but then again we ARE talking about DSCC), how would that change what they had already done in the primary?
Nov 4, '07
TJ, should Chuck Schumer never have spoken to any Senate candidate until after the May primary?
Are you saying Jeff shouldn't have run, or that the DSCC should never have talked to him?
Tell my young friend who heard Steve speak and then read about Jeff running and said "I'm glad someone is running against Steve" exactly what you are upset about.
TJ, who did you support in that 1996 primary? Were you involved this early in 1995? Did you have trouble choosing a candidate? (I was recruited by someone I admire but by the time that happened I had already joined another campaign.)
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