Dawn Is Me

Anyone who would care to donate to my campaign for town supervisor can do so here: www.baker4supervisor.com

I don’t care where you live (although, obviously, if you live here then you have more at stake). If you are willing to contribute, your contribution will be gratefully accepted.

The campaign is actually going very well. In fact, it’s almost spooky. While I have been out pressing the flesh and knocking on doors to introduce myself and talk to people, my opponent has not emerged from the fastnesses of his home up on the hill outside the village. If it weren’t for the fact that I have seen pictures of him and I know that he has given statements to the press, I would wonder if somebody had made him up.

So, I have something of a shadow opponent here. The guy is so not-there that it’s tempting to succumb to the feeling that I’m running unopposed.

Of course, that is a mistake that I am NOT making. It would be stupid of me to act like I have this one in the bag. This entire race may come down to GOTV efforts and I know that the local GOP has a formidable GOTV infrastructure in place.

So, I’m not ready to take anything for granted here. But, contrary to the opinion of a bunch of cowed local Democrats, this race is decidedly win-able.

And I’m tired but I’m having a lot more fun that I thought I’d be. Who knew?

It’s Independence Day!

Are you eating BBQ or watching the movie or baking a cake and singing “Happy Birthday, Dear USA … ” ?

I’m not doing any of those things. My own personal nod to the day is to tell you something.

You may remember not too long ago I mentioned that I am in the process of transitioning into something or other. I am changing direction in several different ways.

One of those ways is that I am running for public office.

Yes, that’s right. After years and years of making fun of politicians, I have decided to become one of them.

Well, let me take that back. I don’t really think there is anything I can do to myself short of a lobotomy to turn myself into a Politician. I’ll just say, once again, that I am running for public office.

For the record, I am a Democrat.

The office I’m running for is pretty local: Town Supervisor of the town in live in here in upstate NY. If I win, I get to chair the Town Board. I also get to represent my town on the County Board of Supervisors.

I doubt anybody will be reading about my exploits in the NY Times but, if elected, I hope to be able to do some good things for this community and I’m excited about the prospect.

I am less excited about the actual campaigning part but, who knows? It may be that, when forced to do it, I’ll find that I like it.

Also for the record, I have no intention of shutting down my business or selling it or anything like that in order to pursue this career tangent. And, at the moment, we’re not talking about living the life of a public servant for more than eight years, max. That’s two terms. After that, I’d want to step down to do other stuff.

So, right now I’m collecting signatures on petitions and preparing to file them around mid-month. The local Republicans may or may not be preparing for a primary (I kind of can’t tell; they seem to be in some disarray). Either way, I expect to begin actively campaigning in September, after the primaries.

Between filing (when I “officially” become a candidate) and active campaigning in the fall, I expect to be doing some low key public appearances, pressing the flesh, talking to people and letting them get to know me.

Introvert and all that I am, I expect I’ll enjoy it — as long as I build time into my schedule to rest from all those encounters with people. o_O

I am also in the process of creating Dawn, the Political Candidate. (Some assembly required. Batteries not included)

In my imagination, she is a mature, lovely, brilliant woman with a warm smile, a firm handclasp and an infectious laugh. Setting aside partisan politics for the moment, people tend to like her. That is likely to get her at least some of the George W. Bush “Candidate I’d Most Like To Sit Down And Have A Beer With” vote.

At least in theory.

This is something completely different for me. I haven’t done anything close to this since I ran for student body president in the 9th grade. I didn’t win but I did get enough support to land myself a spot on the student council executive committee.

I expect I’ll share a few tales from the trail with you over the next few months. Wish me luck.

See, this is why Michelle Obama is my hero — well, one of them, anyway:

Perhaps the most encouraging action so far has come from the East Wing, where Michelle Obama has been speaking out about the importance of real, fresh food, home cooking and gardening. By planting an organic garden on the White House lawn, she launched a thousand victory gardens (vegetables seed is suddenly in short supply), gave conniptions to the pesticide industry (which wrote urging her to use some of their “crop protection products” whether she needed them or not), and at a stroke raised the profile and prestige of real food in America.

You wouldn’t know it to listen to/look at me, but I’ve become something of a fresh food fanatic over the last three years or so.

I’m assuming it’s tough to tell because my spouse still hasn’t figured it out. I sometimes dread sending him out to buy things that my family is expected to eat because he rarely reads labels and, even when he does, he doesn’t seem to know what he’s looking for.

But, besides what happens in my kitchen, I care about food and food policy because of what I expect will be happening in my community later this year … along about November 3rd. More about that later.

Generally speaking, I frown on fanaticism. It expends a lot of energy in inefficient ways and usually accomplishes nothing except to make enemies out of those who really ought to be allies.

My view of food and food policy is relatively simple. Real people were intended by nature to eat real food.

When we don’t, bad things happen.

If we did, we could collectively solve all sorts of seemingly unrelated problems.

Not rocket science. Truly.