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.

I figured I’d better come in here and write something before you guys decided I’d killed myself after that last post.

Generally speaking, I try to leave the political commentary to my other blog. And I’m not going to get into a long song-and-dance tonight.

But I do have to say that I find it rather amazing that I was born at a time when black Americans were routinely denied the chance to even cast a vote in certain parts of this country and now we have a serious black contender running as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Now (since the primaries showed us that there are still places in these United States where as much as a third of white voters will refuse to vote for somebody just because they’re black), as the general election gets under way, we all get to see just how racist we still are.

Should be interesting.