Politics

Thanks to Cara (whose last name I didn’t catch) for giving a little presentation on how to talk to elected officials, and to Adrienne Guldin and her husband for hosting — amusingly, in a house we almost bought eight years ago. (The red barn house, if anyone remembers that possibility.) I learned stuff! Elected officials […]

I am getting better at sending fund-raising e-mails and Facebook direct messages. I have to admit, I was super-resistant to doing it, and mostly put it off until this week, but have been heartened by the positive responses. So many old friends have chipped in a bit (or more than a bit). Not everyone decides

Spent 99 cents to read this excerpt — interesting set-up for what actually works in campaigning. Live visits from the candidate are king. Phone calls are useless (which I’m glad to know as I didn’t want to do them and don’t like getting them). Direct mail is only marginally effective. Yard signs ditto. He actually

Have finalized a slate one-sheet that isn’t as pretty as what a graphic designer would do but gets the information across. Lots of information. Even brief bios for four candidates take up a lot of space. Hm. Ah well — it’ll do for tonight — heading out to the school board candidate forum hosted by

I am having a weird moment about candidate yard signs. I’m about to print mine, which is great, and I hope some people will be willing to put them in their yards (and if you are, and could let me know, that would be super-helpful in my figuring out how many to print)…but I find

So many thanks to Julie Nilson Chyna for hosting my first in-home candidate meet-and-greet! She put together a book swap (books + wine = lots of interest!), and about forty people showed up, mostly Irving and Julian moms. It took me a little time to get used to just introducing myself to strangers, “yes, I’m

Standing room only at this month’s Democratic Party of Oak Park meeting — you can’t see me, but I’m standing way in the back. They’re going to need to get a bigger room… Protest postcards, including a few designed by a local mom. Postcards and board games go great together.  Nara Nayar is a postcard-writing machine! Thanks

On a dreary day of national news, it is remarkably heartening to go to the post office and pick up campaign donation checks. The nicest thing about checks (as opposed to convenient online donations) is that most people sending them have included little notes or cards with them, which I hope they’ll forgive me from

Quick review: How to Win a Local Election. This was a decent primer, though my edition was fairly out-of-date re: computers, etc. No mention of the internet! I somehow missed that there’s a 2007 edition which presumably is a bit more up-to-date. It’s geared towards a mid-level local election, so quite a bit of the

Delighted to note that my CrowdPac fundraising has broken $2000! The goal is to raise $5000 through CrowdPac for the campaign, ideally by March 1, both for immediate needs, and to demonstrate that even for a small local campaign like library board, I’m a candidate that can turn out people in support. If I do