Mayoral Race Update

It's been a few weeks since I've updated you all on my bid for mayor. Things have been moving forward and I'm getting a more complete picture of the overall process.

• I'm going to be buying one batch of signs to put up wherever I can. Signs for several of the other candidates have begun appearing and I'd like to get mine out there too.
• I received to questionaires in the mail from the newspapers. One from the MN Sun (Brooklyn Center paper) and the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) for their election coverage. The MN Sun was looking for a photo and offered to take one for me. I could have taken one myself, but to go through the process better, I will have them do that. I sent both questionaires in.
• I received a note from cable Channel 12 looking to do an interview. I'm calling them today to schedule my appointment to be interviewed.
• On August 22, I'll be attending a forum on politics in the digital age (the details aren't where I am right now).
• I'm drafting my letter to the editor of the Sun. I wanted to wait a bit to hear what the other candidates were going to say before drafting mine.
• I'd love to have someone redesign the campaign site, but won't be digging into my wallet to get it done.
• It's come to my attention that I haven't edited the entries on the campaign site properly before posting. That's an unfortunate side effect of a habit I've developed over here on this main site. Quite differently from more formal writing, when I write here, I pretty much post the first draft of everything. That's because, in most cases, taking the time to edit would actually result in just not bothering in the first place. So, I post what I do as an alternative to not posting anything rather than an alternative to posting perfection.

Overall, I'm impressed with the fact that, without spending a dime more than the filing fee so far, I'm getting completely equal access to newspapers, local cable TV, etc. While I've seen a few signs so far, they've been 90% for one candidate and not that many of them.

I'm also more resolute than ever to maintain a very "human" face in this campaign. I'm going to write here and on the candidate blog and in any published communication in a very "verbal" style. I'm perfectly capable of writing polished political rhetoric. However, there are at least 3 other candidates doing exactly that. They're all making their best effort to sound like politicians.

However, they also have about 20 years on me in age and 20 years of additional community involvement. That means that if I try to run on their terms, I will certainly lose. Now, I still might lose, but it's the difference between certain defeat for doing it the "normal" way and *potential* defeat by speaking to the voters as a regular person.

We'll see.