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This old political analyst and one time political consultant has had an interesting experience; he had to run for office. After almost 30 years as a political consultant I finally had to put my words of wisdom into action. I had to campaign for election to the local water board. I had been appointed to the board several years ago and this year my term expired. Either run to return to the board or go quietly into the night.
I decided to run for one of the three open seats and much to my chagrin I had company. At total of six folks decided to run for the three seats. So I decided to run a campaign: get push cards, yard signs, post cards, run political ads in the local newspapers and let voters know that I was interested in returning to the board. Using the slogan “Keep a Strong voice on the Water Board” I jumped into the campaign.
I first decided to use a picture of my dog, Wilson and I, on the push card. That was a good idea because Wilson turned out to be better known then me. I had 50 yards signs printed with “Return George Strong to the BPSUD” and started to put them up all over the Bolivar Peninsula. They were expensive, about $5.00 a piece so I was very careful and where I put them. Much to my amazement not one of the signs was taken down or stolen. Honest folks here on this long point of land just across from Galveston Island.
I went to events with the push cards with my and Wilson’s picture on the front and a brief bio on the back. But I felt uncomfortable in giving them out folks who I did not know. That was a sin that in the past I would have jumped all over a candidate client of mine for not working the room and handing out his cards. I asked a friend of mine, who is well known on the peninsula if she would send out post cards to her friends if I paid to have them printed and mailed. She said that would be just fine, so we eventually sent out over 400 post cards to people on the peninsula. Thing were moving along just fine until the last week of the campaign when the opposition got active and started handing out flyers urging that someone other than me should be elected. Email started flying around with some interesting comments and I started to get nervous. But Election Day came and the dogs and I visited most of the election sites to make sure our yard signs were up and to introduce myself to the election workers.
Election night came and the results were in. I was elected with the most votes of any of the six candidates and this experience was over. And Wilson thinks he should get all the credit
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