I have been running a campaign for a state-wide office - my first as full-blown campaign manager . In the reddest of the red states, being in leadership of the Republican party is a big deal. "My guy" ran for vice-chair - second-in-command of the party - against an incumbent, at a state-wide convention held in the incumbent's own county. I am happy to report that we won yesterday - woot! We ran our campaign on a shoestring - we couldn't even afford mailers or signs - and we did it with good, old-fashioned grassroots support and lots of hard work. Pretty exciting!!! Have I mentioned that I love politics?
Can you believe with all that was going on, I never even wrote about the campaign, or about the day of the convention? So - here goes...Starfish Daddy asked me a couple weeks before the end of the campaign how it came to be that M ended up as the candidate and I the campaign manager. I had to say that I did not know for sure. Kinda like starting labor - it's only looking back that you realize that's what was happening, right? By March, though, we pretty much knew and started going to county conventions all over the state - those were the first campaign events. It was awkward at first for me to speak for him, but I quickly got over that. I enjoy public speaking anyway, so it was fun. I always felt like a bit of an "imposter" as a campaign manager, since I have no formal "training". When I worked on Congressman Chaffetz' campaign, I was over one legislative district and some online stuff. Then, earlier this year, I helped co-manage a county-wide campaign (while I was already working on M's campaign) and that's all I had to go on - some on-the-job training and some great people I could call as needed. We held a bunch of meetings around the state, made personal phone calls and robo-calls, used Facebook, Twitter, a blog and a website, plus "official" campaign emails through the state party. I worked hours and hours and hours a day trying to coordinate everything, make calls, write, stay on top of the schedule and any online goings-on, work with the other volunteers and more. It really was fun - and seems like the perfect job for a busy mom who is used to juggling schedules and keeping many things running more or less smoothly. :-) I told Jason Chaffetz' campaign manager several times through the process that I had a whole new appreciation for the work they had done on last year's campaign. Even though our campaign was state-wide, it was a relatively small campaign compared to what Jason had to do. Anyway, as you can imagine, the hours just increased the closer we got to the election. Since M has a real job and a family, as do I, we had meetings at odd hours - 11 pm to 1 am was not uncommon, on the phone, in front of our computers. The last week of the campaign, 5 days before the convention where the vote would happen, dh says to me "So - is it going to lighten up for you at all this week?". Um, no. We had two more delegate meetings that week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, then M had business meetings on Thursday night and I spent the evening getting Jason's previous campaign manager to talk me through the last two days - by that day the "what-ifs" had hit.... Friday, the convention work started in earnest.
I was in charge of the table decor, the T-shirts, the candy, a printer (to make our own stickers - worked like a charm) and dozens of other little details. I had several volunteers to come and help - they knew it was gonna be work and it was. I took up 3 of the girls and Starfish Daddy picked up one more on his way up in the bus. Booth set-up was scheduled from 1 to 5 - I didn't even leave until probably 2:30 - I tried.....But - we got 'er done. M had gone at one and had the big sign hung at the back of the booth. I added the tablecloth and decorations. In the morning, we added a big flat-screen TV to play a video created just for the campaign. It's awesome, btw. Anyway, we got up there, we finished setting up, then checked into the hotel adjoining the convention center, then went to dinner while dh went and got the bus - we used it to display a ginormous sign outside the convention center. After dinner, we went and purchased the extra ink we would need and the labels we needed to print our own stickers. Then, there was a fund-raising "social" with about 150 people, pretty much either long-time party insiders or representatives of various campaigns. Lots of schmoozing and political networking, as might be expected. I love that kind of stuff. I talked to the Lt Gov/acting Gov, Gary Herbert while I was there. I have a friend who recommended I be Lieutenant Governor and I mentioned to Gary that I was so impressed that he would take the time to respond to that issue! There is no chance of him calling me, so for him to even address it showed some class. While I was doing my thing, dh and the girls went swimming. We all were happy campers.
After I headed back to the room, we started the printing, talked to M on the phone about his speech and about the campaign. Dh and I hit Wal-Mart at something like 12:30 am for some last minute things - and then we couldn't sleep. Finally about 2:30, dh and I managed to doze off, only to get up at 5:30. Ugh. So - up and at 'em we were, down finishing at the booth while Starfish Daddy worked on getting the sign on the bus. From the time registration opened at 7 until after the convention started at 10, it was absolutely non-stop traffic by the booth. M talked until he was hoarse - literally. I talked and talked and talked as well - and handed out stickers and shirts, answered questions, got water and anything else that was helpful. Convention started at 10, but M probably didn't even get in the main hall until 10:45 or later. Speeches started a little after 11 and the candidates for chair went first. As we got to the end, I went out to find the person who would be introducing M - Utah's Attorney General. (And ya gotta love texting - so handy!) I was SO stinkin' nervous! I swear I didn't really "hear" anyone else's speeches, even if I was right there, as I was so focused on M's. I recorded it and put it up on YouTube - it was good. M said it was his goal to make me cry with his speech. I didn't, though, until I found out the vote totals - he won with 52% of the vote - 75 votes more than the incumbent. It took literally hours to count the votes. In the middle of Congressman Chaffetz' speech, I was texted the results. I went back to find M at the back of the convention hall and told him that I knew - and I should have just told him then what the results were, but someone texted him and told him he won.....It was still at least another 20 minutes before they officially announced them. Very exciting, very fun. Lots of congratulations from lots of people. Chewing out by a couple of people. Welcome to the big time, LOL. The AG (who did the intro) hugged me and said "So how does it feel, boss lady?" I said it felt pretty good, especially considering it was my first campaign. He said "yeah, a state-wide race - you know, most people would start a little smaller than that...." Typical for me - start big. What's the appeal in running a city council race now? :-)
Now, three weeks later, it is starting to sink in. We have heard numerous times more details on how unlikely a win really was....we had powerful people working against us, who told Morgan to his face (after he won, even) that they had done EVERYTHING they could to ensure he would NOT win. And wouldn'tcha know it - it didn't work. The last time in incumbent in state party leadership was defeated was 18 years ago and it was not the chair or vice-chair, it was the secretary. The chair of the party stood up and said "We need a new secretary - please don't vote for the incumbent...". Almost 20 years...we haven't been able to find out if an incumbent chair or vice-chair has ever been defeated. So - kudos to us and I am glad I did not know those things when we were running. I knew we were the outsiders, but I had no idea how disadvantaged we really were.....And btw - even though we didn't pay for mailers, we did have flyers and while we didn't pay for yard signs, we did pay for T-shirts and people by the dozens wore them on the convention floor - walking advertisements. Our stickers were cool too.....
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