Greetings, members of Daily Kos!
I must say, it's absolutely bizarre for me to finally, at long last, break my silence here. To say I'm a lurker is an understatement: not only have I visited Daily Kos daily (at times even hourly) since early 2006, but it's been my homepage since then as well!
So what has torn me from the shadows here? Well, I'm doing something I would've thought unfathomable just six short months ago: I'm running for City Council of my city! I hope to share my inexplicable story with you, as well as what's led me to wage this campaign. I also hope to make this diary a regular series over the next month as I chronicle my experiences, my struggles, my stories, and the result on November 4th!
I hope you'll follow me after the jump!
Okay, do I still have you? Anyone? Great!
I've read hundreds (thousands?) of diaries here, so please bear with me as I write my first!
I'm going to spend this first entry trying to provide some context to my situation and lay out all the necessary back story. First I'd like to tell you a little about who I am, where I come from, why I'm running, and about the city where I live: Winston, Oregon.
ABOUT ME
My name, as my username suggests, is Matthew Campbell. I'm 22 years old and I live in Winston, Oregon. I'm the youngest of two children, and my father is a retired Air Force veteran. Because of my father's job, my sister and I were raised in a nice variety of places: my first three years were spent in Spokane, Washington before my dad was stationed to Madrid. When he was sent to Spain, he got to take the family with him and we spent three years there. Spain was such a great place to live, and living in an Air Force-based housing area allowed us to have a little slice of home while we were there.
When I was six, we moved back to the states and arrived in Sacramento, where we also spent about three years. Finally, when I was around the age of ten, my father retired from the Air Force and moved us all up to Oregon, where both of my parents have family. We settled here in Winston, and have been here ever since!
Despite my young age, I've always been deeply fascinated with politics. The funny thing is, my parents never were! Both my mother and father had always been registered Democrats (and always voted), but politics were never discussed in my home. So perhaps it was my experience of being raised around different cultures and meeting different people with a variety of perspectives, but I think all of it naturally led me to progressive politics.
I became fully engaged in late 2003. I was turning 18 the following year and was desperate at the thought that George Bush would be re-elected. Before then, I was so oblivious to everything that I simply thought he would step aside for being such a screw up.
My birthday is July 23rd, so I was too young to vote in the 2004 Democratic primary, though I was rooting for Howard Dean. Kerry's claiming of nomination did nothing to stem my engagement however; George Bush absolutely had to be defeated.
Well, the rest is all history of course, and there's probably no need to drawl on about it all. Needless to say, I felt the deep depression a lot of people probably felt on November 2nd, 2004.
But I stayed engaged, and the drama, anxiety, excitement, and outright euphoria of the 2006 midterms sealed the deal for me. By 2006, I was so into politics that I was even speaking to my father about the latest happenings, and getting him more engaged! Election Night 2006 was, in my house, best described as a "running around the house, Tom Cruising off furniture, screaming and tearing at your hair" kind of hysteria! I still remember staying up until 7 A.M. just to make sure that we had the Senate before I could even think of sleeping. I still remember reading the comments here about the Montana senate race ("They took County X's results page offline! They're trying to steal it from us, god dammit!")
From that point forward, I was a daily visitor here, but never a commenter/diarist. It sounds silly now, but I genuinely just enjoyed reading everyone else's comments and what they had to contribute, as opposed to having any great faith that I had relevant things to add.
But my enthusiastic-but-ultimately-hands off approach to politics was shattered in May of 2008, when Oregon's Democratic primary rolled around. I voted for Obama, put his sign on my lawn (I still have an Obama primary sign! Is outdated chum worth anything?), and ultimately, attended the rally he held in the nearby city of Roseburg. My dad came along, and cried. It was amazing.
MY ENTRY INTO POLITICS
Now to a milestone. On our ballot, there were several positions that had no candidates filed. "Oh we should write me in," I joked to my parents. "Maybe I'll win something."
Two weeks later, I got something in the mail from the County Clerk. I'd arrived home after a night out watching a movie with my friends, and it was around 2 A.M. when I crawled into my bedroom and saw a letter on my computer desk that my dad had picked up from the post office some hours earlier.
You bet your ass this was another "running around the house, Tom Cruising off furniture, screaming and tearing at your hair" kind of hysteria, two o'clock in the morning be damned.
That's right, with nothing short of a landslide 3-vote margin, the people of Precinct 54 had given me a mandate: Be our Precinct Committeeperson!
Of course, it was just my mom, my dad, and myself that wrote me in. But I prefer to see it as though I captured three important demographics: military veterans, working class women, and the all-important youth vote. A total sweep.
Of course, I had to find out what exactly a Precinct Committeeperson does, but there was no way I was going to turn the offer down. I got in touch with my local Democratic party, the Douglas County Democratic Party, and made the unbelievable step to get involved.
What followed were 4 months of absolute fun by interacting, socializing, and networking with local Democrats. I was basically an elected activist! The fact that I was 30+ years younger than everyone was happily never an issue. I became quick friends with the County Chair, a great guy named Dean as well as his fantastic wife Sara, the Treasurer of the county party.
By the time our annual picnic came in July, I was already fortunate enough to have made enough of an impression that Dean made it a point for me to meet and mingle with all the honorary guests that had come that day: Joe Laurence, our county commissioner, as well as Rick Wesenberg, our District Attorney. I sat between Joe and Rick the entire time yukking it up about all the local politics I'd been following. After some time, Rick plainly asked if I'd ever consider a run for office.
At first I wasn't sure how to answer. As I'd gotten more involved with local politics, it had certainly dawned on me pretty earlier that, if given the chance, I would love to serve my community in such a capacity. But to me, it always felt that my young age would be a major hindrance in getting people to take me seriously. But Rick brought the issue up on his own, and commented that he was impressed by how knowledgeable and in-tune I was. Talk about ego-stroking!
So there I sat at the picnic table, in a hazy bubble of flattery. Suddenly, an older man approached the table and asked "Who here is 'Matt'?" When I indentified myself, he shook my hand and introduced himself as Arnie Roblan, a Democratic State House Rep. He said he'd been hearing my name tossed around and wanted the chance to meet me.
I'm proud to say that neither I nor my father (who was sitting across the table from me) fainted.
As we were preparing to leave, I spent my last few moments at the event chatting it up with an aide to Congressman Peter DeFazio. Throughout it all I was truly puzzled as to why these people were seeking me out at the event, and not vice versa. On our way out, Chairman Dean (I love getting to call him that!) stopped me. He said "Matt, I've been talking you up here today and I'm wondering if you'd ever consider taking a stab at running for office? I think, with the right grooming, you'd be great at it. You don't have to start big, you could run for something really local. Dog catcher, or something!"
On the ride home from that event, my dad played a pivotal role in allowing me to vent and rant excitedly as a way to filter out the hot air in my head, which had probably grown as large as a small moon.
HOW I GOT INTO THE CITY COUNCIL RACE
My euphoria from that experience, though still present in my mind, slipped to the backburner as the presidential race took center stage. By that point I'd decided that, yes, I wanted to throw my hat into the ring for something local. I didn't know what, but I'd take a look at some offices and maybe mount a campaign next cycle, in 2010.
For the time being though, I was solely focused on getting Obama elected, and the County Party was doing the same. In addition to our massive Obama canvassing/phone banking/voter registration operation trifecta here, we've also been canvassing for local state house and state senate candidates. The static of excitement has been hanging in the air and growing over time. We held our monthly meeting at a local restaurant for Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field, and the entire room was packed, wall-to-wall.
So it is in that context; doing voter registration, phonebanking for the Obama campaign, that the last thing I expected to do on top of it all was launch a political campaign of my own!
But that's just what happened when I discovered last week that the Winston City Council had a vacancy, and no candidate had filed for the seat. The city council here is comprised of five voting members: four council members and the mayor. Of the councilors, two are elected from the western half of the city, or Ward 1, and two from the eastern half, or Ward 2. My address narrowly is within in the eastern half, Ward 2, the one with the vacant seat.
Wow, maybe I could really make a run of it, I thought. But how could this be the time? Political campaigns are supposed to be waged for 18 long months, with fundraising and volunteers and signs and, well, filing to run on the ballot. Right? I wasn't prepared for this!
Still, I felt a calling. I've lived here for more than half of my life. I know this community, but I'd love the chance to know it better. I've seen the Beautification Project at work in the city, cleaning the streets and making Winston a more beautiful place. I've also seen the things that have been neglected or need more attention. Despite never considering a run for the seat, I realized that I do have a lot to bring to the table. And hell, no one else filed to run, so my chances can't be too bad!
So I'm in!
I let my friends and family know, and the response has been exciting to say the least. I e-mailed Dean and Sara late one night to let them know of my plans, and got a call at 9 A.M. the next morning with one very excited voice mail left for me from Sara! ...She was also calling to remind me of my next phone banking shift.
ABOUT WINSTON, OREGON
Winston is a city of about 5000 people. It's about 7 miles south of Roseburg, a city of about 20,000 and the seat of Douglas County. It's most notable feature is that it's home to Wildlife Safari, a world-renowned cheetah reserve as well as a variety of other exotic animals. I can't begin to tell you the strange, yet fascinating contrast of this place. We're your typical rural, pacific northwest small town...with elephants in abundance. The popularity of the cheetah program permeates a huge part of our city, as evident from signage and statues around town. You only need to look at the the city's website to see evidence of this.
THE CAMPAIGN, MOVING FORWARD!
So I suppose that about sums it all up. This diary must be incredibly long..I know I've been sitting here typing away for almost two hours now! I hope that, if anyone soldiered through it, that you found it all at least a little interesting.
With just one month to the finish line, I'm throwing everything I have into this race. Running a write-in campaign isn't easy, but the first step is "solidifying my base", so to speak. Ward 2 has about 1000 ballots cast in it come election time, and between my family and extended friends in the area, I'm starting with around 20 votes locked up. Now, in a race with no candidate filed and no one else contesting the seat, that's more than enough. That's if no one else is contesting the seat.
My first order of business is to attend the next City Council meeting on Monday, October 6th, both to see the council in action as well as see if I can find out if anyone else is running for the seat. If it's anything like my accidental victory in May, I might just end up coming from nowhere and parachuting in!
I'm totally excited about this opportunity, and hopeful that I can be given the opportunity to bring a progressive voice to local government. I can't wait to get this race into full-swing, and to document my journey here, from now until Election Day! I hope that if anyone reading wants to follow me along as I document my experience first-hand, they have fun doing so!
I really hope that I can now get involved with the Daily Kos community after all these years, answer any questions you guys have, ask some myself, hear some advice you have, etc. Whatever you want to throw at me!
Because I hope the take away message is this: if a 22 year-old assistant manager of a video game store who loves World of Warcraft and Barack Obama can bring his passion for politics to a successful campaign, then just think what's possible for all of us! =)
YES WE CAN!