The way things are usually done in my legislative district in Washington state, at least where the Democrats are concerned, is that months before there's a need to identify a candidate to run for a given office, the Candidate Search Committee gets together, makes many inquiries of people in the area to find out who is well-respected, well-qualified, a great Democrat, potentially electable, has the right values, etc.
Our currently serving State Senator, Derek Kilmer, really has a good shot at being elected to Congress this year to replace the retiring Norm Dicks. Derek's been an outstanding Senator and was an outstanding member of the state House before being elected to the Senate. He's young, charismatic, brilliant, honest, returns his own phone calls to constituents, and is considered a moderate. In this district, he's a great fit. And if he goes to Congress, someone's going to have to be put in place to serve as state Senator until a special election can be held to elect someone to fill out the remainder of his term.
The Candidate Search Committee has selected two men and two women to consider. They're looking for a progressive, preferably someone who will be interested and able to campaign for the seat during the special election and hopefully keep the seat in Democratic hands. The four cpeople they want to interview are a retired teacher and current actor and director of a local little theatre, a retired airline pilot who's part of his union's national executive committee, a county commissioner, and -- me?
Me. Forwhatever reason, they've chosen me as one of the four people- two men, two women - that they want to interview for consideration as the candidate to take over from Derek. I'm the number two choice between the women. I'm currently serving as our legislative district's state committeewoman, an internal Democratic Party elected position. I've run for public office once before, but that was twenty-three years ago and two states away, in a small town, where I was running for town council and missed being elected by twenty-four votes (868-844).
If I am chosen, I need a bunch of advice about running for state office. How do I overcome a nearly complete lack of name recognition? How do I overcome what might be perceived as negatives, like my being an out bisexual and a Pagan, and what will certainly be perceived as negatives, like not having a college degree and once (fourteen years ago) having been forced to file for bankruptcy by my abusive late husband, a bankruptcy that was solely to clear up his back taxes from before we met?
How do I overcome my fear of asking for campaign contributions? How do I plan in advance to campaign when my almost-certain opponent would be our awful Republican state representative and former county commissioner (and ALEC legislator of the year, whch is disgusting)?
I have not even considered running for state office before. County commissioner as a start, yes, but we have a great progressive elected to that office now. This is the most swing district in the state, too. And the search committee wants someone progressive who will not only serve in the short term, when it's likely we will be able to nominate someone into filling Derek's seat until the special election, but who will run in and hopefully win the special election and run again in the regular election two years hence. I'm willing, and I'd use Derek for my model of how to be a good state senator (and believe me, those are very big shoes to fill), but how do I do this when it comes to actually winning?
Any advice is a help. If they choose me, the first thing I'll do is talk to Derek and our Democratic state representative about how to win this district. But this is a BFD, being one of four candidates the search committee is regarding as potential choices, and I want to start preparing now to do this right if I'm selected.