When my friend,
Antonio Michetti, decided to run for a seat in the Pennsylvania General Assembly against
Merle Phillips, the first thing he asked me was for some publicity photos. Now, I'm no
Jacques Lowe, but with a week and a half until the election, I've come up with a nice little photo essay following his campaign which I thought I'd share. It's also my first diary here at DailyKos.
The full set can be seen on
my Flickr page. Back in March, I met Tony and his wife down in Harrisburg in front of the state capitol for some quick publicity shots.
We used this one on the first mailings that went out. A lot of people thought it looked too "fascist". I argued against that on a similarly-styled
self-portrait of mine. After spending these last few months on this campaign, I wonder if image is all that important in these more-local elections. An incumbent in another district which shall remain unnamed here was described to me as wearing "pants with stains in all the wrong places."
Anyway, I walked with Tony in most of the parades, which gave me the opportunity to show him interacting with his future constituents. These photos don't fully show just how many people Tony has interacted with on a one-on-one basis during his campaign. Most of the time, he's going door-to-door on his own, and when he can get a group together, we split up. Even if I could follow Tony as he knocks on doors, I don't know how much people would appreciate me sticking a camera in their face. People are suspicious enough when a stranger comes to their house; many have guns in their houses.
At the Selinsgrove Street Fair, a man went into diabetic shock right next to the democrats' booth. As Tony is also a registered nurse, he aided the man until the EMS could arrive. Tony's wife told me to take pictures. I couldn't do it, as it somehow felt like an invasion of this man's privacy; despite the fact he was on a public street, it seemed like one of those moments where if you're not helping, then stay out of the way. It also seemed like pandering, though in the end, the local newspaper has refused to print anything from Tony's campaign, so that's probably a moot point.
Strangely enough, this happened at the Sunbury Halloween parade as well; a man was lying on the street, and the parade paused for a moment as we stood next to him. As people gathered around him, Tony once again ran over to offer his assistance, this time wearing full Colonial American regalia. Even if I could overcome my previous misgivings about taking a picture at this moment, I felt way too conspicuous in my stockings and tri-corner hat.
The last photo is just one of those wonderful surprise moments that happen when you're devoting so much time to a campaign. Tony was signing letters to all the independent and non-partisan voters in our district, and I was helping fold them and stuff the envelopes. I looked up and saw that Tony had placed his daughter on his shoulders while still signing. After a few shots, I called out his daughter's name, and knew I had gotten the perfect shot of a man literally balancing his campaign with his family life.