Over the past year I've written several diaries about Shelia Smoot and her campaign for Congress in AL-07. Last night we earned our spot in a runoff scheduled for July 13.
This was a grassroots campaign and as Shelia told supporters last night
that this campaign was made of
"Good old-fashioned blood sweat and tears."
It was certainly blood sweat and tears for me. I was walking the precinct boxes with Shelia last night in the hour before they closed trying to get the last few votes secured. I wailed in tears of pride as we pulled up to the same poll that we had at almost the same time before polls closed in 2002 when she secured her spot in a runoff for County Commission by less than 100 votes. Shelia would go on to defeat the incumbent in that runoff.
This past performance sets the tone for our runoff. It is often said in runoffs that it is all about turning out your base and get out the vote operations. Shelia is a grassroots candidate that has the people in her corner because she is in their corner. History will be made regardless in this D+18 PVI District as either Shelia or her opponent will become the First African American Female elected to Congress from Alabama. .
Shelia may be considered the underdog because her opponent has raised over $800k to our roughly $100k. However, Shelia also spent the least amount of money per vote in this race and therefore stretched her dollar the farthest as we made it to the runoff
AL-07 Dem (Smoot and Sewell to the run-off)
Shelia Smoot $3.65
Terri Sewell $21.03
Earl Hilliard, Jr. $12.43
Martha Bozeman $5.53
Shelia won the largest County and home county of Jefferson County despite the two defeated candidates also calling this county home. We feel that we will be able to consolidate these votes in the runoff. We also won the farthest South county of Clarke County as well as rural counties Pickens and Sumter. We worked hard to talk to voters in every part of the District. We worked hard to talk about how Shelia is the best candidate for creating jobs, helping to provide better access to healthcare and improving infrastructure. Shelia had this to say in her latest diary
As I've traveled the district, it pains me to see the lack of access to technology in my District. In Wilcox County, one of the poorest counties in America, I talked to a lady that just got dial up. I have two cell phones and on any given day neither of them work in these areas. Some of these areas are 20 and 30 years behind. It's shouldn't be that way. We need better broadband access in the 7th Congressional District. I'm prepared to make that a reality. People cannot apply for jobs without the capacity to access. We live in the dot com era. There are some people that cannot do certain things online that we are accustomed to like online banking, making reservations for trips, online education. If you go online you can save money. We are talking about basic life needs that technology can provide.
We also need better transportation in our district. There is one place called Gees Bend where children have to get on the school bus at 5 in the morning and have to take a ferry across the water. If you miss this ferry you have to drive an hour an hour and a half to school. The ferry only comes a few times a day. The people are not able to do it because of poverty and gas prices. If we build a bridge over the water it will take 7 to 10 minutes. Unfortunately there are some people that do not want to see progress in this area of the country.
We need your help - Daily Kos friends - we have a chance to make history and elect a better Dem at the same time
In order to win we will need more advertising, signs for our supporters, literature to tell voters about our campaign, vehicles to transport voters to the polls for the runoff and water to give to our volunteers. Donate $20.10 for Smoot to Win. We do not have to beat the opponent in raising money but we do need enough to push hard for six more weeks. We know this can be done in small increments of $10 , $20 and $50. Thank you my friends