Perpetual Candidate

[Martin Hash]

I’ve ran for political office a number of times, both state and federal. When I was naive, I thought I could win, but now I’m just satisfied with the experience, and thought I’d pass on some of my observations. First, unless you have a constituency, there’s no chance of winning. Second, the political parties consider the candidates as their customers: they’re just interested in the money you can bring. Third, nobody cares what you think. I came up with a saying: “Everyone wants to give me advice but there’s no one who wants to listen to mine.”

I developed several other sayings over the years, for example: “There’s always a reason not to vote for me.” An example is in order:
“I’m thinking of voting for you but what’s your position on guns?”
“I support the Second amendment.”
“What about abortion?”
“I support the Supreme court.”
“What about free college?”
“People take free for granted.”
“What’s you favorite name for a dog?”
“Spot.”
“See, I would have voted for you but Barfy is a better name.”

Another one of my sayings is: “Enemies are free but friends you have to pay for.” This is huge in politics: no one will say anything to promote you unless you reward them in some way, not even your family, but negative folks will come out of the woodwork in what is essentially millions of dollars in negative advertising. And, unfortunately, most of the people who are attracted to politics are exactly the ones you don’t want in charge: manipulative, disingenuous narcissists; and the ones who can win are the worst in those traits. I changed my focus from becoming a politician to getting the wisdom that comes from running as a candidate the first time I ran back in 2008: I even dropped out of the race when the realization hit me that I was going to have to ask people for money to give to other people I didn’t like. I was just a glorified fundraiser.

After all that, it’s still hard to determine what gets votes? Signs, flyers, debates, interviews, radio, books, newspaper, television, parades, yard signs, billboards, webpage, texts, phone calls: how much do any of these contribute? My strategy was to do what I thought would work then see if my percentage improved from last time? I started with billboards, flyers & yard signs; and the next time was debates, interviews & webpage; then newspaper, television & phone calls... You get the drift. I wouldn’t do any of the things that didn’t work the last times. Finally, I got to the place where I don’t do anything but the Voter's pamphlet.

Voter's Pamphlet.jpg