A new chapter.
aspieRommel
Icrontic politicoIndianapolis, IN Icrontian
Hey guys,
I know it’s been a while since I really said much of anything on here, and I apologize for the radio silence, but recent events have come up and I am excited to share it with you, and I’m also sobered from the possible ramifications.
As many of you know, I am VERY politically active here in Indiana, so much so that I’ve had articles written about me, like in the thread posted below.* I’ve still been partaking in such the past few years, but have really been getting into more of the mechanics, such as being active in the County Party and such.
Recently, events have occurred which provided an opportunity to be able to better put forth ideas that I hope will make lives better for my fellow Hoosiers.
So on Friday, I filed to run for State Representative here in Indiana in this year’s elections.
While it is an exciting time for me, I am knowledgeable about this community’s rules about political discussion, and while I make it a point to not intentionally bring up such commentary, I won’t be posting on here for quite a while (mostly to focus on the campaign).
With that, I look forward to the challenge ahead, and let’s go get ‘em!
*: https://icrontic.com/discussion/100722/icrontic-goes-to-the-lobby#latest
![[Deleted User]](https://icrontic.com/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
Comments
Wow, interesting. Have a website?
Working on it as we speak. Will upload when finished.
Again best of luck, lemme know if you need help. Also forgot to ask, what party (I assume Republican) and u running against Dan or is he stepping down this year?
Best of luck to you.
Hello again. It's been a while, I know, but I feel that I owe you all a rundown of what happened.
The Friday after this post was made, another individual filed to run in the Primaries. While said individual had ran for Congress numerous times (and failed), I still hold today, as I did then, that they had every right to run. With that being said, it changed the strategy that my campaign had, from one of focusing on the November elections, to one of having to also duke it out in the Primary. But I was up for the task put before me. I planned on knocking on EVERY door I could, attending every event I could, and getting my name out there as best as possible. If I could not outspend them, I would outwork them, and I was ready for it.
That is, until the pandemic hit.
Once everything started to hit, my equalizer was taken away. I was not able to go door to door as I had planned, and everything had to move online. I had a campaign Facebook page set up, and while it was originally one to express my ideas and my beliefs in regards to the job, I ended up using my platform to help promote small businesses in my city. I did this because it is my firmly held belief that local small businesses are part of the backbone of the communities that we have worked so hard to build, and that to lose any one of them would cause irreparable damage to them. Looking back, it may have hurt my chances, but I would do it again if put in the same position.
To @MAGIC , yes, we had a website, and a basic one at that. It was supposed to house blogs about my reasons for running, my thoughts about issues, and what I would be doing on the campaign trail. When the pandemic hit, I'll admit that I neglected it, opting to post on my campaign Facebook as much as I could. As of a couple months ago, it has since been shut down.
But during that time, I made as many calls as possible, wrote as many emails, and filled out as many surveys as I could (to which, as I found out, a lot of them skew their questions to they put complex issues into "yes or no" questions, which I abhor). Our Primary day was moved from the traditional May date (May 5th last year) to June 2nd.
Primary day rolls around and I go out to the voting centers within my district (Indianapolis, which my district is based in, went to a voting center model, which allowed people to vote anywhere in the city), talking to as many people as I could. I'll admit that I was nervous as all hell. I had done canvassing before, but mostly for other candidates, not for myself. I talked to as many people as possible in the lines, staying out all day to do so, before heading home to watch the results come in.
I lost my Primary by a vote count of 1,470 to 317 (or 82.3% to 17.7%).
I would be lying if I said that it didn't hurt that night. I felt that I had let down my friends, my family, and those that had supported me. It hurt in the sense that I was never able to put forward my views on how we could make our state better for those that live here. It hurt because I felt that I had let down my best friend, who practically volunteered to run my campaign (I made sure to pay them with some of the money I had left over from donations. All accounted for.). But I learned from the experience, and took what I learned and will be able to use it for future endeavors.
Now, will I try again under more, shall we say, favorable conditions? It's not out of the question. I'm not sure what my future holds. I might try again for State Rep. I might try to run for City Council and work on some ideas I have for my city. The future is an open book yet to be written, and I hope that I can be able to help write the next chapters in one way or another.
Hell, you believed in the democratic process, that is a fuckton more than most candidates. Did you learn a lot? Seems so from your post. Keep at it. We need more people like you in this country, regardless of political affiliation.
I concur with pigflipper. Sounds like you ran a good campaign and held true to your beliefs. Take what you learned, regroup and if you decide to run again in the future you'll be that much more prepared. Even if you don't run again, as pigflipper said, you participated in the Democratic process in a way that 99% of America lever will and I have mad respect for you in that.
I'd like to believe that I did. For example, as I mentioned I received a lot of surveys that are used for the candidates guides you sometimes see. I received ones from pro-life groups, gun rights groups, at least one from the UAW (United Auto Workers), and others. The ones that stuck out to me were ones from the local groups, such as this one pro-life survey I filled out (didn't get a chance to send it in). It basically asked you questions and then framed them in a "yes or no" format. And the better thing is that, if I chose not to answer (because a "yes" or "no" did not resemble my belief), then as it says on the cover letter, it would be considered a pro-abortion answer.
Note: I want to take this space to clarify my opinion on abortion. I believe that a woman has a right to chose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. However, what I want to focus on is making adoption more accessible, affordable, and effective (for lack of a better term). I want to do that by working on the foster care system, working on the price of adoptions, and making sure that loving families (no matter their makeup) are able to easily adopt a child. I hold this belief because I was adopted right after my biological mother gave birth. She had every right to abort me if she chose to, but instead let me go to a family that loves me dearly. I feel I was given a chance at life, and I pray every day that I am making the most of it.
I also had my first piece of attack mail made against me. It was from a group calling for term limits for members of Congress. Now, the first question I had, obviously, was "What does a State Representative have to do with this?" What they were calling for was what is called an Article V Convention. (Quick refresher: An Article V Convention, named so because of Article V of the United States Constitution, is a convention of states to propose new amendments to said Constitution.) What they wanted me to do was sign a pledge that I would either bring up legislation, or support legislation, that called for said convention. (This is not the first time that Indiana has dabbled in Article V. Last time I can remember was 2013, my first year advocating to the Legislature, when legislation was brought up (sadly) in the wake of President Obama's re-election.) I refused to sign the pledge for two reasons:
1.) I hold Article V in higher regards than they were asking for.
2.) I don't necessarily believe in term limits.
After that, I received a mailer from the group talking about how I "refused to support term limits" and that "we'll remember on Primary Day". While I've heard of people getting mad or annoyed about mailers like that, in all honesty, I was pretty fucking jazzed about it! I still have intentions to go get it framed so I can hang it on my wall. In my opinion, I loved it because, while it was in a bad light, it still put my name out there for those to see.