Making people and ideas findable
Blogging the Indiana Primary Election From the Inside
I am actually no stranger to such work, I was briefly the Communications Director for Barry Welsh, the Democratic candidate for the Indiana 6th Congressional District last fall, and before that I was an organizer for The Roots Project, a short lived effort at organizing Netroots partisans into grassroots activists in their home congressional districts. I am also to this day an editor and technician for FireDogLake, a progressive Democratic community that came to fame covering the Plamegate scandal involving Dick Cheney's aide Scooter Libby.
I've done a lot of political blogging on my own at my blog Monticello Politics and at Blue Indiana and Daily Kos. Monticello Politics is my local and state politics blog where I cover a lot of the day-in day-out political geekery that is covered in the news. Blue Indiana is a multi author blog that covers political issues local and statewide from the Democratic perspective and has authors contributing from all corners of Indiana. Daily Kos is the granddaddy of all Democratic political blogs everywhere.
In all of my previous experience in the political world that I have been an activist in for more than 20 years (as a Democrat and a Libertarian for a time), I have never seen a Democratic primary election in Indiana quite like this. This is a perfect political storm for politics geeks in Indiana, and especially so in the 7th Congressional District where I am currently active.
At the top of the ticket you have the Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton campaigns vying for Hoosier voters' attention. These campaigns are visiting the state often or sending surrogates such as Bill and Chelsea Clinton, Ethel Kennedy and others. Even famous actors have made appearances such as Sean Astin (Rudy and Lord of the Rings) and Jeremy Piven who plays my favorite character from Entourage, Ari Gold the superagent.
In the gubernatorial primary its two Northern Indiana natives who are making a run for the Governor's Mansion. Jim Schellinger, an Indianapolis resident born in South Bend and a major political donor who decided to not just sit on the sidelines this year and donate is locked head to head with tenacious former Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson who decided she wanted to continue her long career in service to Hoosiers by taking a stab at becoming the first female Indiana governor.
In my race we have 8 Democrats seeking the nomination to run for Congress this fall against Republican Jon Elrod and Libertarian Sean Shepherd, a fellow Smoosier I might add. The incumbent is Andre Carson who was just elected on March 11th to the office to replace his grandmother Julia Carson who died in office in December after a bout with cancer. Along with my candidate, Dr. Woody Myers, there are serious campaign efforts by state representatives David Orentlicher and Carolene Mays.
There have been a lot of media reports about my candidate Dr. Myers and the fact that as a millionaire he is bankrolling most of his campaign expenditures himself rather than relying on donations from supporters entirely to fund his run for Congress. This has been Topic A in the political blogs for several days now and as a partisan blogger working for the campaign it is my job to defend my candidate and his positions among the digerati of Indiana. Which can be difficult at times to do because emotions run high when discussing politics with the general population of the political blogs of Indiana.
Its definitely not a job for the faint of heart or the timid, at least insofar as the blogging and commenting aspect of the job. As far as the rest of the job its a pretty standard IT position that I have performed for numerous clients before such as Los Angeles based musician Donita Sparks (formerly of L7) and local Democratic candidate for Indiana House District 89 John Barnes.
I maintain the Myers 2008 campaign's website and official campaign blog on a Drupal platform, I set up and maintain our social network profiles, record and archive media reports about the 7th district race for internal consumption and put out small IT fires around the office. I'm equal parts internal and external campaign blogger.
I also get to take part in some of the higher level political discussions about policy issues and provide advice from the Netroots perspective to the campaign about how positions on issues will play out in the online community. This is the "West Wing" part of the job that is the fuel for the sleepless nights, long and grueling schedules and high pressure/high stress aspects of the job that activists like me put up with and enjoy to a sick degree.
There is nothing quite like participating in those kind of nerdy inside baseball discussions about the finer points of policy with your fellow team members who don't always agree on policy points even though they agree in principle to the larger policy! I once had a 4 hour argument with a guy who I agreed with on reigning in corporate "wealthfare" but he and I wanted to go about the same policy in two totally different ways. Only other political geeks would understand how short that argument actually was when I say it only lasted 4 hours and would know why that's funny.
I wanted to give my fellow Smoosiers an idea of what life is like behind the scenes of a campaign season like no other in Indiana. Its been a crazy winter and early spring, and as we move closer to May 6th it is getting even crazier. I am having the time of my life of course, and it is very cool to be able to work for a candidate like Dr. Myers.
Ideologically speaking Dr. Myers is the candidate whose policies closest match my own and has a story I can identify with. Both of us are born and raised on the eastside of Indianapolis. We've both worked hard to achieve success within our respective industries and we both have a love of blues music and politics. Thats the kind of candidate I love to see running, and that's why I am supporting him in the Democratic primary May 6th.
I hope my fellow Smoosiers will come out to vote May 6th regardless of who they are voting for in any of the races being decided that day. And as a reminder, you can vote absentee right now in the basement of the City County Building at the Marion County Clerk's office if you want to beat the crowds and vote early. I can't wait until May 7th gets here and I can finally get some sleep!
3 Comments
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Comment by Joh Padgett on April 16, 2008 at 6:08am -
Thanks Erik, and you're right, I am having a blast with this gig. Actually, the behind the scenes part of politics even on the local level can be rewarding depending on which aspect of politics you choose to apply your talents to. Consultants to campaigns, especially media consultants, can earn high six figures for Federal races. Even local races for city offices and state representative or state senate races can pay decent if you bring more than one skill to the table.
For instance, I am working for another candidate, John Barnes in a state representative race on the eastside/Beech Grove area. In addition to being his media consultant I am his IT staffer and a political adviser as well. What that means is that I go over his policies with him and we craft a message to deliver to voters before I put it out via the web.
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Comment by Douglas Karr on April 28, 2008 at 7:15pm -
Joh,
I'm sure that Dr. Woody Myers has a lot to offer this state and this country, but I have to tell you that I cringe every time I hear him talk about 'screwing up Bush's mess'. There are a lot of independents around the state that voted for Bush and it's unnecessarily alienating them. Let's talk about what Dr. Woody Myers is going to 'DO' and not talk about what others have 'done' or 'not done'.
My point is that there's a ton of opportunity for a positive candidate to stand up and serve us. I'm sick of the finger pointing and his ads sometimes sound really juvenile.
Just my 2 cents! Please don't take it personally, I really do wish you folks well! The better our elected officials do, the better we do!
Doug
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