Two weeks ago, I got a call from the former Lakeville City Administrator (whom I’ve met at various Republican conventions). He asked me if I’d like to manage his campaign. I was like, umm, you know I’ve never actually run a campaign before. He assured me there was nothing to it. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Well for two weeks I was "on call." My phone rang constantly and my email was always full. I wrote press releases, did research, wrote a speech, wrote letters, etc. Kind of felt like reporting again, but I did draw from my advertising experience to craft those glowing letters. :)
My candidate would always gush with praise, something I did not really believe was sincere, but what can you do, he’s a politician.
Well, the big day arrived Feb. 27. It was Senate District 36′s convention at which a candidate would be endorsed for the next State Senator. My guy assured me he had a crew and an able family to help him. I believed him. But when I showed up at 8 a.m. and found that I was the ONLY supporter there, I began to get worried. Where was the team? Where was all this help he said he had? Good grief! If I had known I’d get stuck handing out fliers, I would have brought along some teenagers.
The next thing that worried me was how my candidate seemed really nervous and unfocused. He had seem so self-assured before. He’s been around politics forever. He even ran for a school board and won. Why was he acting so weird?
From there, it went from bad to worse, and then to ultimately humiliating.
He had told his "team" (which consisted of some folks he knew, some of which did not seem thrilled to be there) not to come until 10:30–a mere half hour before the speeches! I was shocked! Why the heck weren’t they there at 7 a.m. helping him put up signs?
Well, needless to say, he freaked out when the convention folks voted to up the speeches an hour. He got all paranoid, blaming his opponent for "dirty" politics. Puhleese!
Then, he wanted me to write mean things into the speech for him to say about his opponent. I strongly advised against it.
Finally, after a round of frenzied calls to the "team" a handful of people showed up and the speeches were on. Now, mind you, I had worked probably 6 hours straight on this speech, not to mention hours working with him on revisions.
He told me he was an expository speaker and just wanted bullet points. I didn’t see why he needed a speech writer to write bullet points for him, so I wrote a real speech. Besides, he had about three minutes (because he had three people speak before him, taking up most of the time) which doesn’t give much time for expository speaking.
So, instead of taking my speech and bulleting it himself, he brings the whole thing up there. Fine! If you’ve got it up there, then just read it through! But nooooo, he decides to do his expository thing from the fully formed speech. It bombed like skunk in a camper. It was horrible. It was embarrassing. I wanted to crawl away and die. And I think he actually only "read" about one page of the speech before he was cut off.
So, after that humiliating display, what do you think he did? Blamed his opponent. Called him a (this is great) glib-tongued charlatan. Which means he hates him because he can speak well.
He came in third out of five, packed up his stuff and went home. Not so much as a word to me. Wasn’t even there when the winner invited the other candidates up to congratulate them on the race and to show solidarity in beating the Democrats. The winner did a Ben Stein type call out…"Buehler? Buehler? Buehler?" But "Buehler" had taken his tacky T-shirts with electrical tape covering up the school board words from his last election, and gone home in a huff.
At that point, I peeled my candidate’s sticker off my blouse and tried to blend in.
And did he call or contact me? No. Just an email forwarded from someone else who complimented him on trying. Why would he send that to me? I guess I know why. Because when you make a complete arse of yourself, blame the campaign manager.
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