Personal Story

[Susan Taylor <mstaylor@mindspring.com>]

Back in 1992 I ran for county school board.  It was one of the
top learning experiences of my life.  I purposely ran a small
budget campaign, but even with that description being valid, I
raised and spent over $4,000 for a school board office.  My
opponent raised about the same amount of money, however, he did
not have to run in a primary and I did.  I had many volunteers,
family and friends, and party organizers who helped me campaign.
I ended up with 49% of the vote and learned a lot about politics
and campaigning.  My biggest lesson was the amount of people in
the county who did not care and were not the least bit interested
in who was running for this office.  Every forum and event I
attended was attended by the same group of passionate and
interested people, but the "masses" were not there.  I clearly
remember an older and very experienced campaigner advising me
about campaign sign placement and tactics for location of my
largest signs because people "vote based on the last campaign
sign they saw--that's the name they will recall at the ballot"
and "it's a shame your last name begins with 'T' because you
won't be the first candidate listed."  I had innocently believed
that my qualifications, experience, and positions on the issues
would carry a lot of weight.  Most of the seasoned political
campaign veterans assured me that this was a myth--they were right.