This week I did not have much time to dedicate to the campaign, a mere four hours on Sunday, but I am not too worried about it because next week we are going to be busy, not to mention pride week which is sneaking up on us. I figure it would be redundant to recap the week and talk about the one day of work I put in separately.
Today was kind of a nightmare, originally I had planned on going down to St. Pete on Saturday to canvass, but when I spoke to Mike about it, I was told that there was a campaign meeting on Sunday at Dr. Lucas’ home and that there would be canvassing and phone banking opportunities both before and afterward. So in an attempt to get more bang for my buck and to save gas I decided to put it off until Sunday morning at 11. I was set to meet up with Mike and Steve L. at Steve’s house, but unfortunately I was at the store while planning this with Mike so I could not take down his address. He assured me that by midnight I would have an address in my email inbox. When I awoke the next morning the address was nowhere to be found so I scoured the internet, my old emails and made some calls and I could not get in touch with anyone or find the address. Finally around 11 Steve calls and I get his address so we re-plan for me to arrive around noon so I could pick up a turf and do some lit dropping before the meeting. Then I guess it was my turn to mess up and somehow, after I got off the interstate I managed to get back on with no chance to get off until AFTER I go over the skyway. Eventually, I made it to Steve’s house but with only an hour until the meeting we again changed plans and I made a handful of phone calls to our volunteers checking on the status of projects and asking them to provide their availability for the coming week.
The campaign meeting was uneventful, there was eight of us there, and we mostly talked about the upcoming events, mailing plans, and the plan for going citywide. There was a bit of bickering amongst the attendees about our mailing plan but it seemed that everyone had the same idea just another way to say it. The plans did not end up changing at all, it seemed like a waste of time, but that is bound to happen when you get a group of people together. I would be shocked if I had attended a meeting where there was no bickering and everything went off perfectly. Our basic mailing plan is that we are sending good absentee voters
four pieces of mail and visiting their homes at least three times before the absentee ballots are mailed out. Our first piece is being mailed out Tuesday, I’m not sure what this piece is yet but I am going to be taking part in the envelope stuffing party. The second piece is a biographical postcard which will be mailed out on July 13th (the day that the ballots are being mailed), the third an issues postcard, which is going to be sent out two days later, and the final piece will be an endorsement postcard which will be sent out three days after the last piece. We are also going to be sending deadbeat absentee voters
two pieces of mail, the first piece being sent out on Tuesday as well as the biographical piece being sent out on the 13th of July. We did not want to spend too much money on these voters, nor did we want to completely ignore them. Also, it was mentioned that when we go citywide we will have a similar mailing plan, where we will send all targeted voters the biographical piece, and the “good voters” will receive an issues and endorsement piece as well. I believe the dates will be the same as well with the first piece going out the same day as the ballots and so forth. I think that this is a great plan, ideally absentee voters who are not new registrants will receive the bio piece the same day as the ballot so even if they don’t read it they will see the Kornell logo as they throw the piece in the trash or whatever they do with their “junk mail”. Then we come back and remind them that we exist a few more times within the next week or so, then we start knocking doors where we can and calling where we cant knock.
Our plan for going citywide thusfar is very vague. After the absentee ballots go out and we feel that we are in good shape to win the primary we are leaving the district until the week before the primary election, at which point we hope to never really have to look back until GOTV time comes, for both the absentee and in person voting. I hope that we are able to at least partially move out of the district fairly early after the absentee ballots go out, with only two weeks between the Primary and the time that absentee ballots are sent out for the general election I think its important to get out of the district early, but still not so early that it comes to bite us in the butt. There are already rumors being spread by Darryl Rousson that Steve is dropping out of the Council race to run for Nina’s Schoolboard spot. I can only imagine what stories would pop up should we go citywide too soon.
