End Of The Run

It started on a late summer's night in the Glebe... well, actually it started earlier than that, but on that warm summer's night at Irene's Pub is when I stumbled onto the train.

Granted, I showed up partly because my godfather, Clive Doucet, was holding a fund-raising concert for his campaign for Mayor, but I also attended because the headline act was Luke Doucet, whom I've seen a number of times before and he puts on a great show with his wife, Melissa McClelland. Halfway through the evening, Clive's daughter, Emma appears (2 weeks postpartum) and begs me to help out with the the campaign's website. One thing leads to another, and within a few days, I'm fully engaged in the campaign, helping out with the website, trying to build a Web 2.0 presence, stepping on toes, and more.

For the next two months, my life becomes the campaign, rapidly ramping beyond 40 hours a week and beyond. My role was nebulous; I definitely was involved with the website, but I felt like I never did anything to it; mostly I was doing photography and video work, but I also had a hand in communications and strategy - neither of which I have any real experience or knowledge in. But I was mixed in with the media, a lot. So much so, that by the end of the campaign, one of my friends was calling the evening news "Spot the Geiger hour"... I'm reasonably confident that between the 5-6 local networks in the National Capital Region, I was one TV at least once per day on average. Including the time I was chased out of a construction site and threatened with arrest.

Thing is, I worked my butt off for this campaign, even though I'm fairly apolitical. I've never felt comfortable pressuring others to subscribe to a particular agenda when there's no universally accepted plan. Probably why I turned my back on organized religion, and don't care about what people do in the privacy of their own homes. That said - I really got drawn into this one. Initially I didn't plan on voting for Clive, I was going to play it safe go with Watson, in the Anybody-but-Larry vein. Then I realized Jim's campaign was roughly "I'm not Larry" and he was pretty much just going to maintain status-quo, including, must disturbingly - building a tunnel under downtown. Oh - and he's on the take from developers too.

That's when I realized Clive was my going to get my vote. 2 weeks into the campaign.

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It's over now.

And I miss it.

There was this energy among the team, a motivation of knowing we were a long shot, but still a viable contender. We had to fight for media attention, meanwhile the two front-runners either silently incorporated elements or openly acknowledge us - all the while the newspapers ignored platform announcements and TV stations couldn't be bothered to show up at some pretty cool events, like when we had an Academy Award on hand!

Back to the team. Holy crap. You guys were amazing. Sure, when I joined things were in serious flux, but by the end I was lamenting the impending disbandment. I felt like we could do anything, and we did it very a very limited budget. And while I was in the 'inner-circle' or core team, I had no idea there was over 200 people volunteering. Granted, many of them were canvassers and doing flyer drops, everyone worked hard, even if it couldn't be seen.

A political campaign is quite an experience. Exhausting, but exhilarating. I think I'd like to do more media work covering one in the future, though I question what that would do to my political leanings. (I'd always thought I was grit-supporter, left-of-center kind of person... then I was told I was "progressive" and took weeks to figure out what that meant.)

Over 5000 photos later, there's so many stories I could tell you... but you'll just have to ask me about them.

Goodbye to my teammates, hope we meet again.