Been getting a few folks wondering why my campaign is so….shall we say….irreverent. So…weird. So…purposely off key. By the way, here’s a draft of our new campaign t-shirts! Awesome!
I guess this is good news…the concerns are getting louder because it’s beginning to dawn on folks that I’ve got a shot. As if I didn’t know this. Anyway, the concern goes kinda like this. You’re giving people a reason to NOT take you seriously, Tim. People aren’t going to vote for you if you act so flippant, Tim. Then there’s my favorite – Tim, this looks arrogant, like you think you’re owed this seat. Me? Arrogant?
First, let’s recall that I’ve been working in politics my entire career, at all levels, in many countries, with the highest stakes, on big wins, big losses, total catastrophes, and magical Cinderella stories. If I didn’t think as hard about my own first run for public office as I did for all those other races, I’d be an idiot. And after all that thinking, if this is the sort of campaign that emerges, take it to the bank, folks, it’s probably the only way I can win. I kind of know what I’m doing.
Let’s next recall that I have a sex felony conviction. This means a couple things – first, it means I need to take whatever support I can get, from wherever it comes, in whatever form anyone wants to deliver it. That means if someone wants to volunteer art for a campaign ad, and the art looks like this, then I am happy to accept it. It’s actually liberating – I don’t think about campaign consultant crap, I don’t have to listen to the various George Stephanopoulii thinking they know what they’re talking about.
The conviction also forces a choice. I can either (A) run from it, pretend it doesn’t exist, or worse, go around being Mr. Milk Toast Candidate Guy as if everyone on earth has just decided to forget about my past, or (B) I can embrace my past as part of who I am, and try to make that work in my favor. I think we all agree, Option A is a fantasy. So the question becomes, how best to embrace Option B, make my past part of me, but definitively the past.
Terry Schwarz, senior planner at Kent State’s Urban Design collaborative in Cleveland, gave a talk at TEDxCLE in February that explains it best. Here’s the slide from Terry’s presentation that applies.
Terry explained the Japanese tradition of kintsugi – artfully repairing damaged objects. You can either fix a broken piece of pottery (or a city) by trying to repair the break seamlessly, making the break invisible, or by highlighting the damaged part, thus indicating that the piece had been broken, calling attention to the damage. The Japanese believe such repair gives honor to the piece’s history. The repaired object often becomes more valuable than it was before it was broken.
That’s what I’m trying to do in this campaign.
Voters in this primary are going to know about my conviction. Undecided voters will judge my candidacy on how I’ve dealt with it. I am choosing to deal with it in precisely this manner. This “break” is part of my story, I can’t make it disappear. So I’m choosing to repair it demonstratively, creating a new piece, which if done right, is something of greater value than before it was broken.
Running for office with a criminal conviction of this type is already unheard of. My real gamble politically is that voters who have an open mind about me will decide that someone who deals with this rather severe break, in this way, is someone they want for their county councilor. I certainly know my strongest supporters will approve – after all, they’re the ones delivering this kind of campaign with their own hands. And in a low turnout election, where the enthusiasm of your base is what will win the race, that’s a gamble I think I win.
For me personally, if I lose, i.e. if voters decide they don’t like how I dealt with this break, at least I will like how I dealt with it, how it would have made Hunter S. Thompson proud, how I’ve left behind a story to tell, and I will be left with a life more valuable than the one that was broken. Perhaps my supporters will, too.
But I’m gonna win, so I don’t think we’ll have that problem.
