[Sosfbay-discuss] Thinking About Being A Candidate Again; Need Feedback and Volunteers

[wb4d23 at aol.com]

I was a GPCA candidate for State Assembly in 2002 and (less  well) 2004.
 
I had been thinking about running for Secretary of State until  Greg Jan 
communicated that he (and possibly other recruiters) wanted to find a  woman 
candidate for SoS to run against the Democratic Party incumbent, Deborah  
Bowen (who probably gets ok marks as a Demo SoS).  Which was fine with me  
since that meant I could focus on other things.  That was about a month  ago.
 
This afternoon I had a telephone conversation Laura Wells to  inquire about 
her candidacy plans.  She advised that the GPCA  still does not have a 
candidate for Attorney General.  Part of the  problem is that, unlike other 
state elected offices, part of the  eligibility is being a Bar Member (lawyer's 
license) in Cali for at least  five years.
 
Part of what I told both Greg and Laura is that, if I  were to agree to be 
on the ballot, I would not want to be a name only  candidate.  But having 
been a candidate, and observed and worked for  others, I know that being a 
candidate is a big drain on time and energies.   To do it even half-assed 
right, there needs to be minimum of campaign  supporters -- paid or volunteer -- 
to do a lot of the detailed  campaign tasks and let the candidate be "the 
candidate" (hard lesson  learned from past mistakes).
 
It also appears that we have no one running for partisan  office out of 
Santa Clara County in 2010.  My  suggestion is that, if I ran for AG in 2010, 
we could use the campaign as a step  by step year long training exercise for 
persons in our county who would like to  get some experience as campaign 
support workers without having to be a  candidate.  That would include:  
Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer to  receive donations, pay expenses, keep track 
of records and prepare and write and  timely file FPPC reports (as the 
candidate, I would have to supervise, review  and approve reports before they 
were filed); General Manager and Scheduler and  Volunteers Coordinator (this 
can be separate,or single, or shared positions);  Media Contacts Person; Web 
Page Administrator and/or Video Production  Coordinator.  There are probably 
additional positions/jobs, but there are  the ones I would want volunteers 
for to go ahead and pull papers to begin  collecting signatures on Monday, 
January 4th. 
 
It is already very late, IMO, to begin setting up a campaign,  but I doubt 
there would be a contested Primary Election for the AG position, so  the 
first task would be setting up the paperwork for the campaign and getting  
petitions signed to avoid a thousands dollars filing fee.  If I ran, I  would 
try to use the candidacy, particularly between now and June for fund  raising 
and promoting the GP around the state (probably mostly weekends since I  am 
still going to have to keep working for ye olde income).
 
Let me know your thoughts.  Don't clog up this email list  (rotflol).  Send 
comments to _wb4d23 at aol.com_ (mailto:wb4d23 at aol.com) 
 
Happy Holidaze and Solstice Season!
 
Warner
 
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