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June 2003
Reflections on a busy candidate - and Father's Day
I had coffee the other day with another person who is running for office for the first time. And we both laughed when I shared this anecdote: I told him that I remember months ago that I thought that as a candidate, I would be asked a lot of technical questions. So, I figured, I had better start reading the Wall Street Journal every day. I remember thinking maybe I had better subscribe.
I didn't need to say a punch line. We both laughed.
When you become a candidate, you give up your life. I have not been busier since, well, I edited a weekly newspaper in a certain special town. It’s a blast, but it’s busy.
The trick to being a candidate is that candidacy never ends. It's not like you write a story, finish a book or paint a wall. At some point, with all those things, you are done. If you kept painting a wall over and over, people would look at you funny (In the old days, I would have written 'or thought you were a state employee.' I used to write that line because my dad was a state employee, and he used to enjoy teasing the profession. Now that I am a state employee, and think of myself as working pretty hard, it is not so funny. So never mind that line.)
The thing about being a candidate is that there is always one more person to call, one more person to e-mail, one more aspect of the Web page or doorbelling letter to update or edit. There is certainly always one more house to doorbell, one more column like this to write, one more group to call to find out when they meet, and one more meeting to go to. There is always one more idea to consider, plan to contemplate, solution to scrutinize. I'm still trying to design literature and a sign and the next fund-raiser and ...
This is, of course, enormous fun or I would be insane to do it. But it does take time. What about reading the newspaper? Well, I try to read The News Tribune and a Seattle paper as best I can; but so far, I just scan the Wall Street Journal we get at work. I would be lying if I told you I got to page 2 of any section very often (well, except for the Marketplace page - because *I am* going to figure out the stock market at some point, really, and then Lakewood is going to have even nicer parks)
So much for the Journal. And am I informed enough? Well, yes. Because I have doorbelled hundreds of homes - working on thousands by the time November comes along - and people are generally not asking questions. They want to talk. They want to be heard. And I am delighted to listen. When I get to your door, I usually introduce myself, and explain why I am there. I immediately add that I am running for the position that Larry Humphrey is retiring from. I explain that quickly because Larry is like everyone's ideal father figure, and if voters think I am running against him they look at me like I was kicking their dog. I then say, "Anything you'd like me to know about the city?"
Some folks are understandably eager to get back to their family or TV or whatever, grab the letter and thank me. Fair enough - I'm generally very much the same way when someone knocks on my door. Other folks start to share concerns, or maybe talk about how satisfied they are. I've been going to council meetings for long enough that sometimes I can explain something, or not. A few folks ask direct questions about how I feel about this and that, but not as many as you might think. Nobody has thrown a question at me that I really fear, like, "So how do threats of deflation amidst a record wave of debt refinancing affect your forecast of economic development in a heat wave?
I have a ready answer. “Huh?” I learned this from Jerry Lewis himself when he came to UW. But that's another column.
The only other time I have been this busy, other than working at the paper, was when my parents were ill. If you've lost a mom or dad, you know the grief and the memories come in waves.
I think of my father these days because I miss him for so many reasons. I miss him for practical reasons you will understand if you knew him at Burs or met him otherwise: he would have been the world's best campaigner, and not just because he was retired. I know that he would have knocked on the door of every voters in Lakewood twice by now. My dad was a raging, glorious extrovert, while his son is a bit more reserved. My dad would always encourage me to go talk to this person or that person, to speak up, to stick out my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Walt Neary."
As a kid, was pretty shy. I ran from that kind of exposure. I just wanted to blend in while my dad kidded and joked and gathered a crowd. I would tell him I was pretty darn happy not to say that, thank you.
Then I became a newspaper reporter because, deep down, I wanted to get to know people. I got better at the whole extrovert thing, and would walk up to all sorts of people and say, "Hi, I'm Walt Neary" and you would be amazed at the things they would tell me while I took notes. I know I was amazed.
Even though I did learn to say the phrase, my dad would insist, in his joking way, that the secret to success was being able to do this. (He had another saying he would repeat constantly so that it became a running joke on those rare occasions when we had nothing to talk about: "Fortune favors the bold and abandons the timid." He said that every dang day, and it's why I put an abridged version of that quote for his brick in Lakewood's new veterans memorial. I figured it would be a much more suitable quote to etch on a brick than "Hi, I'm Walt Neary.")
So here I am, passionately wanting to be on the council, passionate about my issues, and about doing the right thing for this town. I am so passionate about it that I walk up to dozens of people a day and say those words. And every single voters, while sometimes terse, greets me and has been pleasant.
So my father was right all along. There is a time and place where the solution is walking up to someone and saying, "Hi, I’m Walt Neary." And in being incredibly busy.
Dang the world that he is not here to see this.
So that's it. This column is almost over. This is my Internet version of 'Hi, I'm Walt Neary."
We sign off and begin again. Time to write another column. Do you have any questions?
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