Notes from The Campaign Trail
It’s been a little while since I last updated you on the campaign trail. I know you probably see the semi-clever “please donate” things I post ever coupled days (now that I mention it, please donate), but I haven’t had a chance to fill you in on the nitty gritty details of what it’s like the run for mayor. So here we go:
Poster Power!
Oh man my posters are getting up all over town. Wanna help distribute some in your neighborhood? Join the campaign volunteer FB group and let us know you want to help!
p.s. Thanks to all the great businesses that have already posted them!
No Campaign in the Champagne room
If you remember I was supposed to be writing about my campaign in the SF examiner. The SF Ethics Commission but the kibosh on that since they said it would break campaign finance laws (for reasons that are too long to go into now). The thing that drives me nuts is that the campaign finance laws are set up to keep things equitable between the candidates but in this case they are only harming small grassroots campaigns like mine. When you have millions of dollars behind you like Ed Lee does, it’s a lot easier to ignore the rules. So yeah, the system is rigged for the rich…duh.
The Success of the Poop Plan
You remember the “Poop Plan” right? It’s my easy and awesome idea of how to get all the human poop and piss off the streets of SF? Well it was really successful in the sense that now everyone from the Chronicle to the Mayor’s office is talking about how to solve the issues (of course without acknowledging my work). The video for it got nearly 150,000 views. and even Margaret Cho endorsed me for mayor because of it.
Endorsement Meetings Suck
A few weeks ago I attempted to get the endorsements of a few of the powerful Democratic Clubs. I thought, these are the groups that spend tens of thousands of dollars sending out campaign mailers, and since I can’t afford to do that myself (ahem…donate here please), it would be great to be their candidate. The first I tried for was the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. It was founded by Harvey Milk shortly before he was assassinated, and not only is it powerful and very progressive, I’ve also worked closely with many of its members for years. I figured I had a good chance of getting their endorsement.
The Milk Club ended up not endorsing anyone since enough of them felt they shouldn’t waste their money on mailers endorsing someone who “couldn’t win”. While that chapped my hide a bit, I at least hoped they would’ve endorsed Amy Farah Weiss since she’s also a candidate and is queer. Not endorsing anyone just solidified the media’s idea that no one is running against Ed Lee, and we all know that’s not true.
I then tried to get the endorsement of the San Francisco Young Democrats, a moderate club who pretty much love the Mayor. I didn’t really think I’d get their endorsement but I still went in there and spoke and said the fuck word and told them they should endorse me because I’m the only one who gets up there and says words like fuck. I was right, they didn’t endorse me. They actually endorsed a ver y conservative ticket, not to my surprise.
Shortly afterwards the news of the Mayor Ed Lee’s corruption started spreading around. So being the smug prick I am, I tweeted this at SFYD:
They still haven’t responded.
Many Fans at Outside Lands
Representing at the Wiggle booth at Outside Lands. That lovely person with the garland is Shakira of course.
Ashley and I spent all three days at Outside Lands and wrote funny stuff about it. The first day at Outside Lands was also my first day with these badass new campaign stickers (ahem…you can order yours here):
The cool thing about Outside Lands is that I was told by like 70 strangers that they appreciated what I was doing and that they would vote for me. It was really heartening because sometimes when you’ve got your head down and your grinding it can feel like you’re working in a vacuum. Seeing all these strangers who support what I’m doing really gave me insight into just how many people I’ve been able to reach. Goddamn that’s exciting!
Feeling at Home at the Comic Book Store
We threw our first “house party” last week at Mission Comics and Art. The owner, Leef, is part of the inner circle of my campaign team and he was the first to put on one of these events. The idea with house parties is that the host invites a bunch of their friends who all show up with like $20 or $25 buck for the campaign. They kick in the money and we all hang out, have drinks, and then I can answer any questions they have about the campaign. It’s super laid back and easy. Plus it’s a lot of fun! This event was an astounding success; we raised like $400! And it gave me awesome opportunities to get my message directly to people who want to know. I can’t wait to do more!
If you’re interested in hosting one, at your house, a bar, your office, a sex dungeon, please holler at us here and let’s make it happen.
This cute kid came into Mission Comics. Looks like he’ a supporter! Too bad he’s too young to vote.
Fun and Snark in Dolores Park
Last Sunday Ashley, Amiee (my campaign manager), and I set up a table in Dolores Park to meet people, give out stickers, and get folks to donate money to get the posters. At first the day started off slow, but then once I started walking around with the posters in my hand I got stopped by tons of people who wanted to buy one. I don’t even know how many I sold but once again it felt good to see how many people supported this weird and wild mayoral campaign I’m doing. If you don’t have your poster yet, you can get it here. We had a really great day and now we are probably gonna start doing it at a different park every weekend.
Clooney’s Happy Hour
We’ve been experimenting doing fundraising though happy hours as well. They haven’t been as successful as the house parties, but they certainly are fun! The always awesome Kim reached out to us from Clooney’s and invited us to have an event there so we did. Luckily the very talented Mariya Stangl was on hand to take photos, so check below to see what it was like.
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