Election Day

The following is not a paid political announcement or endorsement. It's just that I had a beer with these guys last week, and today I get to decide whether I should vote for them in the local Village election.

Washington DC has nothing on local politics. They can sling mud with the best of them. Depending on who you listen to, this side or that side is in cahoots with the local police force, or is stealing sombody's campaign signs, or is covering up shady dealings among the Powers That Be here in the Village. It's not Republican vs Democrat, either, which usually allows us to simplify our political ideology to something easily managed - we have the Citizens With Integrity versus the Good Sense Party. I mean, how do you pick between Integrity and Good Sense? Are they mutually exclusive? It all gets very confusing.

But what I love about this is how involved you can be with the process. Candidates here really do go from door to door, shaking hands and kissing babies and asking for your vote. Local residents host parties in their home, which is how it came to pass that I had that beer with the Mayor. And every vote really does count - in the last local election, the winners and losers were separated by maybe 10 or 12 votes.

People get really deeply involved in the campaigns here and can take it all very personally, too. I had a bit of a collection of direct mail pieces developing on my desk over the past few weeks, which I didn't think to put away before a meeting with a client recently. Turns out this guy is active in local politics. Naturally, the brochure on top was from the opposing party. The client didn't say anything at the time, and I didn't learn of my misstep until I happened to meet him socially later on, when he made a joke about it. I have learned a very important lesson about discretion.

It makes me think that if we could sit down with all of our candidates in someone's living room -not at a $1000 per plate fundraiser, just to hang out and chat and raise a glass - well, it might not fix everything, but it would be awfully cool if everyone felt as involved as I do. Whoever gets my vote today, it will be a real person that I met and spoke to and got to know something about. Not a plastic TV image and sound bite.