My friend sent me a link to this Substack tonight and I just can’t believe it!!! I’m humbled and giddy and shocked and touched. (I was told my website message was too long and people probably wouldn’t read it, and then this??)
Thank you, thank you for taking the time to learn about me and donating and expressing an interest in volunteering. Here’s my email address so we can stay in touch: sarah@keyeskiforwi.com.
You have me thinking back to my run for the Idaho state legislature, of course, on more than one level.
This is tl;dr and I really should write a blog post (oh wait I did https://biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/2011/01/representing-aryans-political-speech.html but I wrote this long message before realizing how much of it was in the post so I'm keeping it). Every person who runs can make a difference. You may not win but you're building capital and you might win the next time.
It matters. If you do win you get to do some good. Whether you like it or not this IS the system we have and giving up on it means we'll always elect the greater of two evils, if you think that's your choice set.
So much of what I did is reduced or gone. That isn't a reason for people not to do the work. What else will produce results *within the existing systems*? "Burn it all down" simply isn't an answer. Who gets burned?
So, yeah, I've been an elected official. This was pre-e-mail campaigning, my children, back when we chiseled our campaign literature on stone tablets using MS Word's mailmerge function and personalizing as best we could based on voter ID because you hadn't told us your every last interest and concern and inseam size by clicking on ads and answering fakey Facebook surveys.
And I *was* invested in my community in a very hands-on way. That's a great point, Garrett. I had volunteered on a trail committee and had written sincere letters to the editor. I picked up trash on a mile of highway and had my name on the sign as the volunteer maintaining it.
As a member of the very rapidly created Idaho Pro-Choice Network I had stood outside the post office gathering signatures on a petition asking Gov. Cecil Andrus to veto an anti-abortion bill, HB625 (yes I can cite that bill number from memory with no help from Google or your search engine of choice). Before that I wrote letters to my elected representatives telling them I'd watch how they voted on HB625 and I would vote accordingly in the fall. Later one of those same House members welcomed me into the caucus meeting by saying, "I *remember* your letter. That last line! 'I will vote accordingly in the fall.'"
I ran as a pro-choice candidate who cared about human rights and the environment and beat a four-term anti-choice incumbent by 313 votes out of over 20,000 cast. I wasn't supposed to win. No interests put big money into my campaign. My first donation was a $500 check from an attorney active in the local Democratic Party. My second was $5 from a lady who didn't even live in my district. She got my pro-choice fundraising letter and sent me a $5 bill in an envelope with a note written in shaky handwriting that told me she remembered pre-Roe days.
Yes, I told my personal story. But I mostly ran on the issues that differentiated me from the incumbent. I worked hard to find common ground with people who might not identify as pro-choice but who could get very worked up about the government invading your bedroom and your personal decisions.
I doorbelled the heck out of the district and got in all the walking you're supposed to do when you're pregnant because guess what, the day after my papers stating my intention to run were filed in Boise the little test strip turned pink and I was starting a family that year. Not that I would tell everyone to plan their lives this way but a pregnant pro-choice candidate made for quite a package. (Although don't tell a reporter "the baby was planned, the campaign was an accident"--it's too quotable to leave out of the story.)
I won that first House seat, ran for an open Senate seat and won that, ran for re-election and lost. It was 1994 and Newt Gingrich was really good at messaging and framing. I was supposed to be a safe seat because I'd worked hard, did constituent service, got bills passed, held lots of town halls and engaged with constituents every chance I got.
I was then recruited to run for a seat on the governing board of North Idaho College because a right-wing candidate had filed. I had name ID, ran hard and won. Served on the board for 5 years, chaired it for two, had the privilege of signing an accord with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe naming the actions we would take to improve recruitment, retention and success of Native students attending the college built on their ancestral lands. We improved funding for women's athletics by pointing out that we weren't in compliance with Title IX--that's what you can do when 3 of the 5 trustees are women and ask those questions.
I'm angry, and I don't live in Idaho any more.
I'm angry that the state I was born in that was home to many independent-minded people has fallen for so many flavors of rhetoric. It was there when I was there but we could win campaigns and we could make a real difference. I'm angry that the current governing board of NIC seems to be determined to lose the college's accreditation and ignore the fiduciary oath they took when they joined the board as they "MAGA-fy" the school. YES it matters to run for those positions no one thinks much about! They've been playing the long game and that's why they're winning https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/us/politics/north-idaho-college-republicans.html?smid=url-share (gift link).
I'm angry that the wins we made are all threatened or lost again. We defeated an anti-gay initiative in 1994, people. 1994! This is before all the marriage equality campaigns started succeeding. People didn't feel safe being out. Our slogan was "Idaho is too great to hate". My older daughter still has my T-shirt from that campaign. Maybe standing up for that was one of the reasons I lost my re-election bid that year. I don't know. So be it. I didn't run to hide from my values and beliefs. Dammit.
Keep working, keep voting, keep running, keep donating even if the ads aren't awesome, keep building those small local efforts that one day you'll put on your bio page when you run, or someone who volunteered because you started the thing will put it on theirs.
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who hates political candidate/party emails 99% of the time but who still receives them. I particularly hate the fake survey ones that just seem like an excuse to get people to the donation page. I actually really want constituent opinions to matter so these really bug me! The tactics that really work for me are the candidates who show you that they do their homework to be educated on the issues and tell the truth. If someone is willing not just to say racism exists but to say it when it could cost them, that kind of truth matters. And if they’re willing to say it while campaigning with evidence that they have more than a sound bite of understanding that says something to me.
There's been much written about the personality-driven metric by which candidates are presented and measured these days. It's not, Do you support their policy positions? It's, Would you want to sit and have a beer with them? Likability (whatever the fuck that means, in truth) being more important than actual substance. Clearly, I have some trouble with this, even as I understand that policy is, for lots of people, where their eyes glaze over and they feel uninformed. So, why wouldn't they lean away from that feeling?
What you're suggesting here is, I feel like, a midway point between the two. You're not looking at the wonky mechanics of her policy goals or political positions. You're looking at how she actually participates/shows up in the world and specifically in her community. Might that also mean you'd be willing to have a beer with her? Probably. Might that also mean her policy positions are, on balance, consistent with yours? Also, probably. But it's not either really. It's, How do you show up as an engaged human in community? And that seems a smart way to show what you're made of, even if it is also easy to package in a political appeal.
Hey Garrett! Especially appreciated this because I grew up in Columbia County and Lodi was in our athletic conference which meant cross country meets with them. It's been decades...many decades...but my memory is that Lodi had a fast course. And now, years later, it's good to know a community organizer is running for office. Two good Lodi associations!
Good work, as always. A couple of small notes from the periphery: I was a convention voter in 2017, when we had to select someone to run for the congressional seat that was vacant because Ryan Zinke left Congress for a job in the Trump Admin, and, since there were like 200-some of us, the approaches were pretty personal. I met Rob at The Break. These weren't the very first words out of his mouth in late February 2017, but very nearly so: "Bernie would've won." The mustache, the hat, and the gun notwithstanding.
We don't have Dems running for every seat this time. We did pretty well several years ago, but imo it's not actually that good a strategy. There are a lot of districts where we're just not going to win. It's a whole lot to ask someone to take on the huge burden that is running for office -- it's a year out of your life -- which then ends in some humiliation. OK, so maybe you worked your ass off and lost 65-35 instead of 70-30. The party isn't going to invest much if any money in these races, and while the candidates' family and friends might donate, that's a testament to their loyalty, rather than any sort on investment in the future. If you ask me, I'd rather the party, that candidate, and her family and friends spent that energy, time, and money on races where we might win with a little extra effort. In a world on unlimited time, energy and money, you wouldn't be doing triage. We don't live in that world.
I'm not saying we should give in to despair, not at all. There are races where one candidate has an insurmountable advantage. It might still be worth having a candidate, to draw someone to vote who would otherwise stay home, but that's not very often going to be the case. How many people in far Eastern Montana are really going to vote for Tester, instead of staying home, because their friend is running for a state house seat? Vanishingly small.
I am beyond thrilled that you are on now on ‘Team Keyeski’ and will be spreading the word about our campaign! Thank you!!
I would love to meet you, learn more about your Barnraisers Project and introduce you to some of the people I have recently met that are also doing great grassroots work!!
(Also, if you or anyone would like to follow what I’m doing/thinking/learning on the campaign trial, go to Sarah Keyeski for WI.)
I have a fraught opinion of those political emails and Act Blue. My mom passed away in 2022 at the age of 70. Absolutely never computer literate, and also experiencing cognitive decline - I discovered that in the year before she died she had donated over $1300 to Act Blue via $5 monthly donations, multiple $20 one-time donations, etc. to Democratic candidates in far away jurisdictions. She was on Social Security/Medicaid in assisted living and had only $4000 in her bank account.
I believe they preyed on elders like my mom. I can't say for sure if she was tracking her spending that carefully and realized, but I doubt it. I basically considered the money she had spent (and I basically stopped counting after a year, so I don't know the full extent) part of an estate bequest and moved on. I myself donate to my state party and other specific groups, but those emails go straight to unsubscribe and spam. "Gives me the ick" as they say.
Yay for Team Keyeski! And YES to candidates doing the work in their communities first. We have these grassroots candidates popping up all over Wisconsin these past few years, and it’s wonderful that our new maps give them a fair chance to make it into the legislature this year.
And boo to those awful fundraising techniques! PACs are setting a terrible standard for everyone.
Garrett?? It’s me, Sarah!! :)
My friend sent me a link to this Substack tonight and I just can’t believe it!!! I’m humbled and giddy and shocked and touched. (I was told my website message was too long and people probably wouldn’t read it, and then this??)
Thank you, thank you for taking the time to learn about me and donating and expressing an interest in volunteering. Here’s my email address so we can stay in touch: sarah@keyeskiforwi.com.
You made my day! Wow.
You have me thinking back to my run for the Idaho state legislature, of course, on more than one level.
This is tl;dr and I really should write a blog post (oh wait I did https://biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/2011/01/representing-aryans-political-speech.html but I wrote this long message before realizing how much of it was in the post so I'm keeping it). Every person who runs can make a difference. You may not win but you're building capital and you might win the next time.
It matters. If you do win you get to do some good. Whether you like it or not this IS the system we have and giving up on it means we'll always elect the greater of two evils, if you think that's your choice set.
So much of what I did is reduced or gone. That isn't a reason for people not to do the work. What else will produce results *within the existing systems*? "Burn it all down" simply isn't an answer. Who gets burned?
So, yeah, I've been an elected official. This was pre-e-mail campaigning, my children, back when we chiseled our campaign literature on stone tablets using MS Word's mailmerge function and personalizing as best we could based on voter ID because you hadn't told us your every last interest and concern and inseam size by clicking on ads and answering fakey Facebook surveys.
And I *was* invested in my community in a very hands-on way. That's a great point, Garrett. I had volunteered on a trail committee and had written sincere letters to the editor. I picked up trash on a mile of highway and had my name on the sign as the volunteer maintaining it.
As a member of the very rapidly created Idaho Pro-Choice Network I had stood outside the post office gathering signatures on a petition asking Gov. Cecil Andrus to veto an anti-abortion bill, HB625 (yes I can cite that bill number from memory with no help from Google or your search engine of choice). Before that I wrote letters to my elected representatives telling them I'd watch how they voted on HB625 and I would vote accordingly in the fall. Later one of those same House members welcomed me into the caucus meeting by saying, "I *remember* your letter. That last line! 'I will vote accordingly in the fall.'"
I ran as a pro-choice candidate who cared about human rights and the environment and beat a four-term anti-choice incumbent by 313 votes out of over 20,000 cast. I wasn't supposed to win. No interests put big money into my campaign. My first donation was a $500 check from an attorney active in the local Democratic Party. My second was $5 from a lady who didn't even live in my district. She got my pro-choice fundraising letter and sent me a $5 bill in an envelope with a note written in shaky handwriting that told me she remembered pre-Roe days.
Yes, I told my personal story. But I mostly ran on the issues that differentiated me from the incumbent. I worked hard to find common ground with people who might not identify as pro-choice but who could get very worked up about the government invading your bedroom and your personal decisions.
I doorbelled the heck out of the district and got in all the walking you're supposed to do when you're pregnant because guess what, the day after my papers stating my intention to run were filed in Boise the little test strip turned pink and I was starting a family that year. Not that I would tell everyone to plan their lives this way but a pregnant pro-choice candidate made for quite a package. (Although don't tell a reporter "the baby was planned, the campaign was an accident"--it's too quotable to leave out of the story.)
I was elected to represent the district that included the Aryan Nations compound that is now gone thanks to a brave family and great legal work (super short story https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/keenan-v-aryan-nations and a longer story https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2000/aryan-nations-verge-collapse-following-judgment and https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2000/victoria-keenan-discusses-run-aryan-nations). I didn't doorbell that precinct. I knew exactly where they were because they had a swastika posted by the road. I supported the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations before, during and after my time in office (https://www.idahohumanrights.org/history.html).
I won that first House seat, ran for an open Senate seat and won that, ran for re-election and lost. It was 1994 and Newt Gingrich was really good at messaging and framing. I was supposed to be a safe seat because I'd worked hard, did constituent service, got bills passed, held lots of town halls and engaged with constituents every chance I got.
I was then recruited to run for a seat on the governing board of North Idaho College because a right-wing candidate had filed. I had name ID, ran hard and won. Served on the board for 5 years, chaired it for two, had the privilege of signing an accord with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe naming the actions we would take to improve recruitment, retention and success of Native students attending the college built on their ancestral lands. We improved funding for women's athletics by pointing out that we weren't in compliance with Title IX--that's what you can do when 3 of the 5 trustees are women and ask those questions.
I'm angry, and I don't live in Idaho any more.
I'm angry that the state I was born in that was home to many independent-minded people has fallen for so many flavors of rhetoric. It was there when I was there but we could win campaigns and we could make a real difference. I'm angry that the current governing board of NIC seems to be determined to lose the college's accreditation and ignore the fiduciary oath they took when they joined the board as they "MAGA-fy" the school. YES it matters to run for those positions no one thinks much about! They've been playing the long game and that's why they're winning https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/us/politics/north-idaho-college-republicans.html?smid=url-share (gift link).
I'm angry that the wins we made are all threatened or lost again. We defeated an anti-gay initiative in 1994, people. 1994! This is before all the marriage equality campaigns started succeeding. People didn't feel safe being out. Our slogan was "Idaho is too great to hate". My older daughter still has my T-shirt from that campaign. Maybe standing up for that was one of the reasons I lost my re-election bid that year. I don't know. So be it. I didn't run to hide from my values and beliefs. Dammit.
Keep working, keep voting, keep running, keep donating even if the ads aren't awesome, keep building those small local efforts that one day you'll put on your bio page when you run, or someone who volunteered because you started the thing will put it on theirs.
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who hates political candidate/party emails 99% of the time but who still receives them. I particularly hate the fake survey ones that just seem like an excuse to get people to the donation page. I actually really want constituent opinions to matter so these really bug me! The tactics that really work for me are the candidates who show you that they do their homework to be educated on the issues and tell the truth. If someone is willing not just to say racism exists but to say it when it could cost them, that kind of truth matters. And if they’re willing to say it while campaigning with evidence that they have more than a sound bite of understanding that says something to me.
There's been much written about the personality-driven metric by which candidates are presented and measured these days. It's not, Do you support their policy positions? It's, Would you want to sit and have a beer with them? Likability (whatever the fuck that means, in truth) being more important than actual substance. Clearly, I have some trouble with this, even as I understand that policy is, for lots of people, where their eyes glaze over and they feel uninformed. So, why wouldn't they lean away from that feeling?
What you're suggesting here is, I feel like, a midway point between the two. You're not looking at the wonky mechanics of her policy goals or political positions. You're looking at how she actually participates/shows up in the world and specifically in her community. Might that also mean you'd be willing to have a beer with her? Probably. Might that also mean her policy positions are, on balance, consistent with yours? Also, probably. But it's not either really. It's, How do you show up as an engaged human in community? And that seems a smart way to show what you're made of, even if it is also easy to package in a political appeal.
Hey Garrett! Especially appreciated this because I grew up in Columbia County and Lodi was in our athletic conference which meant cross country meets with them. It's been decades...many decades...but my memory is that Lodi had a fast course. And now, years later, it's good to know a community organizer is running for office. Two good Lodi associations!
It's one of the most interesting races on the new State Senate map...
Good work, as always. A couple of small notes from the periphery: I was a convention voter in 2017, when we had to select someone to run for the congressional seat that was vacant because Ryan Zinke left Congress for a job in the Trump Admin, and, since there were like 200-some of us, the approaches were pretty personal. I met Rob at The Break. These weren't the very first words out of his mouth in late February 2017, but very nearly so: "Bernie would've won." The mustache, the hat, and the gun notwithstanding.
We don't have Dems running for every seat this time. We did pretty well several years ago, but imo it's not actually that good a strategy. There are a lot of districts where we're just not going to win. It's a whole lot to ask someone to take on the huge burden that is running for office -- it's a year out of your life -- which then ends in some humiliation. OK, so maybe you worked your ass off and lost 65-35 instead of 70-30. The party isn't going to invest much if any money in these races, and while the candidates' family and friends might donate, that's a testament to their loyalty, rather than any sort on investment in the future. If you ask me, I'd rather the party, that candidate, and her family and friends spent that energy, time, and money on races where we might win with a little extra effort. In a world on unlimited time, energy and money, you wouldn't be doing triage. We don't live in that world.
I'm not saying we should give in to despair, not at all. There are races where one candidate has an insurmountable advantage. It might still be worth having a candidate, to draw someone to vote who would otherwise stay home, but that's not very often going to be the case. How many people in far Eastern Montana are really going to vote for Tester, instead of staying home, because their friend is running for a state house seat? Vanishingly small.
Hello Garrett. I am listening to you on the Slate podcast you listed and you sound so pleasant and approachable! :)
Also, the description of your book, "building a better world than your own ego" sounds magical and I just ordered a Kindle of it.
You make me hopeful for a multiracial world! :) Keep up the great work!
I am beyond thrilled that you are on now on ‘Team Keyeski’ and will be spreading the word about our campaign! Thank you!!
I would love to meet you, learn more about your Barnraisers Project and introduce you to some of the people I have recently met that are also doing great grassroots work!!
(Also, if you or anyone would like to follow what I’m doing/thinking/learning on the campaign trial, go to Sarah Keyeski for WI.)
Stay in touch!
I have a fraught opinion of those political emails and Act Blue. My mom passed away in 2022 at the age of 70. Absolutely never computer literate, and also experiencing cognitive decline - I discovered that in the year before she died she had donated over $1300 to Act Blue via $5 monthly donations, multiple $20 one-time donations, etc. to Democratic candidates in far away jurisdictions. She was on Social Security/Medicaid in assisted living and had only $4000 in her bank account.
I believe they preyed on elders like my mom. I can't say for sure if she was tracking her spending that carefully and realized, but I doubt it. I basically considered the money she had spent (and I basically stopped counting after a year, so I don't know the full extent) part of an estate bequest and moved on. I myself donate to my state party and other specific groups, but those emails go straight to unsubscribe and spam. "Gives me the ick" as they say.
Yay for Team Keyeski! And YES to candidates doing the work in their communities first. We have these grassroots candidates popping up all over Wisconsin these past few years, and it’s wonderful that our new maps give them a fair chance to make it into the legislature this year.
And boo to those awful fundraising techniques! PACs are setting a terrible standard for everyone.