My First Foray Into Politics

The former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, used to say that all politics are local. And for that they named a tunnel after him.

I don't usually get involved in politics, but I figured if I was going to start I should do so at the local level. My aunt is running for the town Housing Authority and, since you're allowed to hold signs for a candidate in the center of town before an election, I said I would hold a sign for her yesterday.

There isn't much to holding a sign, come to find out. I would have thought that there was more to it. I was expecting people to come up and ask me to explain my aunt's thoughts on various aspects of the town's laws and answer questions as to why she should be on the housing authority. Instead I just stood still for two hours in the main intersection of town, trying not to block the sign to passing cars. I mixed it up by making sure that my sign faced the cars that had the red light, as drivers who are stationary are much more likely to read something than those that are moving, which is why billboards are put into high gridlock areas (why yes, I did take Marketing 1, 2 and 3 in college, thank you for noticing).

Other than that it's pretty much just standing and watching. I was stunned by the number of people who refuse to go through on yellow and also the high number of cars that are driving around on their donuts (it's a temporary solution, people). Also, I learned that you should put your signs down if a funeral passes - that's one of the subtle nuances that you just have to learn on your own. The only other thing to pass the time was trying to determine if the cars that honked were because of the woman holding the "Yes on Schools" sign who waved at every car, or because people were stopping to read the "Yes on Schools" sign and didn't go when the light turned green.

Any way to get my aunt's name out there is a good one, though. The person she is running against didn't have any signs of her own on display so I think right now Mame has the leg up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens April 6th.