Road Trip!

I’m taking a solo road trip today to meet one of our sons who’s thinking of moving back out west. He was born and raised in the Intermountain West and while he lives back east now with his wife, the pull of open spaces has only increased with time. Of course Mrs. Wypoxic and I are thrilled that they may be much closer to us.

I’m dictating this while in the car and I thought I’d tell a story from my campaign days.

I’m dictating this while in the car and I thought I’d tell a quick story from my campaign days.

When I first decided to run for federal office I got very lucky and found a great campaign manager and campaign strategist here in my home state. We did our first statewide pole and my name. Recognition was 3%.They immediately told me that the best way for me to increase my name recognition and become competitive would be to go door-to-door around the state. I listened and kept nodding my head in the affirmative. Nonetheless, they kept coming back to this strategy of going door-to-door. After a while, I became a little uneasy with their repetition so I asked why they kept coming back to this topic. They told me lots of candidates say they go door-to-door, but almost none of them really do it in a meaningful and concerted way.

And so I did. A typical day meant waking up most days in a small rural town, eating breakfast, printing out the walk list my team sent to me and heading out to knock on doors. Break for lunch (attending an organization lunch if available like Rotary club or Elks Lodge, etc.) and then heading out to knock on more doors. 6-7 hours a day on average (if only the 6/7 craze was around back then 😜). If the weather was good and volunteers were available, I had company. If not, I did it alone. Rain, snow, wind be damned. In the evening, I would either go to an event, go to a restaurant/bar to meet people, or, of course, go back to my hotel room in do call time dialing for dollars.

And thus it came to pass that during the course of all my campaigns, I walked into a lot of sketchy places: “enemy“ lairs (organizational event that were full of hard-core Republicans), rundown restaurants in full-on dive bars. Yeah – the dive bars were my favorite. The cast of characters I met in those places are indescribable.

Yet there was one bar I couldn’t quite bring myself to set foot in. I had been told by several people that if I walked in there and told people who I was, I might not walk back out in one piece.

Here you go:

I just drove past it and vowed to myself that one day I will walk into that bar. There will come a day when I’m not afraid to stride right on him. There will be a day when people of my political persuasion will be welcomed in that saloon. But today is not that day. Today, I continue driving right on past as I have so many times before. (My ode to LOTR)

Take a close look at the roadside sign. Enough said.

Enjoy the madness and I’ll be back tomorrow…