Canon Shooter
Diamond Member
- Jan 7, 2020
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Once upon a time, I considered running for elected office. After retiring from the Navy in 2001, I'd considered running for Mayor of the town I was living in at the time. I've always been an Independent, but party affiliation was not a factor for this particular office. It was always "Bob Jones for Mayor" as opposed to "Bob Jones (R) for Mayor."
I actually had no problem with the Mayor we had, I just thought I could also do the job and, maybe, do it a bit better. I certainly wasn't going to be doing it for the money, though. The Mayor for the town was considered a part-time job. If I recall, annual salary was somewhere around $22,000 a year.
I had a good relationship with the Mayor, as I admired his actions during and after the 2003 fires in southern California. I was a regular a city commission meetings, and I like to think there was a definite level of mutual respect.
Until I started looking into running. The guy turned into one of the nastiest little fucks I'd ever encountered. I started receiving harassing mails (snail mail), crank phone calls asking probing questions about my past and the like. Because of the relationship he and I had had, I never once would've thought it was him. Then at one city commission meeting, he didn't come up to me and say hello, and he always did that; every single time we saw each other. It was weird, and I put two and two together and concluded that it was him.
I was married at the time ad my wife and I discussed me running for office and, while it wouldn't have been an enormous strain, we decided against it. It had nothing to do with the phone calls and letters and everything to do with the fact that, at the end of the day, there just wasn't a lot to be said for being the mayor of Jerkwater, California.
The next time I saw the mayor, I said "So, I guess you heard I thought of taking your job. Well, no worries, I'm not running."
He gave me some bullshit line like "Oh, gee, sorry to hear that", but, when the phone stopped ringing in the middle of the night and pages-long manifestos about me stopped showing up in my mailbox, I knew it was him. I remember being mildly shocked that tactics such as that would be used on suck a low-scale level of office. After all, it's not like I was running for Mayor of New York.
So, ever think of running?
I actually had no problem with the Mayor we had, I just thought I could also do the job and, maybe, do it a bit better. I certainly wasn't going to be doing it for the money, though. The Mayor for the town was considered a part-time job. If I recall, annual salary was somewhere around $22,000 a year.
I had a good relationship with the Mayor, as I admired his actions during and after the 2003 fires in southern California. I was a regular a city commission meetings, and I like to think there was a definite level of mutual respect.
Until I started looking into running. The guy turned into one of the nastiest little fucks I'd ever encountered. I started receiving harassing mails (snail mail), crank phone calls asking probing questions about my past and the like. Because of the relationship he and I had had, I never once would've thought it was him. Then at one city commission meeting, he didn't come up to me and say hello, and he always did that; every single time we saw each other. It was weird, and I put two and two together and concluded that it was him.
I was married at the time ad my wife and I discussed me running for office and, while it wouldn't have been an enormous strain, we decided against it. It had nothing to do with the phone calls and letters and everything to do with the fact that, at the end of the day, there just wasn't a lot to be said for being the mayor of Jerkwater, California.
The next time I saw the mayor, I said "So, I guess you heard I thought of taking your job. Well, no worries, I'm not running."
He gave me some bullshit line like "Oh, gee, sorry to hear that", but, when the phone stopped ringing in the middle of the night and pages-long manifestos about me stopped showing up in my mailbox, I knew it was him. I remember being mildly shocked that tactics such as that would be used on suck a low-scale level of office. After all, it's not like I was running for Mayor of New York.
So, ever think of running?