Catching Up Is Hard To Do

So many things have been going on and finishing up recently that I figured it was time to post and update the few people that read this. Primary election day was this past Tuesday, and while I put in my 14 hours helping with phone banking, precinct walking, and standing at polling locations around CD-5, it proved not to have been fruitful, as Jim Ogsbury lost the election. He garnered about 11.3% of the vote. David Schweikert ended up being the nominee with about 30% of the vote, followed closely by Susan Bitter-Smith, then Laura Knaperek and Mark Anderson. Only Lee Gentry, the independent pseudo-candidate did worse than us. But, I have no regrets. It was fun working with the Derr brothers and their crack team of people, and I hope I will have the chance to work with them again someday. Also, even though he lost the CD-5 election, Jim Ogsbury was a great guy to have volunteered for, and I firmly believe his door-to-door campaign is something more candidates should do to meet their constituents. Around 8:30pm Tuesday night, the volunteers, staff members, and friends of the candidate and campaign gathered at the Canal restaurant in Scottsdale to await the results. I admit I was fairly excited, because even the photographer from the Tribune said that her bosses were expecting him to do well. But alas, at 8:30 or so, Jim came in, asked for everyone's attention, and said he had just gotten off the phone with Schweikert and Bitter-Smith congratulating them on their race (it was too close to call between them at the time) and said that he was conceding the race. C'est la vie - such is life. You can't win them all. I wish Schweikert the best of luck in challenging Harry Mitchell for the seat, and I hope I get the chance to help out where I can. For those of you wondering about it back in District or elsewhere, I have not yet garnered my dream job, or even a random intermittant job at this point, though not for lack of trying. To date, I have submitted 579 resumes and applications to companies and campaigns since March of this year, and obtained 32 responses, almost all of them the standard "other candidates met our qualifications better" letters or emails. Lowering my expectations seems to be in order now. I am applying at Blockbuster, receptionist spots at doctors' offices, drugstores, OfficeMax, and other retail spots in the hopes that I find something to bring in some pocket change while I continue my hunt. Oh, and my laptop broke, which royally ticked me off last week. Someone dropped it while I was out of the house, and ripped the adapter plug out of the DC jack, breaking it. That jack is apparently attached to the motherboard, and will cost at cheapest around $75 to fix. Not to mention the $32 I just paid for a new adapter. So that was very disappointing, especially considering that most of my resume stuff, cover letters, and nice Microsoft Office 2007 programs are on there. No damage to the hard drive, though, so if I can get the jack repaired, theoretically, all the data should still remain okay.

Press Conference & Bowling

Yesterday, Jim Ogsbury's campaign held a press conference in front of the Harry Mitchell 'effigy' near the ASU campus on Mill Avenue to talk about how Mitchell is obstinately refusing to sign discharge petitions on a variety of bills relating to helping America achieve energy independence. I went out there around 10:30am to help out, and ended up filming the event for the campaign! The video is below: It's a good press conference, and well worth watching, especially as it comes in arguably the most important Arizona race this election cycle, possibly one of the more important national races. The other candidates in CD-5 - Schweikert, Anderson, Bitter-Smith, and Knaperek - don't have what it takes to compete against Mitchell, while Ogsbury has strong district support, a solid record of conservatism in both Arizona and DC, and an aggressive campaign strategy in which he actually gets to meet the voters of his district by going door-to-door himself. After the event, many of the volunteers went to make phone calls and walk neighborhoods, which I wanted to go do, but had to go pick up some of my family from work and school. But later than night, the campaign sponsored a bowling night for their volunteers who had helped that day, and I did go out there for four hours. With an average score over four games of 108, I did decently, I guess. Either way, it was a good time! For Chelsea: Greg was there, too, and he says hello and is doing well as an economist for the Salt River Project and getting ready to go to graduate school.