Campaign Academy Out of Context Theater

"You missed my baby!"

"The scariest thing of all is that John Sharp has learned how to text message."

The Future of Texas Politics

I'd like to take the opportunity of a web forum all to myself (Elizabeth's picking up her cousin at the airport, so I stole the computer and told Emily I was checking my email 145 times) to address a troubling rumor once and for all:

Patrick Rose and Mark Strama are not the same person.

I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? Though it is a widely accepted fact that Patrick Rose is a politician of such high caliber and campaigning know-how that he could feasibly have been elected to two different seats in the same year, I have difficulty believing that he would create a political alter ego, use that alter ego to establish a Campaign Academy, and not call that academy "Patrick Rose Campaign Boot Camp." Therefore, using my intern's intuition and the philosophical principle of Occam's Razor, I have come to what I believe is a simple and elegant conclusion:

Patrick Rose is Mark Strama's younger self, sent forward in time to serve Texas right when it needs him the most.

If you think about it, the signs are many: Patrick Rose is younger than Mark Strama. Mark is married and has a daughter; Patrick Rose has not yet been married, and does not have any children. Patrick Rose drives a DeLorean and has watched every single installment of I Love the 80s.

Look, I'm not saying that if you busted into Mark's capitol office and ripped up the floorboards, you would find the portal to the fourth dimension that was used to bring Patrick Rose into the 21st century.

But I'm also not saying that you wouldn't.

Christine Pelosi Can Be My Campaign Drill Sergeant Any Day

Indication #472 that I might, in fact, have metamorphosed into the biggest nerd I know:

When Christine Pelosi comes to visit the Campaign Academy on Friday, sharing stories of conscience, conflict, and public policy, I become convinced over the course of an hour that she is the coolest person on the face of the earth.

Seriously, though, I challenge the internet to come to a different conclusion. We're talking about a lady willing to give us the downlow on what it takes to be a politician (complete belief in your cause, willingness to sacrifice wedding anniversaries for house parties and minor injuries), how to deal with being right but not being able to do anything about it ("I told you so" is not a policy, unless you have younger siblings), and the appropriate application of grandmothers to the political process (making phone calls and bickering over the nationalities of your constituents).

"She's so practical!" I gushed to fellow interns, who had by then politely moved on to the next speaker. It is moments like these-- when data entry makes me giddy, when I breathlessly exclaim to Howard Dean that his new voter registration strategies are "so statistically significant," when Scroll Down, Vote for Andy Brown strikes me as the epitome of cleverness-- that make me realize just how sad a place my brain has become.

But never mind all that. CHRISTINE PELOSI.

Not only does she have her very own Wikipedia entry and comprise approximately 20% of our blog's readership (the other 80% being me, Emily, Grant, and people hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google), but Pelosi served as John Tierney's chief of staff, has written a book called Campaign Boot Camp that is surprisingly not a biography of Mark Strama, and IS A SUPERDELEGATE. DID YOU KNOW THAT? She can also stop bullets. With her mind.

If you don't believe me, check Wikipedia. Hint hint.

Too Cool for Netroots

It was day two of Netroots Nation for the Campaign Academy-- did anybody else know you had to register for this shindig?! Luckily, my escort off the premises was not a burly security guy (do they even have those at blogger conventions?) but fellow intern Matt Bell, and not before we achieved a quick fifteen minutes of fame: While circling Ballroom D yet again, my ardent political activism as expressed in the sentiment "Ooh, candy!" earned us the attention of a gentleman with Commonweal Institute, who promptly interviewed us for the group's podcast. In a great personal breakthrough, I managed to answer his questions using phrases other than "save me a Junior Mint."

Actually, today was a big one for me in terms of media savvy. Though perhaps not as illustrious as, say, a stint on 60 Minutes, this interview was excellent practice for me in crafting sound bytes and not using words commonly found on the SAT. I even worked in a reference to Bono.*

We've got an exciting day lined up tomorrow, even though that day is Saturday and technically our day off. It's like they say: No rest for the interns.

*I am so pop culture impaired that Bono is the only "cool" reference I know. I try to use it only once when meeting new people, in the hope that I will seem so cool in that moment that I will never have to prove myself again. This tends to fall apart when they discover that I've never heard "Smack That" and don't know what they're talking about when they start in on McDreamy and how cute Jim and Pam are.

Party Like a Blog Star

In my career as an intern, I've found that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. In this case, "discretion" entailed discreetly tagging along on a stickering mission to Brush Square despite not knowing what stickering was, and "valor" the fact that said mission put me in the path of Howard Dean and a convention center full of bloggers.

It turns out that there's a little get-together called Netroots Nation going on this weekend, and a few of us at the Campaign Academy were sent over to entreat the bloggers, advocacy groups, and assorted political junkies to accept our "Turn Texas Blue" stickers and thereby pledge their eternal souls to the cause. As if the bloggers weren't incentive enough, we also learned that Howard Dean would be putting in an appearance as part of his nation-wide voter registration efforts.

I fixed my hair ninety-seven times before I would agree to get out of the car.

Unfortunately, just as the man himself was launching into a great and fascinating speech, I fell victim to the most irresistible of convention lures: swag. Tempted by the prospect of free pens and luggage tags, fellow Campaign Academician Catherine and I traipsed up to the fourth floor of the Austin Convention Center and made our way into Ballroom D. There we found a treasure trove of activist groups, worthy causes, and foam Statue of Liberty crowns-- yours truly walked away with no fewer than nine pins and a bevy of stickers, and currently resembles nothing so much as an ambulatory billboard of democracy.


I couldn't think of a good note to end this post on, but Jen Fomby has advised me to tell you all: "I notice you're pretty gangster. I'm pretty gangster myself."

Failure to Launch (But Not to Lunch)

When the morning's block-walking efforts up in Wells Branch were stymied by a surprise lack of lit, stranding us in the home of host Jimmy Talarico and his family until help or pizza could arrive, the plucky interns of Campaign Academy knew exactly what to do.

"Right hand red!"

"Wait, is that everybody's hand or just my hand?"

"I'd love to see this game played with a group of yoga instructors ..."

Twister was preceded by an exceedingly democratic game of Catch Phrase: Instead of creating needless division by picking teams (boys against girls, every other person, everyone against Lorenzo), we passed around the little electronic timer and focused on the sheer joy of guessing. Afterwards, we caught The Breakfast Club on TV while lunching on Mexican Ole pizza, broadening this intern's horizons with the revelation that people actually make and serve Mexican Ole pizza.

Then Grant showed up with the flyers and we hit the streets, but not before I swore to start dying my hair red and serving excessive Saturday detention sentences.

Carry On, My Wayward Blog

Well, it's been a long break for yours truly-- an epic, action-packed, mile-a-minute week of driving my out-of-town relations back and forth from Ross to TJ-Maxx. Back at the Campaign Academy "ranch," it looks like I missed out on some pretty cool happenings: visits from Evan Smith, Paul Burka, Matthew Dowd, and a small contingent of bloggers (including the illustrious Eileen Smith of In the Pink Texas). But you know what? I'm not bitter.

I've got data entry.

Yeah, that's right. Forget about the glamor of political celebrity and the pure adrenaline rush of blogging; I'm sitting behind a cubicle wall trying to figure out what to do when voters check off "yes" under sex. Are they subversive or just really enthusiastic? Will this be mistaken for a campaign promise of some kind? Is "9 Hell Cirlc" a street in Austin, or an occult tome from Hellraiser III? These are questions that I can't answer.

Not without a much, much deeper knowledge of handwriting analysis.

Bringing Sexy Back

It should come as no surprise to the informed reader that, in working in Texas politics this summer, the word we interns hear more often than any other is "sexy."

"The smaller down-ballot races are not the sexy ones," one campaign manager told us during yesterday's lunch, while another guest speaker warned, "Some people don't think that life and liberty are very sexy."

Who knew that a dearth of sex appeal would be such an issue in down-ballot state races? In an attempt to redress this glaring problem, I have thoughtfully compiled a list of ways to "sexy up" your own bid for not-so-prestigious elected office:

Consider selecting "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake as your campaign song. Not only is it the definitive sexy pop anthem, but it also makes for a catchy attack ad through its assertion that your opponents "don't know how to act."

Send out mailers that feature your vacation pictures with Bono. Photoshop skills a plus.

Try to finagle an endorsement from the National Union of Victoria's Secret Models.

Don't lose heart, bottom-of-the-ballotters! Your fight for glamor and glitz has only just begun. Just remember: One campaign's "misunderstanding of the term 'sexy' in its application to local races" is another campaign's "calendar shoot."

Not So Ready For My Close-Up, Mr. DeMille

Yesterday morning, I bounced bright-eyed and bushy-tailed into Campaign Academy HQ, only to find an ominous email from Mark announcing that a news crew was coming by to do a story on Campaign Academy. Naturally, I was filled with panic. Although I am passionate about politics and the work that we do here, I am not exactly known for my discretion and palatable sound bytes, and was seized with terror that if a microphone were placed in front of me, I might accidentally say something I would later regret, like "Socialism now!" or "PATRICK ROSE WILL YOU MARRY ME."

(This of course was silly. Like I could ever regret proposing to Patrick Rose.)

When reporter Elise Hu showed up, Mark tried to help me out.

"This is Elisa, she's sort of a journalist but more of a writer and she really doesn't want to be on television ever."

Clearly, with this ringing endorsement of my camera savvy, when we broke up into groups to assemble voter registration packets, the person at my table who was randomly selected for a miniature interview was me. This went approximately as well as could be expected: I did not declare my allegiance to the Mole People or proclaim that the truth was out there, but I did ramble painfully about registering voters at this point in the election cycle and everyone knows what an important primary this was for turning out new voters blah blah blah. I actually used the word "arcane."

"I think he was just looking for you to be bouncy and cute," a fellow intern confessed, kindly, as I hyperventilated in a corner. "You know, with the pigtails."

The news story, which fortunately does not feature too much of me, can be found here. Check it out!

The pigtails are deceiving.

Fun with Rorschach

Maybe block-walking in the hundredsomething-degree heat yesterday fried a few too many of my brain cells, but does Donna Howard's district look like a dragon to you?


See, KT said it reminded him of a dragon, but to me it looks more like a manic poodle. Meanwhile, Mark's district looks like a malformed lobster, Elliott Naishtat's a puzzled ferret, and Valinda Bolton's reminds me of my mother. There are probably better maps out there, but this one is the best thing that twenty pages of Google searches turned up. (Howard's website, however, features a much larger depiction of the alleged dragon, which up close looks suspiciously like England rotated ninety degrees to the right.

Coincidence? I think not.)


ETA: Looking back over this post, the fact that I spent a Saturday afternoon Googling maps of District 48 is both alarming and way lame. I need to get invited to more parties that don't have "Democratic" at the front.

Jack Martin Skips the Razzle-Dazzle and Delivers the Goods

So I'll admit it: I'm kind of a traitor. Though a resident of the state of Texas, I opted to attend college in southern California-- an act of base ingratitude that broke the heart of every diehard Texan I know.

"What's wrong with UT?" they ask me, lower lips quivering in hurt and bewilderment. I never know exactly how to answer them, but profuse apologies and fervent hopes that the Horns "hook them" are usually involved.

One downside of being all the way in "exotic" California, as one UT friend put it, is that I'm a little isolated from Texas politics. Not really knowing who's who or what's going on, I am forced to take my cues off of other people, adopting their enthusiasm or disdain as my own and pretending it's coming from a place of actual knowledge.

Imagine my gratitude, then, when opposition researcher and guest speaker Jason Stanford indicated exactly how I should feel about Jack Martin, who came today to visit with the Campaign Academy during our lunch hour, through his wide-eyed and slightly breathless declaration that we were extraordinarily lucky to be graced with a rare Jack Martin sighting and even-rarer dispensation of Jack Martin political knowledge. Jack Martin, he said, was the last and best hope for a Texas Democrat seeking statewide office, and one of the smartest people we would ever meet.

Based on this slightly star-struck reaction, I was sort of expecting a combination of Yoda, Justin Timberlake, and Jesus Christ. (The normal-looking guy in the suit who ended up being Martin kind of threw me.) But once he started talking, I started getting it: Though not bathed in a golden glow, Martin knows his stuff. Between anecdotes about important political events in Texas-- like turning his college town wet in the early 70s-- Martin dispensed such down-to-earth advice as "don't count on a surge of new voters as a recipe for victory" and "if you're denying before noon you're in trouble." Nothing flashy, no complex statistics or algebraic formulas; just solid, no-nonsense analyses that pierced through the illusions and needlessly complicated political stratagems that Democratic candidates especially have a tendency to fall victim to. Is Martin a rock star, a minor deity, the messiah we've all been waiting for?

I couldn't tell you.

But I'd sure trust him with my campaign: I may have been out of state for so long that I practically need a passport to get back in, but I do know that in a place as crazy as Texas, you need a guy who's got a good head on his shoulders.

License and Registrar ... Shun.

It may be only our third day in session at Campaign Academy, but I want to let it be known that yours truly is already moving up in the world. Just yesterday, I was awarded the prestigious and coveted position of Volunteer Deputy Registrar in the State of Texas, County of Travis, meaning that not only am I charged with the task of registering Travis County voters whenever and wherever I find them, but I am practically insured against being shot by Eric Clapton. I'm still waiting for my posse and my shiny badge, which I am assured will not be coming in the mail, but in the meantime I thought I'd share a few voter registration tips that I learned from Glen Maxey, who was kind enough to drop by and anoint me yesterday afternoon:

- Make use of the hours between midnight and 4 am. Though hazy on specific policy details, the mildly inebriated can usually be persuaded to fill out voter registration forms. (Warning: First ensure that they are cogent enough to accurately recall their personal information; otherwise, you run the risk of registering voters whose social security number is "Miller Lite.")

- Remember that voter registration is clothing-optional. As we learned from Maxey's tales of registering "the most naked people in Travis County," the folks down in Hippie Hollow may believe strongly in asserting their right to public nudity, but that doesn't mean they don't also believe in casting ballots. If a situation arises that makes you uncomfortable as a registrar, consider plastering recalcitrant nudists with your candidates' bumper stickers. Turn It Blue, baby!

- In Travis County, spouses can register spouses, parents can register children, and children can register parents. Hey, Jimmy, if you write down Daddy's place of residence I'll give you a popsicle ...


Increased voter turnout is great and all, but I still won't be happy until they give me a shiny badge.