Ready To Campaign

Phew!!
I’m glad that’s over, it was very stressful for a while, but it was worth it.
Today I am proud to say that I am once again the Flatlander Party’s nominee to run in the upcoming New Hampshire Gubernatorial election. (Just to clarify, that means I am running for governor, not guber.)
I could go into all of the sordid details of that night, where tensions grew and animosity flourished between delegates supporting myself as well my opponent, but it is now a time for healing; to bring the party together as one and march forward toward November.
When all was said and done, I prevailed. My opponent and I even shared a tuna sub. Even though it had hot peppers on it, I happily partook of the meal in a symbol of unification. That’s just the kind of guy that I am.
It was a close vote and I won by only a few votes, but it was a victory all the same and I appreciate the fact that I have some work to do to bring in all Flatlanders under our umbrella. (Someone was supposed to pick up one of those rainbow colored ones before the convention, but they waited until the last minute and there were only orange ones left. Oh well. I guess the media might give us heck for that.)
I gave a short speech afterwards. I had a lot more written, but a couple of the delegates had brought dates with them and they were anxious to get back home to watch “The Bachelorette.”
I tried my best to emphasis the fact that even though we were divided on some of the issues that were important to Flatlanders, we still needed to stand together if we were going to win in November.
(One of the more contentious issues was how we stood on the Tom Brady four game suspension seeing that the party is pretty much split between Patriots fans from Massachusetts and Jets fans New York.)
I wrapped up my speech with a saying from Ben Franklin: “If we don’t stand together then we will have to sit apart.” (Ben Franklin is a friend of mine from Tilton who uttered those words when a bunch of us arrived late to the premier of the latest Star Wars movie.)
After the speech, my opponent and I got together to shake hands while members of the local media took some photos. (It was actually the son of the guy who owned the home where we were holding the convention. He worked for the local high school paper and was upstairs watching “Game of Thrones” at the time. He used his cell phone and even took a selfie of himself with us and posted it to Facebook immediately.)
We all stayed to help clean up the small mess we had made because, after all, that is who we are and we thought the symbolism of us working together to clean things up wouldn’t be lost on all who read the story in the paper, especially those in the senior class.
Once we were done and the crowd cleared, I was back in my car amidst peace and quiet for the first time in a few hours, I was overcome with a wave of emotion in the pit of my stomach. Not only did it hit me that I was once again chosen for this daunting task of representing my party in the upcoming election, but also that I had forgotten how peppers can affect my acid reflux.
Needless to say, I burned with not only emotion during the long ride home.
The next morning I awoke with a clear head and esophagus and ready to hit the ground running in my awesome task.
The convention was a time of camaraderie, realizations, hope and, most importantly, working together to make sure the member’s house we held the event in was clean as a whistle (whatever that means) so as not to catch hell from his wife once she got home. (I did the vacuuming.)
Today, back on the campaign trail it’s all different. It’s time to put all of that aside and to give the people what they truly want in a candidate for the highest office in the state: negativity, slander and backstabbing.
It’s time for oversized cardboard mailers stuck in people’s mailboxes; shaking people’s hands and pretend to be listening, becoming the target of the local know-it-all blabbermouths on the radio and, most importantly, focusing on my opponent’s weaknesses while avoiding my own stand on the issues.
I’m looking forward to all of it.

To find out more about Brendan’s book and upcoming appearances go to www.BrendanTSmith.com