BoingBoing alerted me to Sean Tevis' campaign for the Kansas state House of Representatives. He's running against an incumbent who represents all the worst we've come to expect from Kansas: "anti-abortion, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, pro-surveillance, anti-gay." He's polling within three points of his opponent and is looking to raise $8.34 from $3000 people to enable him to get the name recognition it takes to win at the polls. I just donated $25.
Tevis is our kind of people. Internet-savvy to the point of producing an XKCD-style graphic that explains his situation.
He's also blogging about what he's learning as a new politician. I particularly liked this blog entry:
Many front doors have a prominent “No Solicitors” sign displayed, which is a nice way of pointing out to hopeful door-to-door salesmen that the door will be shut on their face. Thankfully, as a politician, that sign doesn’t pertain to me as I’m not selling anything. The trick, however, is to let people know that I’m not a solicitor.
I rang one doorbell and heard someone on the other side of the front door. I think they were looking at me through their peephole when I heard a man yell “No solicitors!” without even opening the door. “I’m not a solicitor!” I sort of yelled back through the door. “I’m a politician!”
There was a pause.
I wondered if he had gone away, and then he yelled back, “That’s even worse!”
He's campaigning on the issues of sales taxes on food (doesn't like them), education (Kansas can do -much- better), illegal immigration (it can be solved calmly) and my personal favorite: government transparency (more please).
His site seems to be getting slammed right now and is slow to load. If you want to go donate directly just paypal it to
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