Tales From The Political Crypt: Episode 1 - They're Upstairs Smoking Weed!

This is the first installment of a few stories, anecdotes and other goings on that I think are starting to be time to document or share somewhere.  Decided I'll start with this one.

I went to my first real political event in 2000 after starting to follow a candidate named Andrew Horning who had decided to run for Governor of Indiana as a Libertarian. At the time, I was working for MCI Communications, now part of Verizon Business, as either Pre-Sales Network Engineer (they called the position "Technical Consultant") or might have moved on to being the National Account Manager for Indiana by then - not sure.  I had been told by other people that I was fairly libertarian ideologically and had read some books, but I liked the things this Andy guy was talking about at the time so I went an event for then Presidential candidate Harry Browne.  It was interesting, I got to know some people and was quickly talked to about possibly running for public office.  After a couple of conversations, mostly centered around something like school board to get some experience, I decided the commitment and money wasn't of interest at that moment in my life.

Fast forward four years and Andrew Horning, who would come to be known in 2000's as a well-liked perennial candidate, is running for U.S. Congress in my district against well-known Democrat incumbent Julia Carson.  Only this time, Andy was running as a Republican. I was excited about this prospect and I decided to show up for my first campaign volunteer 'call out' event. Through the course of the evening I got to know and speak with several people and as the evening wound down and people left I was asked to stay and found myself at the table of what would become the campaign management team. 

Andy's campaign manager, an older African American gentleman who went by Reverend Solomon, was a gentleman who had, from what I was told, once dated and had a bad falling out with the incumbent representative Carson. Solomon owned a couple or three run-down rental houses, one of which at 30th and Capital, they ended up putting the campaign headquarters in.  An absolutely wonderful woman named Pat who was from the neighborhood and lived in one of Solomon's other homes became something of a campaign office manager and I eventually kind of became the go-to person she trusted when there was something she felt needed to be taken care of.

I had a home office at that time working as a regional manager for a company out of  Michigan in the upstart VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) business.  One day, my phone rang and it was Pat.

"Sean. Sean!" she said in an urgent, but hushed voice.  "Solomon and Leroy are upstairs smoking weed and we got a nice, Christian lady who is planning a fundraiser for Andy who is going to be here soon to pick up signs and materials. You gotta do something!  The whole place smells like weed and she's going to know!"

"I'm on my way, Pat. I'm on my way!" I answered.

By the time I got there about 30 minutes later it was too late. The lady had indeed arrived, smelled the reefer and canceled the event.  I hung around for a little bit to make sure Pat was okay as Solomon eventually made his way downstairs and with red, glassy eyes decided he could maybe buy my silence by trying to talk to me about my own future in politics. It was so transparently an attempt to be manipulative that I dismissed the notion. Years later I would kind of wish I hadn't.

About the month before the end of the campaign three of us effectively yanked control away from Reverend Solomon as things continued to get stranger and we guided it to a not unexpected disappointing finish by the time Center Township's votes all rolled in. I never understood why Center Township, which was closer to where the votes were counted than the suburbs, always rolled in later. We were up by 10 points at one point in the counting.  Ultimately, we still finished within about a percent of the previous sacrificial lamb in the race despite the vast difference in finances (an over a $1 million difference).  Two years previous a campaign spent over twenty dollars per vote they received. We spent closer to twenty-five cents.

It was fun. It was eye opening. I got to meet a lot of people including a few helping with Mitch Daniel's great and successful gubernatorial campaign.  It absolutely changed my previous, naive belief that all of the people involved in politics or who ran for office were somehow special or specially chosen and operating from ivory towers.  No doubt, kissing the ring of those that can write big checks to a candidate helps - something Andy, to his credit, refused to do.  I still don't know what church Reverend Solomon preached at.