THE CAMPAIGN: DAY 3
‘Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do’ Pele
Wow! Campaigning and holding down a full time job is making me dog-tired. But the rewards are pretty awesome and I’m finding this all so exciting. The facebook messages I’ve received today are amazing, apologies if I missed any, I only joined recently and am a bit fingers and thumbs TBH. One of them came close to making me tear up, which made people at work look a bit uncomfortable. Note to diary: stop checking facebook in meetings. Anyway, I’m really starting to believe 🤔 and that can only be a good thing — right?
By Monday I’l be able to campaign full time and I *promise* that will change the landscape. Maggie, Josh and Taiba had at lot of first mover advantage, but I expect we’ll see that fall away next week. I like Josh, he’s a good guy and a solid councillor, I just don’t think he’s the right choice for winning Calder Valley and it feels like facebook is beginning to amplify that conclusion (there is something a bit edstoney about all those endorsements). I did originally mean to get some endorsements but by the time I got round to it, there were none left 😂. Maggie and Taiba are not so famous, so I know less about them, but that’s my weekend project — in between childcare juggling.
I talked to the guys at work about what this means for them today. It’s funny because we’re close, but none of them are Labour members (although I’ve always been Labour, I’ve never hung out with a lot of Labour people and would definitely never actively seek to employ someone just because they were) or massively interested in politics. They’re kind of half-interested. Anyway assuming I win, I’m proposing going half-time to get started on the local election campaign. Then start looking for a replacement, to devote myself to full time campaigning — read my pitch if you want to understand why I believe the challenge is that big — Craig Whittaker is an ICEBERG of an incumbent. I’m very lucky to be this flexible but, I’ve put the hours in over the last 10 years and I think I can say I’ve earned it (and achieving Labour government is a mind blowing incentive).
Those of you who have offered to get involved in my campaign, that is amazing thank you. I’m flat out on one or two campaign essentials (I’m taking my campaign in some new directions next week) but I’ll be in touch over the weekend about getting together and working out what we can do to win this. Maybe a campaign meeting at the factory to knock about some ideas?
My leaflet is finished by the way, should be with all members on Monday morning. I had hoped to reach the postal voters before the weekend, but it was the difference between affordable printing and silly money, that’s life when you’re working parent — just need to get more people to the hustings.
It was disappointing that Momentum instructed members to vote for Josh (who campaigned for Owen Smith in the leadership election — go figure?) but the most memorable campaigns thrive on adversity (they gave Jezza 100–1), and I’m feeling totally OK about it. Being the underdog isn’t such a bad place to be (assuming I can shake it off by the middle of next week of course!)
Favourite facebook quote of the day? ‘JFG is beatable, but beatable is not the same as beaten’
