It was a Monday, it was. The 30th of January 2006. A little after lunchtime that day I trudged up the steps of the Kentucky State Capitol, found my way to the Secretary of State’s office, plunked down a check for 500 dollars, and filed my papers to run for the United States Congress. The fact that an ordinary citizen like me can do such an audacious thing is one reason why democracy, despite its foibles, is still a pretty cool way to run a government. And there just isn’t any other way, like Churchill said, except for a whole lot of other ways that are far worse.
This book isn’t really about me or my campaign, which lasted all of 106 days. (Spoiler alert: I lost.) It’s also not really about any of the other campaigns I’ve been a part of in the years since. I have to write about all of that of course, but I don’t want to dwell on any of it. My own bio is one that a few million other Americans could easily write about themselves, and most of the campaigns I’ve been involved with were just like the many thousands of others that fail every year.
What I really want to tell you about is what I saw, what I felt, and what I learned, in the years leading up to 2006 and in the years that followed. I’m by no means the consummate political savant, nor do I claim that this book will be a master class in how to run for office or become the world’s best community organizer. But getting involved in politics exposed me to a new and very different world, and if you’re someone who's thinking about doing the same, or if you simply have an interest in such things, you may find a bit of useful information here. If nothing else I hope that you’ll see some of the exponential changes that I’ve seen, and see how history can repeat itself, even within the span of a single human lifetime.
During my time in politics there were some things that I did right, and some things that I got all wrong. I made a few really stupid mistakes. I met a lot of colorful and amazing people, and some of them became friends for life. I also met a few scoundrels. There were times when I felt an adrenaline rush like nothing I’d ever felt before. There were even times when I felt like I’d made it down to Plato’s old general underground abode and gotten the habit of seeing in the dark. And mostly there was just this feeling, for however brief a moment that it lasted, of having my finger on the pulse of America.
In the light or the dark, some of what I saw was pretty wild. Packed auditoriums. Crowds of anxious people. Crowds of scary people. Suffocating sound studios. TV lights cooking my skull and cameras that looked like they were going to bite me in the face. Rooms full of lawyers. Celebrities. Strangers pleading with me to save them. The unbearable pressure of money. The genuine beauty of quiet democracy. If you’re not interested in reading about any of that, fine, but if you’re still here, skip ahead to Chapter Googolplex.
In the penultimate chapter I’ve tossed around some ideas about how big technology just might be able to save democracy from itself. I know a few things about tech, having spent the bulk of my career working in IT. Once again though, I’m making no claims that I’m an expert. I cut my teeth in the early days of the software world, writing FORTRAN IV on punch cards long before there were any internets. I see what kids are doing these days, and I freely admit that I couldn’t code my way out of a wet paper bag anymore, even if I had to. Throw rocks at my ideas all you want, any of you policy wonks and geeks who happen to come across these words, because you’re the ones who will have to get it done, not me. But I think that it can be done. I think that we have to get it done.
Right, then. Off we go.
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