Putting a Toe In

[Note: I posted this on 29 February at a previous blog incarnation, before I decided to get my own domain.]

I took out papers today for the District 2 seat of the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board, currently occupied by Joe Judge. The filing deadline is a week from today, 7 March 2008. In that time, I must collect 20 valid signatures of registered voters in District 2, compose my ballot statement and decide whether I plan to spend more than $1000 on this race.My plans were somewhat thrown into disarray by the discovery that I am the third, not the second, person to take out papers for this race. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote on 3 June, the top two vote getters will face each other again in a runoff in November.Since a major reason I decided to run was that the SCVWD Board needs more attention paid to its activities, I’m pleased that someone else cares enough to run. But it does complicate my own bid.I went through this process before, in 2003, when I was a candidate for governor in the recall election. Then, my slogan was “Don’t vote for me; vote no on the recall!” and I got plenty of attention as one of those 135 wacky candidates. This time, I will be asking for people’s votes for real, and I imagine the media glare will be much dimmer.