(What a way to get to know the candidate! : ) – promoted by Andrew Davey (atdleft))
Major Danby asked me to write a diary for Ron Shepston, Congressional candidate for CA-42, ages ago. I’ve been stalling and stalling, since I didn’t know what I could possibly write about. Do I know CA-42, or the dirt on Gary Miller? Not even slightly. I first visited CA-42 only two weeks ago.
Do I know every single one of Ron’s positions on all the issues? Nope. He’s a true blue progressive, same as the rest of us. I’ve got a hunch once we start going down an exhaustive list of issues, we’d agree on 99% of things – but as Ron reminded me the other day, the issues that are big now will all have changed by the time he gets to DC.
But, then I realized what I can contribute. I know Ron. As Bush would say “I know his heart.”
Previous diaries in the CA-42 campaign rollout series:
7/15: thereisnospoon’s CA-42: A Kossack is running for Congress
7/16: atdnext’s CA-42: The Case Against Dirty Gary Miller
7/17: Major Danby’s CA-42: I’m managing a netroots U.S. House campaign
7/18: CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream’s CA-42: Hi, I’m Ron Shepston and I’m running for Congress
7/19: hekebolos’s CA-42: A Netroots campaign– politics the way it should be.
7/20: dday’s CA-42: The Lay of the Land
When Bush told the nation he knew Harriet Miers’ heart, I laughed. Knowing someone’s “heart” doesn’t make them qualified for jack squat. But you can also have a person who is smart as a whip with every qualification under the sun, and if they aren’t a good person deep down, you probably shouldn’t vote them into Congress.
Throughout my life, I’ve known several people who had political aspirations early on. These are the people who managed their images meticulously, making sure that no one would ever see them making a mistake, answering a question with “I don’t know,” or doing one of those stupid things that most humans do like leaving the house with one black sock and one blue one. They were masters of networking. They ran for student councils, applied for prestigious universities – some avoided smoking pot so they could answer honestly later on that they never tried it.
These people also acted sincerely interested in me when we first met – encouraging me to join them in whatever they were doing, be it canvassing in a local neighborhood or attending a meeting of the College Dems. Friends are something you can’t have too many of, and I found their enthusiasm extremely flattering – but I found out later it was insincere.
Since then, I’ve learned to recognize these people quicker than I did at first. They like to promise you everything and then drop you until you’re useful to them for some reason. (In fact, one got in touch this week when he found out I was moderating a panel for YearlyKos – he wants the coordinators to do him a favor and he thought perhaps I’d have some influence. This is someone who had no problem going years without so much as emailing me hello.)
That is the kind of person that Ron is not.
I met Ron and his wife at that LA meetup that gave birth to this campaign, last Jan 4 or so. I drove up because I was new to California and eager to see a few friendly faces. No one suspected anything would come out of it. We were just going to a deli for sandwiches, then to a bar for beers. Trashablanca was there wearing a shirt that said “Give Impeachment a Chance.” Hekebolos was there, showing off his pet spider Emily (back at his place, not at the bar). Nothing seemed unusual.
One thing I love about DailyKos is our ability to transcend differences in age. As a young person, it’s amazing to meet so many “grown-ups” who treat me as an equal and as a friend. Ron falls into this category – there’s a few decades of age and experience between us, but you’d never know it from our conversations.
Here we are together, a couple weeks ago:
Major Danby wanted an action photo, so he told us to talk while he got the picture. Neither of us could stop giggling.
One of my mom’s pet phrases while I was growing up was “actions speak louder than words.” It’s true. The people I’ve met who knew from age 3 they wanted to be politicians only have time for me when I can do something for them. Even during this first whirlwind week of his campaign, Ron has time to chat with me. He’s not doing so to angle for a favorable diary to be written about him either – it’s all same as usual, jumping from topics like YearlyKos to George Lakoff’s books to why I think my boss is a jerk (too much testosterone, but that’s beside the point). He’s a friend.
The other day, we arranged to talk (on the phone instead of online chat for a change!) so he could give me any info I needed in order to write a diary. Writing a diary about Ron’s character doesn’t require anything I haven’t learned in half a year of friendship, but I still wanted to hear more specifics about him in case there was something significant I didn’t know yet.
It was strange trying to have a structured conversation instead of our usual banter, but I asked him to give me his life story. Ron walked me through his past as a promising baseball player who nearly went pro before joining the Air Force during Vietnam, and then entering a career as an engineer after leaving the military. Then I busted out several questions I’d heard Air America hosts ask candidates last election cycle.
Ron obviously hasn’t mastered Tony Snow’s skill of answering the question he wishes you asked instead of the one you really asked yet (You know… a reporter asks if Bush lied… Tony replies that Bush supports the troops). Ron’s extremely straightforward, and very thoughtful, always taking a moment to digest the question before answering.
Instead of avoiding saying “I don’t know” at all costs (which I’ve even seen Democratic candidates who I like very much do – and not always very artfully), Ron really thought about each question I asked and told me the truth when he didn’t know. (For the record, he doesn’t know yet which committees he wants to be on… little premature to ask that I guess.)
In the end, our “interview” devolved into a conversation. We started talking about our philosophy on working with others and on solving problems. In Ron’s job as an engineer, often he has to go on site in an unfamiliar place with people he’s never met before to solve a problem, and my last job often put me in a similar situation.
He told me how he likes to start by meeting everyone and having them show him around. We agreed that you need to treat the people with respect and listen to everyone. It doesn’t matter if someone has a high school education or a PhD – if they work in a job every single day, they are most likely the #1 expert on the area they work with and by ignoring them, one can only hurt him or herself.
Obviously, if Ron is there because he has special skills to solve the problem, he probably knows a lot more about what he’s doing than the people who are describing the problem to him, but the best way to accomplish his goals are to treat them with respect as equals, and after listening to everyone he can synthesize all of the information and get to work solving the problem.
That’s exactly the sort of attitude I want to hear from someone who we in the netroots send to Washington. I don’t want to support someone who thinks they can address homelessness by only speaking to academic scholars about the issue. Academic scholars play a role, but Ron’s the type who would visit shelters and speak to the director, the staff, and the homeless themselves if he were trying to tackle the issues that are important to helping people get off the street.
I hope you can all get to know Ron as a friend (in addition to as a candidate) when you meet him in Chicago next month. I don’t want to write too much more since I realize I’m competing with Gonzogate today, so I’ll leave you with what Major Danby told me should be a “gentle reminder” that Ron has a ActBlue fundraising page and he welcomes all contributions, both large and small.
