A Well-Earned Campaign Tribute

My friend Michelle O'Neal said it better than I could have:

"I can't wait to vote for Allison Campolo again.

FWST Bud Kennedy said of Beverly Powell... 'Her strongest opponent turned into her strongest ally. Euless Democrat Allison Campolo, a young progressive half her age, ran a tough primary race and then instead of going home, helped organize the county get-out-the-vote campaign.'"

That's how we do it, y'all. You fight for your wins, learn from your losses, and keep your eye on the prize. At the end of the day, it's not about whether you can do the thing - it's about whether the thing gets done. I have NEVER been more proud of my big, beautiful, red-and-blue state... or more thankful that I stopped knocking my sister's teeth out before she started doing kung fu.

One Last Stop on the Campaign Trail

I am worlds beyond proud of Allison tonight.

Tremendously glad to have met so many fantastic people through her campaign.

Incredibly grateful to all of you for supporting us from near and far.

Also exhausted, heartbroken, angry, and *incandescent* with righteous resolve. To the Powers That Be: hold on to your asses, ass-holders. We are smarter than you are slick, fiercer than you are rich, and our generation is going to burn your back-patting soft-money country-club scheme to smoking grassroots ashes.

After we take a couch day.

Breaking Through

Look at this video. LOOK AT IT. How is this the same person whose teeth I knocked out when she was five?

And now that I have your attention:

Texans, today is the last day to register to vote in the March 6th primary. In November it's going to be "red versus blue" pretty much straight down the line, just like it always is. And if you are tired of that shit, then this is your golden chance to decide who takes up those colors... because those crooked old parties are going to be forced to throw their money behind whichever candidates YOU choose. You will never, ever have as much game-changing political power as you do in the next 31 days. Don't waste it. Register here.

Personally? I'm making it my mission not to vote for any candidate with a clean car. These cinder-blocks are made for smashing, y'all.

Letter Rip!

I see you, progressively-minded DFW writers. I see you sick at heart about the state of the nation. I see you calling, writing, and patriotically jimmy-rustling our senators and representatives. I see you amping up for November.

And I am here to cheer you on, with a caveat - because it's not about November 6th for us here in Texas. It's about *March* 6th. There are a shedload of brand-new brilliant grassroots candidates who have poured THOUSANDS of hours and dollars into getting their names on the primary ballot for your selection pleasure - and if we don't roll out and support them, we're going to get whichever pre-approved comfortable establishmentarians the Party has chosen for us. 

If we vote like we've always voted, we're going to get what we've always gotten. 

Only 14% of registered voters from *either* major party voted in the Dallas County primaries last year, and the rest of North Texas wasn't much better. That means 86% of our eligible population doesn't know they have a choice, doesn't care, or doesn't have access to the ballot box. If you've read this far, you already know how important this fight is. And as writers, we have a democratic duty to use our story-telling skills to inspire our fellow citizens to act.

And if my little story-telling exercise just here has got you fired up at all, I would like to invite you to lend your penmanship to a righteous cause - as Allison Campolo For Texas Senate District 10 and I undertake to print, sign, date, hand-address, fold, seal, and stamp 12,000 real, actual letters, telling her story, to her first 12,000 voters. Because mailers are cheap and easy, and go straight in the trash. Because this campaign is not about taking the easy, traditional, conventional way out. Because being the scrappy grassroots outsider means that your only infinite resources are love and give-a-damn - and y'all, if you have any damns to contribute to the cause, we would LOVE your company.

You know how it feels to see something like this in your mailbox. You KNOW how it feels to realize that someone cared enough to go the trouble of sending you an honest-to-god real letter. If you can help us bring that attention and care to people who have never felt seen, considered, or truly represented before, I believe we can change the whole game. Our first 'write-in happy hour' is this Thursday night. RSVP here, and we promise not to make you lick stamps!

Announcing Candidate Campolo

You may have heard me describe myself, very modestly, as “simply the finest human being who has ever lived.”

That is no longer true.

The title now goes to my sister, Allison Campolo, who has just thrown her hat into the ring to run for the Texas state senate, in District 10. (That is basically the southern half of Tarrant County – Konni Burton’s district, for those of you who keep up with these things.)

And you guys, I just can’t even imagine the guts it takes to do that. You know, to put your face out there KNOWING that people will say horrendously ugly things to and about you. To volunteer yourself to spend the next 18 months knocking on doors and making phone calls and wearing out the bottoms of your shoes, all for a ‘maybe’. For a job that literally does not pay a living wage. (Texas state senators make $7,200 per year, plus a per diem when the lege is actually in session – which is four months out of every two years.)

But, you know. She sweated her way to a black belt in kung fu. Started, ran, and sold a business. Got her master’s and is working on a PhD in veterinary biomedical science. She’s spayed cats, researched fish farms in Thailand, smashed bricks, blood-typed horses, built a barn, broken bones, played in a band, doctored an epileptic beaver and a squeamish brother-in-law, and probably BASE-jumped from a breaching whale off the coast of Nicaragua while I wasn’t looking. She’s even more of a ridiculous Mary Sue than I am – and if that’s the kind of person you would trust to road-trip down to Austin and kick our Lone Star shit into shape, then I hope you’ll join me in backing her bid.

You can start by following her on Facebook and on Twitter. She’ll be speaking at the March for Science in Fort Worth this weekend, and will need our help in collecting donations and signatures to secure her bid. It’s going to be a long, uphill slog, y’all – but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from living with Al, it’s that bravery is contagious, and ‘badass’ is a verb.