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Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008Walking with Roy and Brandon
Post from WestMichiganRising.com
Walking with Roy and Brandon
West Michigan Rising
This past Saturday I did a little door-to-door canvasing with Roy Schmidt, Brandon Dillon, and Brandon's brother Brian. On a beautiful, sunny day, the four of us walked through a nice neighborhood of well-maintained single family homes near Leonard and Fuller in north Grand Rapids. Although we were only out for a few hours, we had good success in this mostly Democratic neighboorhood. Brian and I mostly did a brief:
"Hi, I'm x and I'm out talking to neighboors on behalf of Brandon Dillon -- your County Commissioner -- and Roy Schmidt, who is runninig for Mike Sak's State House seat since Mike is termlimited. ... They'll be back themselves later in the fall, but they hope you'll have the time to read these introductions [hand the two lit pieces]. Thanks, have a great day."
We also tried to get OKs for yard signs from folks who had done so for Brandon last election or from new folks who seemed enthusiastic. Of course, the candidates themselves did better at the door and they got a bunch of acceptances for yard signs to go up later in the fall. Both Brandon and Roy were great at the door and obviously have a comfortable way with people. It's both nice to see Roy with one of the strongest Democrats in Kent County and to see Brandon with our future State Representative.
Brandon had a nice lit piece with his slogan "Honest Leadership. Better Government" prominent along with the website. Inside, Brandon extolls his love of family and community and then gets down to stressing his opposition to unfair new fees, supporting greenspace preservation, pushing for "smarter development strategies for Kent County," and making sure the city "gets its fair share of county resources" (a "core cities vs. outlying townships" theme I think all Democratic candidates in GR, Kentwood, Wyoming, etc should be pushing). He also included a joint quote from Rosalynn Bliss and David LaGrand the two city commissioners from the second ward which heavily overlaps with Brandon's 18th district. On the back he's got his list of endorsements including state representatives Sak and Dean, four city commissioners, all the Democratic county commissioners (save one, one guess which), the County and City police union, the city firefighters, Scott Bowen, Alicia Pestka (for Steve who is a former State Representative and now a judge), Lupe Ramos-Montigny, Frank Lynn, Roy Schmidt himself, many others, and finally some guy named Phil Skaggs (I'm sure I'll get bumped for more important people later, but for now, it's nice to be included).
Roy's lit piece is extremely fansy and 8 pages! It's mostly an introductory piece -- the title is "Hi, I'm Roy Schmidt. It's probably for folks outside GR's Ward 1 where he was a city commissioner for 16 years. It's not the easiest to find, but it does say "Democrat" on the front page. The piece has a lot of feel-good photos of Roy listening to constituents. But, he does talk issues -- solid Democratic issues --, stressing restoring some Revenue Sharing from Lansing to the cities, keeping school funding from Lansing at a level to insure good schools, taking a strong stand to protect Great Lakes water, creating jobs, and making "healthcare affordable and available to every family." Unlike the webpage, it doesn't stress some level of post-partisanship and thankfully leaves out the "two great parties" part. Overall, I continue to be impressed with the campaign Roy is running.
Later, the four of us went to a Creston Neighborhood Association cookout for hotdogs, brats, and some handshakes. The Creston NA is extremely active and a great bunch of folks. Brandon and Roy headed down to the Water Festival (dang, thtese guys work hard) while I headed off to a brief visit to the Grand Rapids Obama Headquarters which I'll write about later today.
We had a great time and I got to know Roy and Brian better. I'm convinced Roy is a smart campaigner and elected official and will do Democrats proud in Lansing. Roy is running hard and that's a good thing. A blowout election would make this seat safe for us for decades and a big win, with a well-funded campaign that can donate some of that to other (including, hopefully West Michigan) Democratic candidates means that Roy will be in a position to quickly get into and move up the leadership ladder since he's got Mike's big shoes to fill. Still, don't expect this one to end up too close. Word is that his Republican "challenger" didn't even bother to show up for the Chamber of Commerce endorsement interview. So, he can't be running that hard (he also apparently doesn't have a website).
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