One of the strange characteristics of being involved in local politics is that you're involved in retail rather than wholesale politics.
That is, you get your votes one-at-a-time as opposed to bunches. You do it the old-fashioned way, door-to-door.
You deal with individual and their particular issues one-on-one and their vote is decided by how you stand on their issue and their issue alone. (If you're lucky, if they don't like your stand on the issue, they may find your opponent to be just slightly more obnoxious to them and vote for you anyway.)
Sometimes you can be lucky enough to have a single issue of community-wide concern and you can align yourself with one side or the other depending on what you think is the right thing to do. Or, you can align yourself with one side or another depending on which side is most likely to net you the most votes. (note: in that case you're nothing but a self-serving hack)
Other than that, there are no unions or business cliques that will automatically line up behind you where you can count on a block of votes depending upon your stand.
After that, it's all shoe-leather and door bells...barking, biting dogs and children who wipe their noses with their hand and then dutifully follow their parents admonition to shake YOUR hand.
Just did some for the past two days.....I'm sore from walking and climbing steps to porches but I learned a lot from the people I met. I always do.
God I love it so.
