10. Luncheon Surprise

As many of you, my loyal readers - I think there might be five of you - know, my first love is politics. It has been a passion since I was a child, learning first hand from several women in my very early life. My maternal grandmother, "Tommie" Hockensmith, was an active Democrat in the Okolona area of Jefferson County for many years. She was joined in my political tutoring by two of our neighbors, the late Mildred Moody Shumate and former State Representative Dottie Priddy. About a mile east of our neighborhood was another woman active in Okolona politics, the late Carolyn Beauchamp.

The tutelage began early, as Dottie was a candidate for State Representative in 1969. She ran and won the 45th District House seat, defeating the Republican incumbent whose name was, I believe, Oz Johnson. He had been principal of Valley High School. The district was huge, taking in all of southwest Jefferson County outside of the Watterson, from Okolona, west through Fairdale, Auburndale, PRP, Valley Station, and Kosmosdale. I was eight years old.

For better or worse, the political bug caught me and remains to this day. In 1980, I entered Jefferson County partisan politics by seeking a seat as a District Vice Chair on the Louisville-Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee, serving the Okolona, Coral Ridge, and Fairdale areas. I won on a ticket with Carolyn Beauchamp as Chair, as we defeated the incumbent Chair Ed Louden and Vice Chair Ann Ray. I've been off and on the LJCDEC both in a voting and non-voting capacity since that time, winning some elections and losing even more, including an unsuccessful race for the Chair of the Louisville-Jefferson County Democratic Party in 2001. I am currently serving in a non-voting capacity as the By-Laws Chair. In 2004, I went statewide in my interests, seeking and winning a seat as a committeeman on the Kentucky Democratic Party State Central Executive Committee, representing the Third Congressional District, which generally speaking is Jefferson County.

Over the years I've been involved in a number of campaigns (including three unsuccessful ones of my own), attempting to elect folks at all levels of government. Most recently I served as a paid advisor (through my consulting firm) to John Yarmuth, who won his race over five-term incumbent Congresswoman Anne Northup. I get called upon from time to time to advise people at the very beginning of their ideas that they might want to seek office. I can recall one specific lunch meeting I had at Lynn's Paradise Cafe with a friend and his friend, his friend wanting to run for Congress at the time. The friend didn't run that year, but several years later came back to seek the congressional seat, and came very close to winning it. Today's lunch was at the Third Avenue Cafe in Old Louisville. A friend of many years with whom I have worked on several campaigns spoke with me and another mutual but non-political friend in detail about the idea of seeking statewide office in 2007. In the past, I've only been intimately involved in two statewide primary campaigns, both unsuccessful, in 1983 with John Celletti, and in 1995 with Jim Wayne. Statewide campaigns are an extreme amount of work and fun. When the conversation began, I didn't know where it was going, but knew it was going to be interesting.

Today's conversation covered the basics: how many votes are cast, which counties matter the most, and how much does it cost. None of the questions were answered fully, but just engaging in them is, in fact, engaging. The person seeking my advice has a number of positives going in their favor, and like anyone, also a few negatives, although they are just that - few - and rather unusual. I am not at liberty to say who the person was. That decision will have to come from my friend whenever the decision is made to actually seek the office. But going over positives and negatives and cities and counties and voters and donors and ideas is truly a great way for someone like me to spend a rainy afternoon in January with, admittedly, very little else to do.

The filing deadline is 4:00 pm, January 30, 2007. Stay tuned.