— पांच हजार तीन सौ नब्बे-पांच —

So, last night I did just a bit more of my part in terms of Shobhit's Seattle City Council District 3 candidacy.

Early on, I told him I wasn't sure it would necessarily go over well for me to go out of my way to stump for him directly at the office. My job here is to do my job, not to work for a campaign. For all I know, it would have been fine, but I wasn't comfortable with risking making things uncomfortable. Shobhit seemed to understand this.

And then, I thought of a sort of workaround. I alreadt have a 70-person distribution list, of nearly all personal email addresses, for the regular email photo digests, or "travelogues" as Mary Ann leaned toward calling them, and about seven of those (10%) are people I currently work with and would be the people I'd have hit up anyway. A few more still are people I used to work with; and a few more on top of that are people who, at the very least, potentially live within Seattle City limits.

So: I wrote up and sent out a "travelogue" last night, which was a somewhat deliberate, subtle bait-and switch. The first half of it reads like an account of Shobhit's campaign so far, with captioned photos: pictures I took on the roof of our building for his campaign website; the ER bed from which he recorded a video for his campaign socials; a screenshot of the Capitol Hill Seattle blog profile about him; etc.

The email overall features ten images, and six images into it is when I get into the specifics about Seattle's Democracy Voucher program, what the rules are, how Shobhit is participating, and what he still needs—particularly, a total 150 contributions of $10 minimum, alongside a signed contribution form. That "caption" is rather long, as the whole thing takes some effort to explain. But, I think I did a pretty good job. Shobhit even read over the email before I sent it out, and his only suggestions had to do with a couple of typo misspellings.

I sent the email out at 7:19 pm, having written up most of it while Shobhit was on a Zoom call with the Braeburn Condos board. Within an hour I had fiveresponses, all of them positive but none of them from people who live in Seattle; within three hours there were eight responses, only one of those a Seattle resident and that was Alexia who had already made a contribution (though she did add this note: Lovely message! And I am SHOCKED you took a selfie and added it to the end. Hahahaha....).

Michelle from our Accounting department, the most recent person I've added to the distribution list, echoed basically the same sentiment as everyone: I would vote for him if I lived in Seattle. I got this message from as far away as Minnesota in the U.S. (Cyndy, my mom's biological sister) and as far away as Australia outside the U.S. (Mary Ann, Uncle David's wife). I have yet to hear from any actual Seattle residents on the list. That said, I heard from a couple more people this morning, including Elin, who told me she donated $25, so that was really nice. Everything helps, honestly, and that alone probably made it worth the effort of writing up the email.

And when it comes to his 150 contributions goal, Shobhit is getting really close. He got one more from someone at his work this morning, then another online from his former acting teacher, taking his total to 124. He just needs 26 more in order to qualify for filing his candidacy by May 19 with campaign funds to cover the fee; not meeting that deadline would mean paying that out of pocket without the use of any campaign funds. (Oddly, I found it impossible to find online exactly how much that fee is. Shobhit has probably figured it out. I think he's even told me. $1600, maybe?)

I got some texts from Tracy in response to the email, and then after looking over his campaign website. She felt he doesn't make specific enough statements about his position on local issues: Black Lives Matter, or whether he was pro-Amazon: "That's what I'd want to see." I kind of disagree, and said so respectfully; his website features more clarity on his platform than most of his competitors, and whether we like it or not, there's politics involve in the optics of how he attempts to reach out to the widest swath of voters possible.

To be fair, I'm kind of surprised no one has asked him specifically and directly about Black Lives Matter. That said, his position on police reform certainly dovetails with it: when a passer-by asked him at the park on Sunday, "Are you going to defund the police?" (this question, actually, has come up frequently) and his well-crafted response was, "I want to change the police culture." He stresses that certain responsibilities should indeed be taken out of the hands of the police, which is very much a part of the "defund the police" movement, but even in Seattle a candidate using that phrase is not a winning tactic. He's all about a drive to hire into police and fire departments locally because too many of these people live outside of Seattle and thus do not have the same emotional investment in the neighborhooods they serve as they do the neighborhoods they live in, which I actually think is a good point. As is stated on the platform page of his website: Encourage local youth of all racial, ethnic and sexual diversities to join public safety organizations. They will enable both change the police culture and bring the city investments back to local neighborhoods. (Oh, shit. There's some grammar and syntax there that really needs correction.)

Anyway, I have a feeling Tracy (and many like her) may disagree with this, but there's something to be said for diplomacy in language. This is especially true when he's eager to distinguish himself from Kshama Sawant, who seemed to have lost sight of the fine line between effective disruption and being counterproductive.

— पांच हजार तीन सौ नब्बे-पांच —

— पांच हजार तीन सौ नब्बे-पांच —

Anyway, once the email was sent, and Shobhit's meeting was done, he wanted to go down to the p-patch to plant the starts he bought in Skagit Valley a couple of weekends ago. The weather was very nice yesterday, and while I usually resist his requests that I go down there with him just to keep him company while he gardens, this time I decided I would just bring my library book and sit on the bench to read.

That worked out quite pleasantly well, until it started to get too chilly as dusk fell. I have about 125 pages left to read in this book, which hopefully I can get through quickly: Seattle Public Library temporarily suspends your account after 14 days of a book being overdue, which just happened today; I got the email notification this morning. If I don't have the book returned within 31 days of it being overdue, they charge me for the value of the book. That gives me until May 25. I'm certain I can make that.

I actually stopped by the library on my bike ride home from work yesterday, to pick up the next title for Book Club: The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, which Book Club is set to discuss on Monday May 22. I'll barely have it started by then, but that's okay! Obviously finishing Michael Schulman's Oscar Wars first is the higher priority.

When Shobhit finished, we went back upstairs and watched two more episodes of The Power on Prime Video before I went to bed.

— पांच हजार तीन सौ नब्बे-पांच —

UPDATE: A Seattle qualifying contribution has arrived! Jill, former food writer here at the office, has contrinuted online, now getting him to 125. He just needs to get the actual form signed, and that'll be good to go as well. So there you have it: two responses already making the email I sent out well worth the effort.

— पांच हजार तीन सौ नब्बे-पांच —

[posted 12:26 pm]