Well, the dust has finally settled out here and all the votes have been counted.
You can see the final outcome here ...
http://results.enr.clarityelections....n/summary.html
Although we didn't get all the candidates we were supporting in, we did get two important ones in.
Yes, Cory Gardner was one of the seven (now eight thanks to Alaska) Republican senators elected into the national senate, which is nice to see.
Yes, Hickenlooper was re-elected into the Governor's mansion. Had we had a better candidate running against him, we could have grabbed that seat.
The Republicans now have a majority in the Colorado state senate, which is what we (the PAC I was working for) had set out to do, but only by one seat. Although we didn't get one of the candidates we were supporting in, we did happen to get the other two in. One of which was the seat held by the old senator who resigned instead of facing a recall last year. So as far as that seat goes .... Mission Accomplished.
We were focused a little to much on not only our three races, but two other senate seats around the state. I was hoping that we would get those five seats, giving us a three seat majority, but alas it didn't come to pass. Thank goodness there was another race that we didn't even look at, that surprised us all, giving us that precious one seat majority.
Although we didn't focus on the state house, where we were down by five seats, we were able to pick up three seats only giving the Dims a two seat majority now. They're not as powerful as they once were, so we can "lean" a little bit harder on some of those house seats who we know are a little "wishy-washy" on certain legislation.
Had we focused on some of those house seats, we may have gotten the majority. A couple of the seats the R's lost were only by a few hundred votes. One just missed the mandatory recount by 0.08% (0.5% constitutes an automatic recount).
Some things I learned while working for this PAC during this election:
*Money does indeed run a campaign. Had we had been given the $20,000 that had been earmarked for the candidate who lost, the one we supported, he could have actually won. Most of the dems outspent their Republican opponents by a margin of 4 to 1, some were even 5 to 1, or higher.
*Political television ads don't do squat, in fact they turn people off from voting. I heard time and time again how they turned people off from voting to the point where they just don't care anymore.
*Trying to find volunteers is akin to herding cats. I heard more excuses from people as to why they couldn't help than I've ever heard anywhere else. It reminded me of that scene from M*A*S*H where Klinger was wanting an emergency discharge due to his mother being sick, then Lt. Col. Blake pulls out his file and reads off a list of other letters he received to get an emergency discharge ... mother sick ... sister sick .... sister sick, mother dying ... older sister sick, younger sister pregnant .. etc. The funny thing is that after they'd give me their excuse for not being able to come in and either walk or work our phone bank, they'd say "I do want to help, so give me a shout later."
*Campaigns run on pizza.
*Quite a few people are grateful and very appreciative of the phone calls and the door knocking in getting the word out about candidates. Although, you do need thick skin to fend off the ones who don't.
*Invest in at least two GOOD pairs of walking shoes.
*Stretch. Stretch. STRETCH. Whether it's out walking or even sitting at a desk working a computer and making phone calls, the need for good quality stretching is a must.
*Ex-SF guys are still sneaky and can smell out an ambush.
(I'll get you C. ... If it's the last thing I ever do ... I'll get you.)
*Just because we have the majority in the state senate doesn't mean we can sit back and pat ourselves on the back. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done.
*Candidates are chess pieces control by "higher ups", usually the money people. I heard time and time again, "We know he's going to loose so we're not even playing in his race.", even though that person won that seat in the recent recall. Bernie was just tossed aside like a dirty shirt. "Thanks, you filled a purpose after the recall, but now we don't need you any more."
*Don't get too focused on "The Numbers." I told myself when I started with this group, that I didn't want to focus on the numbers, but I got sucked into it. So much so that every morning when I walked into the office, after saying my morning F-you's, I would ask, "What do the numbers show?!?!" Where we had two of the candidates up by 8 to 10 points, they still lost ... One just barely. We felt they were safe and that they didn't need that much of our attention, which apparently they did.
Now it's back to school, but I'll still keep my hand in the "cookie jar" as far as this PAC is concerned. It was not only fun and stressful at times, it was very interesting and highly insightful in just how the political process works.