Save the date!
If I had to hazard a guess…
- Percentage of my friends who have been involved in a political campaign: 5%
- Percentage of my friends who have watched Sex and the City: 95%
So I’ve decided to meet everyone where they are and explain why I am going to ask each and every one of you to “RSVP” to our Danielle for All campaign.
I would love to get married one day. Marriage is a personal choice, and while it’s not for everyone, it’s an idea that has always been attractive to me—both the idea of true love (I blame the Princess Bride…), and the idea of having a real life partner to help with the most mundane of life’s daily burdens (TBH, I struggle to make the bed).
That’s not in the cards for me right now… not only because I’m not in a serious relationship at the moment, but because, frankly, I don’t have time to be. Until November 6th, my #1 priority is getting my friend, mentor and now boss Danielle Skidmore elected to Austin City Council. I’m doing this not because I want access to power, or because I’ve had some life-long dream to manage political campaigns… I’m doing it because as much as I love the city of Austin and have found my home here, we have some real problems and Danielle is the right person to solve them.
Often we find public servants who are all talk, no action, because of how the political process works. Getting your butt in that seat in City Hall, the State Capitol or on Capitol Hill necessarily requires the daily grind of executing a political campaign. You might have the best ideas and qualifications for improving your community, but you have to get there first. That means distilling policy ideas into 8-second soundbites (7 depending on who you’re talking to), and making sure that they only make up a small fraction of the words you speak on a daily basis—sacrificed in place of stories, values and messages the electorate can relate to.
This is not an engineer’s game. Danielle, a Civil Engineer by trade, has executed public sector projects that benefit our city and state for the past 24 years she’s been a resident. Beyond her career, as a trans woman and parent of a badass child with life-altering disabilities, she thinks about solving problems from the perspective of someone who’s experienced marginalization and whose voice hasn’t always held the weight it deserves at any given table. Her professional experience makes her qualified to solve some of the biggest obstacles we face as a city—from traffic, to affordable housing. Her life experience will ensure that her proposed solutions work for all of Austin, and won’t leave anyone behind.
But for now, I’m spending my days reminding her not to ramble, to focus more on aspects of her identity that communities throughout Austin can relate to above her data-driven plans for improving their lives, and to end any conversation with a concrete ask: to join us on our journey to make Austin a better place with the maximum contribution allowed in our city of $350.
Asking for money isn’t easy, especially for a transportation engineer who never called alumni 5 days a week for the Cornell Annual Fund, as I did throughout college. But these contributions will enable us to improve the lives of millions of people throughout Austin—and, frankly, they enable us to give myself a salary in order to pay my bills between now and November.
So I’m asking you to save the date: not for my wedding, but for the election on November 6th. And I’m asking you to help support me in the meantime—not by shelling out cash to attend my bachelorette party, or by reserving a set of flatware on my wedding registry, but by contributing to our campaign.
Campaign finance rules in Austin stipulate that we can’t ask for more than $350 from any individual or entity. This means we can’t court major gifts that would allow us to spend less time hustling for a dollar and more time on contacting voters. While we can’t ask for more, our opponent is able to lend herself resources to fund her campaign in a way that is unfortunately not a reality for us.
So here’s my humble ask:
If Carrie Bradshaw can marry herself and register at Manolo Blahnik, I can have my own sort of commitment ceremony—not to myself, but to the City of Austin—and I’m asking y’all to attend, with your votes if you’re able and with your dollars regardless. Respondez Vous S’il vous Plait!
(And so my Enginerd boss doesn’t get nervous about compliance:
Political Adv. Paid for by Danielle Skidmore Campaign, Alicia Weigel, Treasurer; PO Box 13, Austin TX 78767. This campaign has not agreed to comply with the contribution and expenditure limits of the Austin Fair Campaign Charter.)
