I couldn't come up with a creative title for this one, so I decided to put it under the title of "campaign update". Not a bad idea, though, it's good for my filing system when I go to put the book on the campaign together.

I am currently poring over the 24 (YES, 24!!!!) pages of paperwork I have to fill out for my personal financial statement. I can't finish it until tomorrow, though, because I have some questions that I can only ask in "real time". It is the first of many deadlines I will face over the upcoming year, some self imposed, as I decided to file a campaign treasurer appointment on the off chance that someone might feel strongly enough about my campaign to kick a little coin into the coffer. I will literally spend more time on campaign finance paperwork this year than I spend on taxes (and, being officially "self employed", that is a LOT, as I am also discovering).

This has kind of been a life changing moment for me. When I first committed to this race, I was planning to run mainly as a paper candidate, but do enough pie eating and baby kissing to educate the public about the party. As time has progressed, though, this has become more serious. I've crunched the numbers, I've looked at the hard stats, and realize that, although it is statistically improbable, it is at least POSSIBLE for me to win this thing.

I have always undertaken everything I've done with a satirical perspective. I believe that the satirical outlook was basically hedging my bets against the possibility of loss, if I may wax philosophical here for a moment (and of course I may; it's MY blog after all). When I was ordained online some years back, for instance (long story; don't ask, I may blog about it later), I took the extra step of having my rubber chicken ordained, partly to prove a point, partly to remind even myself that I wasn't taking this terribly seriously. And this campaign was no different. But I have a VERY serious cause at the core of my campaign, and although I'm not a one issue candidate, that cause is itself important enough for me to take myself seriously, although I haven't abandoned the satirical side altogether.

In fact, I've even considered the possibility that a candidate who doesn't take him/herself too seriously may be precisely what the voters NEED.