Jdavej’s Weblog

Well, I finally got some work to do.  Planning for a high-quality, glossy flier to advertise our endorsements, we needed to get high resolution pictures of each candidate, including those we do not endorse, so our members can put a face with a name. For the next few days, that will be my primary job.  

While some of them are easy, we have good email addresses and they want us to have good pictures of them to put in the publication, others are doing a pretty good job of hiding.  A half dozen had responded within an hour or so of my sending out emails–one before I had even finished getting the requests out to those whose email addresses I had!  And tomorrow I will begin to follow up with phone calls to prod the procrastinators and get the attention of those who are just so busy that my request will be easy to overlook.  But, this afternoon I spent my time trying to find a number of candidates. Granted the majority of those for whom we do not have email addresses are Republicans, or others, who made no request for an AFL-CIO endorsement, it is still amazing to me that someone could have gone to the trouble to get on the ballot and not have spent the time to have a web presence. I know that a super-duper, top-of-the-line, flashy website is neither cheap nor easy to put up, but there are lots of simple templates that work a lot like this blog website  to make simple websites easy–and cheap.  Surely even the most technologically-challenged person with enough friends to get on the ballot must know a third grader who could help him/her find a way to get on the web.

The other thing that I suspected, and have found to be true, is that a number of candidates that are not receiving endorsements are not interested in supplying a photo.  I understand the concern of not wanting to appear to help an organization that is most likely going to be working against me.  All  one has to do is look at what Fox and Friends last week did with photos of NY Times reporters that criticized Fox News to understand not wanting to feed someone’s PhotoShop files.  But, if you are running for a public office, there are going to be photos available for the immature to PhotoShop without any effort on your part.  Would n’t you like to have the chance to provide a photo of your  choice to a publication when given that opportunity? I guess the concern is more one of being identified as cooperating with an organization that stands for things that you, and your supporters, oppose.

However I end up finding the photos, it is going to be an interesting challenge for a few days.  And, at least, I will get to feel as if I am doing something to earn the money I am being paid to be here.