Getting involved in local politics can be a grueling experience, but it’s fascinating at the same time.

In the fall, I was asked to come aboard the Clark County auditor campaign.

My candidate, Janis Caldwell, has been a friend of my family for some time, so naturally I told her I would help her campaign. In my mind, I envisioned campaigning would be fairly easy — put up a few signs, start a Facebook page and perhaps go to a few events.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to a campaign then starting a Facebook page.

A series of interesting twists and turns opened my eyes to exactly how difficult the Democratic primaries would become.

In the beginning, all I knew was there were going to be two opponents — a Democrat and an Independent.

No Republicans were entered in the primaries.

My first speed bump occurred when I stumbled across a Facebook page of our opponent.

His campaign page had nearly as many supporters as ours did.

It was at that moment, staring at my computer screen late that night, I realized the campaign was going to be take more work than I initially anticipated.

My second setback was delivered to my front door in the Courier-Journal. The Clark County Democratic Chairman expressed doubt in my candidate to the press.

He said our opponent would have an advantage in the primaries because of prior involvement within the party.

Before the primaries, the chairman shouldn’t express his opinion of candidates — especially to the press.

Our final setback in the primaries occurred when our campaign advertisement in The Evening News was criticized as a “false endorsement.”

In our advertisement, we used a number of photographs that were taken at various functions.

In one of the photos was a friend of both of the democratic candidates. Nowhere in the advertisement was this labeled as an endorsement, but our opponent widely criticized it as such.

In the final weeks before the primaries, another organizer and I conducted a massive phone call blitz. We used a voter registration list to call local voters and drum-up support. A week before the election, we narrowed all of the calls to target a specific city.

When it was all said and done, we called every registered voter in Clarksville. In May, the voters came out to the polls to cast their vote.

All of our work was put to the test during those few hours.

We called voters to remind them to get out and cast their ballot.

We had supporters at the most important polls and encouraged voters to keep our candidate in mind.

As the districts began to count their ballots, I tried to maintain a sense of composure and avoid a mental collapse.

As expected, we lost some districts and won others. I must admit, although we were coming out ahead in some areas, it wasn’t by much. I began to fear that we hadn’t worked hard enough.

Perhaps we should have called more voters? Maybe we needed to get more yard signs?

I was beginning to panic.

After all of the ballots were counted, Cadwell won the primaries with 4,545 votes.

We beat the competition by less than 450 votes.

All of our hard work paid off. All the phone calls, the letters to the editors, the yard signs and wearing the same pink campaign T-shirt every day to school finally came to fruition.

When it was all said and done, I couldn’t help think of what Calvin Cooldridge said in 1872: “Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

By MATTHEW CHINN

Website Editor

mchinn@imail.iu.edu