The last 4 months have been exciting and rewarding to travel around the 5th district campaigning. I’ve learned a lot about the district, the people and myself in the process. It all came to a climax on Tuesday, April 22nd as the voters in the 5th district went to the polls to select who would be the 2 remaining candidates to continue on to the November 4th general election.
From a personal standpoint, I learned that in politics, the best thing you can do is plan your strategy and stay the course. You have to be honest with the people, explain where you stand on the issues important to the people you want to represent and trust their instincts when they go to the polls.
As Kelly, Amanda and I watched the election returns on Tuesday evening I couldn’t help but wonder if I had done enough to get our message out to the voters in the 5th district. Kelly was nervous and Amanda’s only concern was “Is daddy winning?” At the end of the evening, just after 11:00 PM, both of the area TV stations called the election in our favor. A short time later, both of my opponents called to offer their congratulations and I gave them both thanks for the positive, clean campaigns they both ran.
Waking up on Wednesday, I have to admit I was still overwhelmed by results from the night before. The day found many people calling and stopping in the office to offer congratulations. In the evening, I traveled to Reynoldsville for the monthly meeting of the Jefferson County Democratic Committee. It was fitting that I was making my first appearance as the Democratic nominee for 5th district at the same meeting I attended as my first event as an official candidate back in January.
Of course, the reality is that for everything we accomplished on Tuesday, the real work began on Wednesday morning. It is going to be busy between now and November 4th. I’ll continue to keep everyone updated on how the campaign is going. If you know of any events that we should be attending, please email the campaign and let us know. Also, if you have any ideas to help reach out to the voters please forward them to the campaign.
I’ll conclude with this. Most of the media interviews I had on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning all asked “Can you win this seat in November?” After about the fifth or sixth time I got the question, I finally responded “We can and we will.”
Mark B. McCracken
Your Candidate For Congress
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This diary is cross-posted at McCracken’s campaign blog, PA’s Blue Fifth
Mark McCracken for Congress
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I loved the way you were able to piggy back on the enthusiasm for the two presidentiasl candidates by campaigning among the crowds at two Hillary events and an Obama event within your district. Let’s hope we all benefit from positively using the enthusiasm of the winter/spring all the way to November.
Oh, yeah: the Penn State football fiasco (bluewhite scrimmage). I haven’t lived in PA for close to 10 years but I could have told you Penn State football is a statewide passion and attendees are serious about both having fun and the football, not alas politics. A surprising amount of Penn State ticketholders come from some pretty distant parts and may have gone to another college or no college at all.