I’ve been asked by numerous people at church, on the street and elsewhere if I’m serious about running to become Albany’s 76th mayor, a shockingly low number of mayors for a city that’s over 300 years old and that has the longest-running charter in the country.
When I answered in the affirmative, one guy said…wait for it…”surely you can’t be serious!”
I went for the low-hanging fruit.
“Oh, I’m very serious,” I responded. As I walked away, I said, “and don’t call me Shirley!”
Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week!
But in all seriousness, yes I am serious. I am serious about my sincere desire to become the next mayor of Albany and I am serious about the goals that I have laid out.
However, I will admit to something: originally, this campaign was supposed to be a troll, a troll the likes of which Albany has never seen.
I wanted to shake things up a bit by making it known that a candidate who is attached to absolutely no political party is stepping forward to challenge the left and the right. I wanted to just have fun with it with no actual intention of putting forth any real effort.
But as I researched and read relevant news stories about the incompetent leadership of our bumbling, fumbling, stumbling mayor Kathy Sheehan and her cronies, I knew that I had to through my hat in the ring.
By the time media outlets contacted me, I had already decided to step up and take this seriously rather than troll the entire city.
The wife thinks I should use Reddit to get my message out there, but I tried that pathetic and horribly-designed website years ago and it’s just an awful, clunky and downright awkward site.
I gave up and I haven’t gone back to Reddit at all. She has told me what people are saying about me in the Albany message board, or whatever they call it.
Most are just bitter haters, it seems, but some are supportive, apparently. I really don’t care. I won’t give that site a moment of my time because I simply cannot follow the thread structure.
Reddit is useless to me and I really don’t need it for my campaign. It’s almost like toilet paper that’s already wiped an ass. That useless. But I digress.
Though I have, at the moment, around a 3% chance of winning, I am still putting myself out there.
Even if I lose, though, I win because I know from two sources that a few people are actually at least a little bit afraid of my little ol’ grassroots campaign.
Apparently, I touched a nerve with Sheehan and the other useless leaders in the city.
Excellent!
Yes, I was going to troll the hell out of the election cycle, but now I am serious. I am serious as a priest saying Mass. I am as intent as a cat chasing a laser.
Though I have no political experience, I am still pressing forward. I fear no one, because I am no respecter of persons.
Will I win? That remains to be seen, but stranger things have happened. I may have graduated a New Jersey high school (which isn’t saying much!), but my mother still didn’t raise a fool: the chances of a Crook administration are slim to none, but I fear no evil, the evils who are my opponents.
What’s the worst that could happen?
The absolute worst thing that will happen is that I lose, but maybe I’ll establish contacts and, should that loss become a reality, I might find another way to serve the people of Albany.
For now, though, I am focused on disrupting the process with good intentions and hopefully gaining enough signatures to advance to the November election.
And it all started with a plan to troll the whole damn city. But that troll is dead, folks. His corpse is rotting under a bridge, and the sincere and prepared-to-win candidate is on the prowl. Yep, I’m prepared to win, but I don’t have my head up my ass: I am also prepared to lose.
I have a long road ahead of me: from April 15th through May 24th, I need to gather 1,201 valid signatures in order to get on the general election ballot in November. One local media outlet called me the “long shot candidate,” and that is absolutely true.
Though the odds are stacked against me, I will not shrink away from this challenge.
Look, if I have the balls to walk into a girls’ bathroom after school in high school as Beavis, with my shirt over my head and my hands raised, saying, “I am the great Cornholio! Come out with your pants down!” and risk being beaten by a band of high school girls (which, back then, would probably have been hot!), then I certainly have the balls to put up a good fight and maybe prove that a mayoral candidate belonging to no party in a Democrat-dominated city can become mayor and make the Democrats crap their diapers.
And yes, I really did do that, thinking I was alone. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have used that particular line.
I would have said, “I am the great Cornholio! I need TP for my bunghole!” And why did I do it? Just so I could say that I did it. That’s all it was, folks: the thrill. I never would have pulled that stunt during actual school hours.
My lab partner happened to be in a stall and she shockingly, with an evil laugh, complied with my demand for a couple of seconds. But I got a glimpse, folks, and when you’re in high school, that counts for a lot.
Even so, I was frozen, perhaps intimidated into silence then, but I will not be intimidated into silence now.
I will be holding a campaign drive in mid-April and we’ll see what happens. 1,201 valid signatures for a guy who might not meet that benchmark because he is basically a nobody in Albany is a tall order. If I do prevail, I will fight hard for the November election.
But wait! What about the primary?
Because I am neither Republican nor Democrat nor anything else, I have to create my own party line, which I will do on my nomination form.
There is no one to oppose me on my party line, hence the lack of need to participate in the primary. But after that, I will go full throttle with my campaign as I run towards the general election.
So if you vote in that election and see that my name is not there, just know that I did not cave in, nor did I quit. It’s just the way things go in New York.
And I strongly advise that you not call me Shirley.