Enchanta Jackson questioned Richmond City Councilman Robert Blythe. Students from Berea College studying diversity in elections helped LWV with the workshop. View and/or download their research paper Gender and Racial Diversity in Kentucky's Public Offices. 
Elizabeth Crowe (left) and Joe Gershtenson welcome keynote speaker Eleanor Jordan to the LWV Running for Office workshop.A diverse and enthusiastic panel of speakers treated 40 or so equally diverse and enthusiastic potential candidates to advice, analysis and inspiration during the League’s Running for Office workshop at EKU’s Perkins Building Nov. 22.
“Make sure you have a fire in your belly,” advised Eleanor Jordan, executive director of Kentucky Commission on Women and a former state legislator from Louisville. “Passion is a must. Voters will see through a reluctant candidate.”
It wasn’t the “glamor” of office, but an effort to save a Queen Anne Victorian home in her neighborhood that led to Jordan’s first campaign. When the incumbent alderman showed no interest in the issue, Jordan launched her own campaign for Louisville city government. She lost by 97 votes, but gained the attention of veteran state Rep. Leonard Gray, who encouraged her to run for his seat when he retired.
While she was being sworn in as a state legislator — the only African-American female among 138 members, she had a “deja vu” moment of looking down at the House floor from the visitor’s gallery on a school visit when she was 12 years old.
“I remember not seeing anyone that looks like me,” she recalled. And she pledged to give a voice to both blacks and women whose representation in the legislature were minimal.
Her victories over three terms in the legislature ranged from the commonplace--securing a women’s rest room on the Third Floor to the significant -- passage of a women’s health bill that would require insurance companies to pay for such items as reconstructive breast surgery following a mastectomy.
Jordan was the leadoff in a lineup that included Kentucky political strategist Dale Emmons, Lexington at-large Councilwoman Linda Gorton, Madison County Clerk Billy Gabbard, Richmond City Councilman Robert Blythe and District Court Judge Brandy Oliver Brown.
Joe Gershtenson , director of EKU’s Institute for Political Governance and Civic Engagement .moderated a panel discussion which included Lexington at-large Councilwoman Linda Gorton and Richmond City Councilman Robert Blythe
Blythe actually lost two early races for city commission, one by only 11 votes. When he examined voter registration rolls after his defeat he was discouraged when he saw the names of “50 or so of my friends who didn’t vote because they took it for granted that I was going to win.”
Those defeats in the 70s discouraged him from running again until he had a conversation with a retired pastor in Winchester who had served in the Winchester city council. That pastor told Blythe: “You need to let younger blacks know what they can do. You need to open that door for them.”
Face-to-face with voters
Linda Gorton, a working registered nurse, stressed the importance of a grass roots campaign. When she launched her campaign for Lexington-Fayette County’s Urban County Council, she and her husband and children went door-to-door several times.
“What people want is someone who will listen to them, hear what they are saying,” Gorton said, even if you have to vote a different way on an issue. “Respect folks and their opinions,” she advised. Her face-to-face approach paid off when she ran for an at-large seat on the council this year. “Voters remembered when I knocked on their door in 1998 and sat on their bench talking issues,” she said.
District Judge Brandy Oliver Brown agreed that people will remember if you ever treated them rudely. “Have a public servant attitude and appreciate and respect people,” she said.
Brown is concerned about the negativity that is entering even judicial campaigns. “We want to win, but how much are we willing to hurt society to get elected?” she asked. If people do not trust the integrity of judges, they may hesitate to bring suits or report crimes and justice in the community will suffer, she said.
Participants were treated to some post-election analysis from political strategist Dale Emmons, who managed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Kentucky and Bruce Lundsford’s bid to defeat incumbent Mitch McConnell.
He applauded Barack Obama’s use of technology to expand the definition of “grass roots campaigning.” “ Facebook, MySpace, texting, e-mail are now absolute necessities,” he said. But he warned that technology is not free, and reminded the audience that “a doorstep poll is the best poll money can buy. You can only buy it with time.”
Emmons urged potential candidates to have a plan for the campaign which should first involve knowing how many votes you need to win and where you will get them. He also advised candidates not to be their own campaign manager, but to get someone more objective to handle the campaign decisions.
Technology now a must
Mary Sue Helm, described by Emmons as the state’s most knowledgeable source for candidates, gave participants packets of information on the state’s filing deadlines and elections schedules as well as the legal qualifications to become a candidate for a variety of positions. One of the keys is to file for office on time. Since there are no scheduled elections (other than those to fill vacancies) in 2009, the filing deadline for primaries in 2010 will be in January 2010. The earliest date to file is November 2009.
A publication titled “ Declaring Your Candidacy” has useful information including candidate filing procedures, sample forms for attaining ballot access, and qualifications for each elective office. The manual contains an election schedule, sample filing forms of various types, contact information for state election agencies, and answers to candidates’ most frequently asked questions.
