Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Since I started this, it's only fair to share my stories, and I have two of them. (Look, I was also a comparatively early adopter of MoveOn.org, and the rest is history.)

Andrew Gillum: When the national news media started making startled noises about this "come from behind" "outside" candidate who was going to upset "the establishment favorite in the primary, I was all, "BZUH? You mean that not only is there someone who is not Andrew Gillum running in the Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary, but that he is also not the front-runner?"

Why is this, you ask? This is because I had been getting emails from his campaign for a good solid year (seriously, I remember a Season's Greetings-type e-card from him, and possibly two years' worth of them). Somehow (probably see above on "early adopter of MoveOn"), I had gotten on Gillum's team's list. And, as I say, their ground game was long and strong. Also, apparently, very very sneaky, because on the one hand, little old me was getting all these emails and on the other hand the national news media did not notice this--- which was very very clever, because his primary opponent also clearly did not notice what he was doing all the while he was quietly building his profile with ordinary interested voters (even if he did slightly misfire with me--- but I would have voted for him if I could!) (I can't help but paraphrase my favorite Hamilton song here: they weren't standing still, they were lying in wait!)

Stacey Abrams: like just about everyone else, I started paying attention to Georgia politics with the special election in Georgia's 6th... but while I came for Jon Ossoff, I stayed for this smart articulate policy wonk with a talent for bipartisan dealmaking and kept watching for her every chance I got. And then I found out that she wrote romance novels (under a pen name, yet!) And then I found out that she is fannish. (Here, have the always-excellent rydra_wong's post on the subject (and, yes, this is totally recursive because that's where I got inspired to make this post!)