Well, I did run for office back in 2010 and it was a really awesome experience. I walked away from it having learned a ton but, more importantly, realizing that I was a know-it-all idealistic little punk who thought he had solutions to every problem in the world. We're all better off that I didn't win that election.

I love the idea of running for office again but let's face it, you've got to be willing to play the game that the Republicans and Democrats have set up and I'm still too idealistic to do it. I dropped my party affiliation back in 2011 or 2012 and if I ever did run for a public office again it would be as an independent, and even then I have no desire to spend two, four, six, or eight years of my life building up enough name recognition and donor base to actually win.

As a result, I'll sit back and complain and beg for better candidates to throw their hats in the ring :-)

Yes, Miller was the incumbent at the time. If I remember right he hadn't had a primary challenger in recent memory, so it was unusual that three of us appeared out of the blue. Miller was the establishment candidate, but support for myself, Ernie Merisotis, and Carroll Tignall was split along some very blurred lines. The York 912 Patriots were a relatively new organization and rather than officially pick a favorite they labeled us all as favorable to Miller and left it at that. Carroll was the only challenger with any experience as an elected official - he was a Dallastown board member at the time - and was known as a taxpayer-friendly candidate. Ernie was a trucker/entrepreneur and while I don't know for sure, it seemed that he managed to tap into a donor base and build a small campaign organization. I entered that election as the far-right candidate - I was a big fan of Ron Paul - and raised all of about $150 in donations and my organization drew heavily on the Ron Paul-inspired York County Campaign for Liberty.

In the end, Miller won with right around 50% of the vote. Merisotis finished in second with about 25%, I had about 16%, and Tignall came up last with less than 1,000 votes in his favor if I remember right. Miller won every precinct in the district and then I typically finished second in the southern precincts, Ernie finished second in the York Township precincts, and Carroll finished second in the Spring Garden area. I take pride in the fact that I was less than ten votes behind Miller in one or two precincts - nobody else managed to get that close to beating the incumbent.

It's been fun to watch how things have progressed since then. Ernie ran several more times, each time as the 912 Patriots candidate and he managed to pick up a good amount of funding from the likes of Scott Wagner & Co. I guess Carroll was either voted out of office or didn't run again, I haven't heard much about him since the election. And I imploded and left the Republican party altogether :-)

Last edited by opendoug (2/22/2016 12:04 pm)