GARY SHUMWAY for Summit County Council

Finally, the campaign is over!

I have sent a congratulatory email to Chris Robinson regarding his win in the Summit County Council, Seat 'D' race. Chris (D) received 51.34 percent of the vote and Alison Pitt (R) received 38.82 percent. I, campaigning as a Constitution Party candidate, received 9.79 percent. It was a good race and no one got personal. I did question how many times Chris (and even Alison) would have to recluse himself because of his self acknowledged many and varied interests and land holdings in the County. But the people have spoken.

During the campaign I really emphasized not just voting straight party. Vote for the candidate! Even so some thirty percent of the voters voted straight party. Those that voted straight Constitution Party were 0.39 percent of those thirty percent. Get an idea what third party candidates are up against? The Libertarians polled a little higher, a whopping 1.02 percent. Of those that voted straight party, 45.19 percent voted Republican and 53.4 percent voted Democrat. Seems like we have our work cut out for us in convincing the Democrats and Republicans regarding the folly of voting straight party. Yet 30 percent is an improvement, as two-years ago it was closer to 35 percent who voted straight party.

I spent a fair amount of time on this campaign, but not as much as two years ago when I went door-to-door in five different counties. This election cycle I was helping with my parents a lot. This really cut into my campaigning time, but I wouldn’t have done it differently. I will do my civic duty but not at the expense of my aging and ailing parents.

I do thank my wife for putting up with my spending time writing (totally revamping) my campaign blog (voteshumway.org) and my bulletin board (tellshumway.com), not to mention Red Pills. I had to learn the rudiments of two new (to me) software packages, i.e., Drupal (vs. Civic Space which is a Drupal super-set) and SMF for tellshumway.com. I populated voteshumway with articles regarding this campaign including my campaign material. I will go back and add the articles from 2006. I have left my tellshumway.com site active, though I do not anticipate doing much with it until my next campaign. Red Pills will continue to be my primary soapbox during my campaign hiatus. My wife is really a saint for putting up with my late night campaign and blogging efforts as well as my political meetings. Thank you!

I thank my daughter and son-in-law, Alan, for helping with the campaign. Those substantial vote totals in the newspaper on-line Internet poll sure seemed a bit suspicious. But it kept us in the running and substantiates the bogus nature regarding on-line polls. Also, thank you for driving in the Coalville parade, Alan. Great job as usual (all the kids running after candy in front of the vehicles survived.) Thank you to both of you!

I also thank Donna and Jeff Coe and Lynn Badler for their assistance in handing out flyers, talking with people, and putting up signs. I really appreciate your help! It certainly lightens the load to have those willing to help you during a campaign. I owe you all dinner.

I also certainly thank the 1,484 Summit County citizens which voted for me. I really appreciate your faith in me and your willingness to vote for a third-party candidate. This is the best chance we have of changing the course we, as a country, are on. I will not let you down. I will continue my study of the Constitution and become more politically astute. I fully intend to run again in two years (actually about 1.5 years). For which public office I don't know yet but I will be out there slugging away in order to give you a real choice in the next election. Thank you again for your vote!

During this campaign I spent about $1,250. This is certainly less than the over $10,000 I spent in 2006 against Mel Brown and Laura Bonham. You might say I am learning? Yet the West Side Democrats spent about $9,000 on their campaigns, but of other people's money. I self-financed. Somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000 is probably a reasonable figure to spend in campaigning for a county public office, unless your opponent is spending $15,000!

Speaking of learning, writing a column for a political blog during one’s campaign is a bit different than say, Red Pills. I need to be more circumspect in what I put in print and possibly the labels I attribute to individuals. Using the ‘gang of four’ label referring to four of the Democrat Council candidates did not play well with a few who remembered China in the sixties and seventies. Pat Parkinson's label of West Side Democrats was actually better and more descriptive. I will have to write him regarding same.

All-in-all, the campaign was a clean one. I do not believe any candidate got personal. I did mention that both Pitt and Robinson would have to recluse themselves from some County Council votes since they have business dealings with the County. I never implied or stated that they wouldn't recluse themselves. There is every indication that they would. But as a citizen, I would not vote for a politician that could too easily have a conflict of interest. But that's me, obviously not the majority of the voters of Summit County.

Until next time, remember, vote person, not just party!