#run for something

Run For Something

Every year there's hundreds of positions that go completely unchallenged. Some of them for areas that you, the general American Tumblrite, probably care about.

I'm being so, so, so completely serious right now.

Run For Something

Run for something, and if you promise to never ban a book, the linked website and @fated-mates can get you in touch with volunteers for phone banking (aka letting voters know you exist, what you stand for, and convincing people to vote for you). Depending on your situation, they'll fund you, too.

(fated mates was more specific about helping Leftist candidates get $1000, but I'll let you listen to them on this episode and decide for yourself. I'm not affiliated with them.)

Women especially need to hear the message 7 times, according to some studies, to be convinced that yes, this is something they can do.

You can run for something! Run for something small. School boards. Municipal government. Run for something as a side hustle. Run for something because you're an empty nester and your book club stinks. Run for something so you can personally push things leftward, even if it's just one foot, that's one foot further towards your leftist goals no matter what they might be.

Run for school board because look at the fucking idiots currently running it. You know you're smarter than them. Fucking, if you've ever completed a school project you're probably smarter than them.

Run for something because Elon Musk is pissing you off. Run for something because you're trying to fight off despair. Run for something because you hate the idea that you can't do anything. You can do something! You can run for something.

But where to even start?

Don't worry, they got you.

Filling out this form will show you a list of state legislative and local offices where you can run based on your current address.

No matter the results, you will also be added automatically to the Run for Something candidate pipeline — check your inbox in the next few days for next steps.

the sad thing is that at some point after then and before now, there was an actual Mandarin speaker on the Board, but the management company (whose representative told me that my attempts to get HOA announcements translated was a waste of money because "Asians don't participate") never raised the translation issue with that Board member.

I only found out about this because I was going around warning that section of the complex about a plumbing issue and I was with a resident from the area who happened to be fluent in both English and Mandarin. The elderly woman seized her chance to tell me her problem, I got the records of the offense and the fines from our accounting firm, and with the old management company gone I was able to convince the rest of the Board (currently just one other woman) that we should just erase it all.

I'm telling this story because it's an example of why you should get involved with your HOA board, if you can. I know a lot of Tumblr users aren't homeowners, but those of us that do own some property are most likely to own condos or townhouses rather than single-family homes. Living in a complex with shared assets means you have some kind of owner's association with a Board or Council or whatever.

Our HOA is quite large—over 250 households—and three of our five Board positions are vacant because nobody wants to volunteer.

I myself have never even won a contested election for my position. I'm just one of only two people willing to do it. And I'm using that position to cancel debts, get native plants into the landscaping, and make things more accessible to the many residents who don't speak English.

The other person on the Board doesn't even live in the complex—she's a landlord—and she's the kind of person who wants to call the cops on teenage residents for jumping the pool fence when the card reader breaks. The Board president before her was literally named Karen and was known to walk around the complex with a clipboard citing people for having the wrong color curtains.

I know you're probably really fucking tired all the time already, property owner reading this, but for me this position is just one meeting a month and some extra emails. Sometimes neighbors text me questions or I need to go snap a picture of something for the management company. I could be doing more if I was less ADHD, but even what I'm doing now, as discombobulated and neurodivergent as I am, is enough to make a big difference.

Rachel Leingang and Lauren Gambino at The Guardian:

Since Kamala Harris’s defeat to Donald Trump in 2024, Democrats have chased candidates who exude an ever-elusive “authenticity”. For many on the left, the answer was Graham Platner, a military veteran turned oyster farmer with a gravelly voice and deep hostility toward the political establishment. Even as controversy after controversy emerged – racist, sexist, homophobic online posts; a tattoo widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he later covered up; sexually explicit messages sent to other women while he was married; and allegations from former partners of toxic and threatening behavior, which he denied – Platner’s momentum didn’t slow. It was only after a woman accused Platner of rape – which he denies – that his political support collapsed. In the wake of his withdrawal, Democrats are asking themselves many questions, chief among them, who will replace him as their party’s nominee in the marquee Senate race? But the saga has also revived a deeper debate over whose flaws are forgivable – and whose are disqualifying.

“White men get to fail,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits young, progressive candidates to run for office. “Women do not get to make mistakes. People of color do not get to make mistakes.” Litman said the argument was not that serious allegations should be treated differently because of a candidate’s identity, but that Platner had been granted an unusual degree of latitude to recover from earlier controversies that a female candidate or a candidate of color would probably not have been afforded. Litman said Platner was the “political equivalent of the Fyre fest guy or Adam Neuman” – high-profile men who continued to receive support for new ventures after spectacular failure. “It’s like there is inherent trust and faith in capabilities that they don’t have to prove,” she added.

Run for Something vets political candidates before offering their endorsement. As part of its endorsement application, Litman’s organization asks candidates to disclose what a background check might turn up, and what the opposition will find, Litman said. After going through the vetting process, women and people of color are more likely to “self-censor” or decide they would rather not run at all, Litman said, adding: “The thing that I keep coming back to is, who has permission to be authentic?” The result, according to candidates, strategists and scholars, is a political environment that often penalizes women and people of color more harshly than their white, male counterparts. “Folks who have been identified as hardscrabble, populist, left-of-center white guys get far more leeway than folks like me, Black progressives,” Chris Rabb, who won a closely watched Democratic primary in a deep-blue Pennsylvania House district, said last month on the Breaking Points podcast. “And that’s a double standard that is largely based on race.”

Despite a record of contemptible behavior, Platner continued to raise large sums of money from grassroots donors, pushed a sitting governor out of the primary and cruised to the Democratic nomination.

[...] When running for office, women, and particularly women of color, often start from a deficit, needing to prove not only that they are qualified but that they fit voters’ expectations of what leadership looks like, said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women in Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. “Who can best run authentically on all of their many identities are those whose identities are privileged across the board,” she said.

Dittmar pointed to research on how women decide whether to run in the first place. A 2008 survey of state legislators found women described their decision as “relationally embedded” – weighing how a campaign would affect their families, communities and careers – while men were more likely to run simply because they wanted the job.

Research has found that when women do run for office, they are more likely to face scrutiny over their personal lives. Women are held to a higher moral and ethical standard – a phenomenon the Barbara Lee Family Foundation called the “character pedestal”, in which voters expect women to be more honest and trustworthy than men. When women are accused of wrongdoing, “the fall from the pedestal is longer and harder”, Dittmar said, referencing the work of the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

As more women run for office, some see signs that political gender norms are changing, particularly since the 2016 presidential election, when the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server became a defining issue of her campaign – immortalized by the “but her emails” political meme – even as Trump faced a long record of controversies, including multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.

On the left, voters are bucking convention and embracing a new crop of unabashedly progressive – and decidedly aggressive – candidates. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist and the daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, succeeded in toppling a senior Democratic incumbent in a New York congressional primary despite scrutiny over social media posts she had deleted, but had been archived. In the posts, she frequently and profanely disparaged the Democratic party and its leaders, including Kamala Harris, questioned the origins of Covid-19 and criticized interracial relationships. As a first-time political candidate, Kat Abughazaleh spent months worrying that someone would unearth her “middle school livejournal fanfic account”.

Great article in The Guardian on why white men like Graham Platner are afforded many fuck-ups, while women and POC get far less latitude for mistakes.

Bernie Sanders partners with Run for Something to train candidates

The Vermont senator is adding organizational heft to his appeal for progressives to run for office.

However, the need/drive to do something did make me curious, so I went to their site and looked at stuff in my area. And... idk if it's true for all school districts, but this school district does not require anything of those running for school board positions except: live in the area and be eligible to vote. THAT'S IT. NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED. YOU DON'T EVEN NEED TO HAVE KIDS IN THE SCHOOLS OR KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT EDUCATION OR EVEN BUDGETS.

This is why wackos end up on local school boards, and absolutely why qualified people who genuinely care about education and kids need to run.

So, if you are curious about running or supporting someone who is thinking about running for something (RFS offers guidance and financial aid!) particularly if you are a millennial or gen-z, maybe go poke around their site a bit.

They say it takes people several moments of encouragement to take the chance, so consider this another one.

I know this is tumblr, the land of the awkward and poor. But some of you might know a caring extrovert who is perfect for something in your area.

Notes from a recent informational webinar run by For The People, a fantastic team aiming to get more people actively involved in defending and championing libraries. This was well-timed, since I wanted to check out volunteer opportunities with our local Friends of the Ojai Library organization, but Katie, Mariame, Tara, and their colleagues inspired me to dig deeper. This call was aimed at enrolling people in their incubator project, which offers weekly Zoom calls to help elected or hopeful board members navigate group dynamics, stand up for free speech, and strategize together. It’s an incredibly smart and well-run operation.