June 20 Senator Burn Unit has seized the reins of his chosen committees: appropriating (appropriately enough) the Appropriations Committee and its attendant subcommittees. Recruitment proceeds apace... announcements soon.
May 28th Senator-elect spends weekend on whirlwind tour of southwest Minnesota, eastern South Dakota. "This nation is strong. Our wind farms are turning. The price of gasoline is steady but high. Children love to climb trees.
May 25: Victory
The 25th vote arrived this morning/afternoon (London time) fresh and hot. More updates to follow after victory lap, drinking, etc.
Note: a complete (and very lengthy) timeline/diary is available at my home site. It details pretty much the process I followed.
Voting: if you read these notes and consider this a thorough completion of the task, I tell you what: i think there's room for two kinds of votes. I'm going to treat the first 28 votes, thru Lizard Boy's, as votes for the actual candidacy for senate. If you think I've fulfilled the strictures of this task adequately and you want to vote on it for that reason, go ahead. I'll treat all votes after Lizard Boy's as votes not for my senatorship but for the task completion--unless you specify the other interpretation in comments or private message.
How I actually completed the task qua task (as distinguished from the task-in-progress and its direct appeal for votes)
I created a platform and promo photos.
I tried a different approach to mudslinging, attempting to defame the voters instead of other candidates. Eventually I did reveal secrets about another candidate, who had actually wet her bed the night before! (this was kind of a pain, because I also had to change the sheets in the middle of the night)
I looked for community leaders both in the "real world" and in the SF0 community and took advantage of occasions when I had publicly appeared with them to create a veneer of respectability and senate-worthiness. Along the way I took pains to make my "diary" more nimble and campaign ready, putting it on my own site to keep the amount of text in this proof from piling up and making it hard on people who might be checking back in.
But also along the way I discovered that instead of just doing it as a lark, I really wanted to win. It became really important to me, and I wound up working on this task more than any other SF0 related stuff the last couple weeks, working on this task and the tiny little microtasks it spawned, almost exclusively for the entire period from May 3-25, Lucid Dreaming being one exception, but I did it in my sleep; and Blind Sculpting being the other exception, which I took one "in progress" picture of in order to bolster my campaign. All 115 points I earned in the period of May 11-30 were from 23 votes, and I think 17 of those were on this campaign, enough to move me to level 6. That's not bragging! Rather, I bring you the birth stirrings of our utopic future!.
The first 10 or 11 votes came pretty easily way back in April, friends, cool people, fun seekers, people who liked the platform, that sort of thing. It was after that that the campaign kicked into a different level of energy. I crafted several direct-mail campaign messages and began sending them out to newer players. I believe I sent over 80 emails. These worked after their own fashion, but at a much lower rate than you might think. I netted between 1-3 votes every time I sent one out to a large group (20+) so a rate of return about five percent.
I feel like the votes from about 14-22 were the result of really hard work contacting people, writing a theme song, making speeches, thinking about what people needed to see/hear to get a sense of the seriousness I was applying to the completion.
I also made effort to reach out to UofA players, hoping to secure a good sized bloc of pretty black stripes in the vote area. This effort may have worked, 12 of the first 28 votes were UofA players, the largest single bloc of my "core constituency."
One stricture I placed on myself was to try not to reach out too hard to my Minneapolis friends. I discovered I wanted two things: to free them (a pretty good sized group) from any sense of "obligation" to me as a friend, and to give a stronger sense of... what? ...honesty? Something. Honesty probably, because it was important to me to make this look like it wasn't too easy and I didn't want to have to answer comments like "well yeah, he's a senator, look at all the Minneapolis people who voted for him." There was only one Minnesota SF0 player's vote in the early going of the campaign anyway, from Beverly Penn (whose purity of motives is universally acknowledged, by the way). So I never sent them a campaign-come-vote-for-me email. I hope they weren't offended or something, but I swear I did it in part to preserve their good reputations too, as people who vote on things throughout the game. Anyway, it was a little harder for me sometimes, because I found I secretly wanted their approval above most others', it was a difficult sensation to face in myself and it made things ... interesting... to say the least. It's hard to admit that by the way.
I reached out to the first 13 voters (halfway home!) and asked them to spread the word. That may have worked. If nothing else, it got Jackie to do the totally awesomely inspired "lawn sign" which spurred a brilliantly hilarious outburst of "vote for___" images. That was really really really cool.
Union Forever Then I couldn't figure out who the "Players Union" was and I was despairing that I'd never fulfill the task without it. I asked Ian, but he didn't answer. So I just made one up, of players from each group and one player not in a group. I emailed them, told them they were members of the players union, and asked for their consideration. I think I netted one vote from that--but it could have been coincidental. I was really going nuts over that! I felt like I was foundering on that instruction and I was so close, only having 4-5 votes to go. Oooh! Frustrating! When all of a sudden I got this message, out of the complete blue from Mouse:
Dear Mr Unit
I bring you news that may be of great importance towards your candidacy.
I have in the past urged you to take a strong stance on the furthering of sf0 towards an international basis. Now as a member of the newly formed UK0 union i come with an offer.
We currently are a growing union of players, right now standing at 5 people strong, who are passionate about drive and are currently large scale collaborating on several tasks with an aim to establish our small island as a strong supportive base to the community in its current time of glasnost.
If you agree to publically come out in support of our international union in your position as First Senator of SF0, we will be able to provide your campaign with the support and vote of our union members. This will of course provide you with your target of 25 votes and a succesful election as Senator.
I look forward to your response and I am more than willing to further discuss any queries you would have about our union and its members.
Mr Mouse
I immediately knew what to do, running home and setting up an Aesthematic response in the form of an SF0-themed revision of the British flag, in the colors of the five groups. I posted that to my player photograph as soon as I could and sent this:
I believe you have your answer.
to which Mouse responded later the next day
I believe you now have your answer too.
Congratulations Senator Unit.
And the votes came in as promised, together with a couple from a get out the vote letter, it was more than enough. I was actually worried about that, because who knows, maybe they'd made the offer to another candidate, you know? And the extra time I took for the image might have cost me.
But the awesomeness of actually cutting a backroom deal like that, while also doing something in alignment with my principles, plus the internal dramatic tension I felt after making my little UK0-honorary flag, posting it and just nailbiting wait for the time difference and the wheeler-dealer sense of it all was so cool. Mouse made it cool, like a dry crisp political intrigue movie or something! Pitch perfect!
Listen. It's easy to see that on TV or in a movie and treat it kind of like melodramatic self-seriousness. But when you're a part of it, when it's happening to you, and it's something that kinda matters, it feels really cool to have that little exchange--"I believe this will do." "I believe it will. Congratulations Mr. blah de blah." the only way it'd be better I suppose would be a fat envelope of cash. Where's my fat envelope of cash? Aww never mind. You are still Awesome UK0! I don't know what their long term plans are, but I assume the UK0 crew is up to something good. So I still need to record a song for the union guys, one I think they'll appreciate.
And that's how I ran for senate. Thanks to all the voters, really. I'm looking forward to the new committee stuff and we'll see what madness happens next.