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| L-R Karen Kelly, Bud Brown, Joyce Brown, Jackie Ginocchio, Back Row - Congressman Gordon Scherer, Richard Haines |
Campaigns are campaigns! Organizing and coordinating political campaigns was "my game" for many years of my life. I'm figuring it all started with being in 4-H where we took our "pledge" very seriously - "to make the best better", etc.
One of the toughest campaigns was "Brown-Betts" gubernatorial campaign (1981-82?) which we lost to Democrat Richard Celeste. I set up the campaign headquarters in Madeira, Ohio on Miami Avenue. It is now a Catholic store with beautiful Catholic items for sale.
When I rented the office, it smelled of medicine and was littered with medical paraphernalia (rented by a doctor?). Gradually we cleaned it up, set up a meeting area, an office for me and campaign literature/buttons/sign space.
Of course, I was a VOLUNTEER! I spent my own money on a lot of the things we needed to run the campaign office. I'm hoping I did get some reimbursement, but will need to do some more digging through old files (again). It doesn't matter now. It's "dollars gone" for another "lesson learned".
Bud Brown (Clarence J. Brown) and his wife, Joyce, were incredibly good people. I liked them very much. Bud's history was interesting, too - small town newspaper. And, Joyce could sing (especially "Glory, Glory Hallelujah")!
I will share more about his campaign as "time permits". We had many, many campaign events. Getting the candidate to an event on time was a challenge! And, not having the power to tell the candidate when to stop talking was frustrating. I could see "the handwriting on the wall" at a debate between the two candidates. Richard and Dagmar Celeste become residents of the governor's mansion in Columbus, Ohio after wining that campaign.
Bud survived that campaign quite well. He became Undersecretary of Commerce. I was able to do a "trade out" for a friend who wanted to work in Washington, D.C. I "traded in" my work to help him out and he landed a corner office! It wasn't until '89 - '91 that I would finally go to D.C. to serve as a Confidential Assistant at the Dept. of Education. (I didn't have a corner office).
Onward!
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