Ward 1 Convention Observations Part Deux

Kevin Reich's turn...



My first observation of Reich was that he didn't make it to the convention until after most of the delegates had arrived. I figure he either slept in, was very confident of the outcome, or (hopefully) was home making phone calls to delegates.

Reich did a much better job of shaking hands, and meeting with delegates than Howitz Hanna did. His team was fairly well organized with numerous signs, and what appeared to be a good floor plan. I enjoyed the fact that his volunteers had headsets, I'm not sure they were necessary but it at least gave me a good chuckle. I wish somebody would have mentioned to the Reich campaign early on that by having a 3 color scheme they're going to be spending a fortune on signs and lit. I'm a believer of the 'signs can't vote' thinking but also realize you have to have them. Keeping them cheap should always be the goal.

Anyways, I tried finding some video of Reich's speech, answers, or acceptance speech but had no luck in my search. Since I don't have a photographic memory, far from it in fact, I'll have to paraphrase what was said. Please comment if my memory is again fabricating things, and I get some of the paraphrasing wrong. It's also good for you since it means a much shorter post.

Reich's speech was much more organized than Howitz Hanna's, and had more of a conversational feel. He spoke a lot about his grassroots campaigning in both his speech and acceptance speech. He really talked up the success of the small house parties, and how they energized the people, and allowed him to get his platform out to the public. Grassroots campaigning takes an enormous amount of passion and devotion, I just didn't get that out of Reich. He came off almost shy at times, and didn't speak with much emotion. He spoke a lot of bringing job growth to the Ward, and building up areas with green jobs. His points in the speech were on target with what the delegation wanted to hear. Though his plan was right, I didn't hear how he planned to accomplish any of those plans. As was mentioned in the previous post, the next council is going to have a real budget crisis and tough decisions will need to be made. I'm not sure what Reich sees as areas that need to be cut but it will need to be addressed soon. I realize that the 'plans' are probably out there, and I intend on doing a later post about websites and conversations with candidates that I'm sure will address these issues. This is simply observations I made at the convention.

It was a pretty anti-climactic convention, with the outcome becoming fairly obvious after the first ballot. Riech had put together a good team that was able to turn out loyal delegates in masses, and that's the name of the game. Reich's acceptance speech I thought was very good. He accepted the nomination humbly and thanked the people he needed to. He also gave me hope by talking about his plans to be at the summer events around Ward 1, and to connect with his constituents.

Losing an endorsement isn't easy but I walked out of the convention with my head up thinking the delegates had made a good choice with a candidate that would be ready and willing to take on a job that is difficult, time consuming, and stressful...