Public service starts with meeting people where they are

I’m not used to people chasing me down to give me money. That happened Saturday in Possum Creek.

I was walking a stretch of road between houses when a man drove past me in a truck, pulled over, lowered his window, and said, “Take this.” I recognized him. I’d just spoken with him on his porch.

He said he and his wife had lived in the same home for years and never had a candidate come to their door.

Another man said the same thing an hour later as we were talking in his driveway. 

On Saturday I got home, walked the dogs, and sat down to check my email before the UT game come on.

Someone I talked to on Big Ridge weeks ago had emailed to request a couple of yard signs and to let me know he’d fixed one of my four-by-four signs on Hixson Pike. The sign was leaning, so he wrestled with the rebar, then finally drove home, got some wood, and shored it up.

Sunday morning I had an email from the man I talked to in his driveway. He’d asked me if I’d ever visited the State House—I said once, on a field trip—and he said it was a stand-in for the US Capitol in the 1955 Disney movie Davy Crockett. His uncle had a bit part as a corrupt politician.

In his email he sent me a link to the scene and joked that nowadays if Disney needed a corrupt politician in the House chamber, they wouldn’t have to hire an actor. He encouraged me to keep knocking.

That’s easy. Well, maybe not easy, but it’s my favorite part of running for office.

I find that people are exhausted by politics, but they desperately want better government. That begins with candidates who care enough to meet them where they are.