What Now? Low key Campaign Update

I thought I should write a brief update since I have moment and haven't written anything in a couple of months.

I haven't done much to prepare for the election so far. I had a slight tussle with the Virginia Board of Elections [SBE] in order to get the list of registered voters. The SBE was unable to sort voter information by street address, which is basic and necessary for a candidate seeking to go door to door. A print out of the list would have cost $288 and been nearly useless.

I opted to buy the CD with the voter information on it for $111. I had to purchase software for my computer in order to work with the data. I've started processing the data -- I'm breaking the data down by precinct currently. Precincts so far have varied in size from 900 to 2500 voters. There were 43,506 voters registered in the 71st House District as of July 16, 2009.

I have received a number of questionnaires and surveys from special interest groups of all sorts. When I ran for Virginia Senate in 2007 I worked diligently to fill out the surveys and questionnaires. This time around I have decided not to respond.

I am not seeking any group's endorsement and I am putting my efforts into a strong door to door campaign.

I read again recently that incumbents have a 90% success rate for re-election. So unless the incumbent has done something bad, he or she stands a pretty good chance of being reelected.

I'm taking a break from blogging about the Richmond City Council [Richmond Telegraph] during the month of August because the Council is taking summer break. This will allow more time for me to focus on the campaign rather than staying busy uploading Council videos. That's a welcomed relief.