JOHN E. SETTLE JR. EDITOR FOCUS SB NEWS
Depending on when this is read, qualifying for this year's Shreveport mayor and council races may have ended with the 4:30 p.m. deadline on Friday, July 22, 4:30 p.m.
Assuming this is the case, all the wannabe candidates have 100-plus days until the primary election on Nov. 8.
Many of the candidates have been campaigning for weeks before they qualified.
No matter when they started, the real horse race has just officially started.
How much citizens will be interested at this juncture on who is in and who is out is a subject of much conjecture at this date.
Excessive heat, last weeks for vacation, early school starts and how to keep up with inflation are topics of concern to most voters.
Nonetheless, the candidates have now subjected themselves to certain inevitable consequences that include the following campaign truths:
1. You will be invited to many events of varying significance and criticized if you do not show at all of them.
2. You will suddenly have many, many new friends.
3. You will be asked countless questions that are not relevant to the position you seek.
4. You will need money for pushcards at a minimum. Yard signs, campaign buttons and pens, mailers and other campaign trinkets are optional.
5. You will be asked to evaluate your opponents, over and over and over ad nausem.
6. You will quickly learn to parrot your elevator speech, promising less crime, better roads, more jobs and a cleaner city.
7.You will have an tons of unsolicited campaign "advisors" telling you what to dp and not to do, with very few real offers to assist,
8. Inevitably, you will waste time politickng people who cannot vote for you.
9. If you post yard signs, many will be lost, destroyed or picked up by Shreveport's Public Works personnel.
10. Speaking of yard signs, you will quickly learn just how hard the earth is as you try to "plant" the sign.
11. Despite your best planned budget, you will constantly be tempted to spend more, and more and more as you get closer to the election date.
12. You will catch the serious campaign bug of "what should I be doing now?"
13. You will suddenly acquire the "second guessing yourself" campaign syndrome that will not end with the campaign.
14. As the days go by, your world will narrow, and narrow, and narrow with the campaign becoming a monster that consumes your time, your thoughts and your sanity.
15.You will feel rejected by many who, surprisingly, support your opponent or really don't give a damn about your race.
16. At some juncture, you will realize that you have voluntariy jumped into a raging river with no options than to go forward to the end despite how much misery and pain you have voluntarily subjected yourself and your family to suffer through.
17. The campaign will have a few highlights, mostly at the beginning and at the end -- if you win.
More "truths" can be added to the list. No doubt you will learn others first hand.
Hopefully, you will not regret your efforts.
And, oh, good luck!