in the middle of the night…

I was up at 4AM last night (I had good reason), and maybe it was the hour or just the time to really do some thinking, but I found myself thinking, “I should run for Congress this fall.”

I was preparing to write my mom an e-mail and ask her if this was viable (logistically, not if she thought it would be a good idea, though it would be a good question, maybe, too), and if so what I would have to do to get my name on the ballot, but instead I found a little bit of time to surf the Internet and find out for myself.  And actually once I found the right combination of words to use in my search engine of choice, I soon arrived at the answer that my name, in fact, could not appear on the ballot.

Even though I met all the basic requirements, according to the Ohio Election Calendar 2008 (because I would certainly be running, at this point, at least, in the Ohio 5th Congressional District), to be considered for one of the “major” parties, i would have had to have had my petition in 60 days prior to the primary, which was held on 4 March, so I had obviously missed that.  Since I did vote in the Democrat primary in Ohio, I am thus currently affiliated with that party, so I couldn’t run as an independent candidate — to run as an independent (and if I run in 2010, I’d maybe go independent in the 5th District), one need only have the paperwork in a day prior to the primary, but that, too, is already passed. — But as history seems to show, a non-Republican seems to fare a bit better in the 5th District when people aren’t voting for president, but this year, you never know.

You’d think that 6 months in advance to get your name on a ballot for elected office would be enough, but I guess that isn’t the case.  I guess I’ll have to table all the slogans and platforms I was dreaming up for another two years or so.  And maybe by that time I might be what they actually call a “viable candidate.”  (I’ll probably at least have hair that doesn’t touch my shoulders at that point, but you never know.)