A New Member of the Carroll for Council Team

I bring you Tater Tot

She is about 6 weeks old, she already is a fighter. She was found in the woods in North Canton with a broken hip and pelvis. The vet also found that she had a hernia and some bugs had latched on to her fur around her neck.
Rita brought her home last night, she was a little skittish around the house but hopefully she will adapt to her new surroundings.

Due to her injuries she won't be on the trail with me for quite some time. The Doctor said no steps for at least a month.

The name comes from the Vet's office, since she was so small when she was brought in 10 days ago.

We're Filed

Yesterday was the filing deadline for the petitions to get on the ballot. A major hurdle has been cleared! Now we can concentrate on the campaign and also fundraising. Last night went to a meeting of the Berea Republican Club, they had Ken Blackwell speak, it was essentially the same talk he gave when he was here in Lakewood, but when it came to the Q & A he stated some new ideas in which to combat the school funding and repealing the new corporate tax that the Ohio Legislature has passed.

I received an email from the Coleman for Governor campaign, he is a Democratic Candidate for Governor touting his ideas and platform, but what kind of bothered me is the way he was asking for contributions. In the information it stated how you would get a tax break.

From his website:
"Ohio law allows for a tax credit of $50 per individual or $100 per joint filers for those who make contributions to state office candidates. Because Mike Coleman is running for governor in 2006, you can get up to $50 off your state taxes in 2005 and in 2006 when you make donations to Coleman for Ohio. This is a tax credit. Meaning if you owe $400 in state taxes, and you make a $50 donation and take the credit, you then owe only $350. If you owe state taxes, the donation will not increase the amount of taxes you owe the state."

This just seems to be an odd way to ask for contributions.

Back to my campaign, we have double shifts scheduled this weekend to canvass. I am beginning to plan for the month of August, I am going to try an schedule 3 nights a week and continue with the double shifts on the weekends. There are a couple of special events in the City that will require me to make an appearance, so we will adjust the schedule accordingly.

Have a great Friday!

Around the City in 80 Days

Well today there are 80 days until the primary.

Canvassing was very hot today, as it has been every time I have been out since June.

For humor sake we were caught in mid-afternoon storm which made us look like a couple of drowned rats! We stopped there and went back and dried off and changed clothes and went back out for another 2 1/2 hours of canvassing.

All those who want to lose weight, forget the Atkins or any other of the diets out there, just run for office and go door to door, you will take the weight off and tone the muscles, I am speaking from experience on this one.

Each precinct is roughly 300 houses and we tend to hit about 85-90% of them. The reasons for not hitting them all is mainly 1)they may not be registered voters or 2) as was the case this afternoon and evening several of the places were empty. Today we finished one complete precinct and began another before the Candidate wore out!

Filing deadline is coming, we fell short on the Pre-Check with the Board of Election. We had over the required amount, but apparently they found fault with a few more than we anticipated, so now we have to go back and pick up a few more before the end of the week.

Finally, I would like to thank DaGoddess for the kind words of encouragement on the campaign. Turns out she is a product of a former Lakewood resident! You can see her at her site www.dagoddess.com. I have added her to the list off to the right.
Good Luck with the surgery DG!

I have decided that every week I would try and write a little background on each of the blogs off to right, so that when you click on one you will have a little better understanding of the site. Of course if you know of a site that interests you, pass it along in the comments.

500

With 82 days to go until the Primary, we have made contact at more than 500 houses, which equates to about 1000-1200 doors that have been knocked on. I hope to triple that number by the end of August and then make a big push in September.

Today is Pre-Check day, we can take our petitions to the County Board of Elections for a review of the signatures of the petition. We believe to have enough, but will getting more just to have a cushion. If we have enough, we will go ahead and file them.

Once we are filed we can concentrate on going door to door and fundraising!

On another topic -- Off to the right you will see my Blogroll, these are links to Blogs that I read on a daily basis. These sites talk about Politics, the War on Terror, life as a soldier in Iraq, Afghanistan or here at home and there are a couple of them that write on everyday life.

One of the sites is SMASH's site , he is a Naval Reserve officer who was stationed in the Gulf during the initial phase of the War in Iraq. I began reading his site in January 2003, he is a good read and will lead you to other sites.

After you finish reading his blog check out his list under MILBLOGS, you will find some great men or women who wear the Uniform of the United States Armed Forces!

He directly or indirectly has directed me to every site that is on the list.

Please check them out, by hitting their links.

Thanks to all the men and women who have served to protect and defend the United States of America!

I am so excited

The website is up and working -- the link is off to the right

Had a long day today -- again -- door to door

Got into the First Ward which is the ward I live in -a lot of good folks live there and want to see Lakewood move forward.

I never really thought I would like going door to door as a candidate, but it works -- I get a lot of responses from folks who like that a candidate who would actually come to their door to ask for their vote.

Was on Niagara Drive in the first ward -- to me that is or should be a very big street for me since I was born in Niagara Falls and went to college at Niagara University, but a sitting Councilman lives on that street and it may make it tough to turn those residents to a new person.

Found out a like minded citizen has stepped forward to take on the WARD 1 seat, I will try and help him as much as I can, but it is a little late in the game to spreading myself to thin.

I have 87 days until the primary.

Say a Prayer for People of London

There is nothing that I can say that has not already been said about the terrorist attacks in London.

The terrorists believe that the Western World will submit to their way of thinking, but I don't think that is going to happen as we are a free thinking society and will not subjugate ourselves to be the in the same mind as those thugs.


(H/T shop-british .UK)

May God Bless the United Kingdom in their hour of need

Getting into a Routine

Well, I have been out several times meeting with people and obtaining votes - getting some good feedback and picking up on some new issues that folks are concerned about.
The tempo of going door 2door is picking up, I would to achieve the ability to go out between 3-5 times everyweek. Weekends we are doing two shifts a day.

This past Monday was the 4th of July

We had a great turnout of supporters of the LRO and we put my shirts on most of them to give my group a good size

I tried to shake as many hands as possible along the route

It sure was fun; I had my nephew Patrick and Niece, Colleen along with Rita to march with me.

I said to Patrick that is what we did for his Grandfather Carroll when he was a NY State Assmblyman.

Saw a few of the other candidates in the race, one of the other candidate's people had the same color shirts and a very similar logo as to mine, so much so that I saw some people with the shirts on and I thought were with me and almost went up to them to thank for their help.

The website should be up soon, we are having some issues with the servers so once that is cleared up we should be ready to get more people involved.

The website is www.carrollforcouncil.com

Hittin' the Pavement

Today, I started going door to door -- stopped at 200+ houses most people were not home, but was able to talk with a lot of good folks who are interested in what happens in the City.
Had a few doors slammed in the face, but that is to be expected. I had somewhat admit that they were a "card carrying member of the ACLU" -- that is the first time I had actually heard someone use that phrase.

Tomorrow more door to door.

The campaign is picking up steam and events this week. We are going door2door a couple of more times this week and then on Thursday my first fundraising party. I am off the weekend as I am celebrating my 25th High School Reunion back at Lew -Port on Jul 2nd.
Lakewood has a 4th of July Parade and I am hoping to get a good turn out of friends and supporters for that.

Tonight I am taking Rita to see Stevie Nicks at Blossom

A few weeks ago I met Ken Blackwell, currently he is the Secretary of State, but he is also a leading candidate for the Republican nominations for Governor.
He is a pretty down to earth guy and someone that has the state's interest at heart and willing to make sure it goes the right way.
I am of average height and he must be at least 6-6.

I am hoping to meet with other candidates and I will post there photos as well!

The Journal of a Candidate PT. II

May 9, 2005
Met with Ryan, went over the numbers to establish how much it would cost for mailers towards the end of the Primary season. The Primary is set for October 4th. If I come out of that I will have only 4 weeks in which to campaign until the General Election.
We came up with the figures of little over $7,000 just to do the mailers. We estimated that it will take another $7-9,000 to cover the rest of the expenses, such as signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts and also to cover expenses for fundraising.

As through this whole consideration I kept thinking that this is a lot of money to spend for two year race, I had been incorrectly thinking that the at large spot was a two gig as well, but Ryan stated that these will be a four year deal. Which made me feel better about the money situation.

May 10, 2004
Found out the County Party will help with one of the mailers, which could save some money and maybe use that for Post Primary work.

More later with some other reasons why I am running.

The Journal of a Candidate

Here is the start of some of the early happenings of this campign and how it came about:

Today is May 6, 2005 we have just finished a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Lakewood Republican Organization. I walked into the meeting (of the LRO) ready to tell them I was going to run as Candidate for the Ward 1 seat, however when I walked out I was committed to running as at large position on the essential premise of name recognition and those of the “kitchen cabinet” felt I had a better opportunity to obtain a top five spot in the Primary election.

The LRO is made up of people who feel strongly about how the not only the Country but also the city should be run.

Let me step back a bit to January of 2005. Ryan Demro a sitting City Council member called me to ask if I would be interested in running for City Council. Of course I said I was interested, what he didn’t know was that I had been interested in running for the past year or two but didn’t know who to talk with about it. I thought the GOP in Lakewood was a dead zone. It did not take long for me to realize that in the 2004 Presidential election that the LRO was a fairly formidable group of individuals.

In this cycle I met a man who I had hoped would knock of Dennis Kucinich our current Member of the House of Representative. His name was Ed Herman, he was not successful but he and his manager Ryan Demro sure made an impression on me.

Besides Herman and Demro, there was a third person who was very skilled at the political mechanizations and her name is Colleen Wing. She was a veteran of the political wars in Michigan and has come to Lakewood with her husband Eric and son Benjamin
Colleen has set a course for the LRO that could quite possibly set the organization on to be a political force that is similar to the City of Cleveland and Parma.

So with the help of Demro, Wing, Rita and the Executive Committee of the LRO we shall bring about a change in to local politics.

More of my diary later!