In which Primo spends a Saturday afternoon knocking on doors to get signatures for his nominating petition but gets only six signatures

Me: How many signatures [for Primo's nominating petition] did you get?

Primo: Only about six.

Me: But you've been gone for two hours!

Primo: A lot of people weren't home and the ones who were at home wanted to talk. They wasted a lot of my time.

Me: Like who?

Primo: Carolyn down the street. But she's really nice so I didn't mind.

Me: Who else?

Primo: The "But we are really committed to Obama people."

Me: OK.

Primo: And then Jason.

Me: Oh no.

Primo: You know how he is.* He was my biggest time sink. I must have spent half an hour with him.

Me: I remember.

Primo: He wanted to quiz me about the campaign strategy and he wanted to talk about this issues and he told me my website isn't very good.

Me: Great.

Primo: He raised some good points. There were questions about issues that I couldn't answer and I told him that my campaign manager was working on those and then he wanted to know if my campaign manager is actually qualified.

Me: I guess he doesn't really get the part that you are running just so there is a [Primo's party] on the ballot.

Primo: Nope. He also said we should be taking this campaign to the national level.

Me: As in spending millions of dollars on advertising?

Primo: Yes.

Me: To people who couldn't even vote in this election?

Primo: Yes.

Me: If he has millions of dollars lying around, he can send them to the campaign.

Primo: Nope. He would say that he knew I needed to get moving to get other signatures but then he would start talking about something else again.

Me: Great.

Primo: And then he wouldn't even sign!

Me: What?!

Primo: No! He wouldn't even sign the nominating petition! He has that business and has dealt with [the incumbent] for some regulatory issues and was worried it could hurt him if he signs.

Me: So he wasted all that time and then he wouldn't even sign the petition?

Primo: NO!



* Jason wanted to be involved in Primo's campaign for the state house. He is super scary smart and would have been an asset for coming up with strategy, but by the time he wanted to get involved, we already had a strategy and marketing materials. What I really needed was someone to deliver yard signs, which did not interest him at all. Who does want to deliver yard signs? I sure didn't. But I did because that's what the campaign needed at the time.



PS The nominating petitions are due in a week and we have no idea how many signatures have been collected on Primo's behalf. If I were the campaign manager - which thank God I am not, I would be calling all the volunteers to ask them how many names they have. If they don't get enough names, Primo does not get on the ballot.