"Never Was Anything great ever achieved without Danger"
Niccolo Machiavelli
What would she say? How could she get their attention? She worried over it for weeks, reading a few famous announcements she found online. She went to the Library. She looked up quotations on politics too. Katryn found one quote she loved. She believed it was honest. She decided to use it.
Katryn walked forward to stand among the ten people and one camera man under the canopy raised in the middle of the City Park. Rain was expected, the clouds were gathered, even as the crowd was sparse. There was a light patter of rain, thunder and flashes of lightening on this mid-afternoon day in Dever, Texas. The rain increased pattering turning into a solid screen of water moving towards the event. The wind picked up, and outside, swirls of rain were blowing the rain hither and yon. Bridgie dashed to her side grinning."The other girls are coming. Are you ready?"
"As ready as I ever will be."
"How's your son?"
"He's fine." Bridgie was glad she asked. "Only a couple more months and he'll be released."
They watched the crowd together. "You should wait a few more minutes, Kat. More people are coming." Bridgie rubbed her hands cheerfully, shivering from the cold. She was the only one who called her Kat these days.
Katryn watched a few more people dash under the canopy to escape the rain. One couple clearly asked their neighbors what was going on here. Or perhaps they were asking permission to come in from the rainfall mixing with ice.
She was making her first big time time political announcement. She still believed was a gesture, a fruitless candidacy, an impossible candidacy. She was determined to try to start the important conversation she believed was vital. She was announcing her run for the Senate of the United States. After agonizing over the many local and county positions she picked the highest one she could think of where she might have some kind of impact.
She was starting early in the hopes that time would get her words out and people would begin to listen and to think about National politics. This country had to change. Like most early announcers and quadrennial candidates, she did not really expect to win. She didn't even want to be a Senator.
Her only intention was to bring perspective to the growing sense of injustice, unfairness and misuse of politics within the Nation through honest exploration that might resonate with the voting public. She also hoped that her candidacy could be used to get some of the greed and money out of politics. Voting is the precious right of the people and the cornerstone of any government seeking to call itself a democratic form of government. Voting is a responsibility. Across the country people were not voting in the numbers vital for Democracy.
Katryn had studied the history of voting. The past centuries were as full of flagrant abuse, fraud, money, meaningless elections, and intimidating people as modern elections. The right to vote, hard won and reluctantly given were supposed to be protected. New ways to take away those rights came about every year. All people of color knew the truth, despite constant, repeated denials.
Recent court decisions made soft money flow like rain in a tiny stream after heavy storms. It was a deluge in an arena that needed only a trickle to get the word out. Media was as greedy as the politicians were. Too often they were stingy, full of self-serving restrictions, or over priced their services so only the very rich could use them. PSAs, Public Service Announcements, free TV time, free news stories were becoming a thing of the past. Critical hammering news stories on anyone who disagreed was the new style of journalism for the twenty-first century. They had historical counterparts too.
News had to be bad, stunning, or totally unexpected to grab headlines. She figured if she made page two of her uncle's weekly newspaper, she would be lucky. A photograph would be unexpected. She did hope to be a thirty second blip on the local TV station.
She would get that and much more. Uncle John promised to air her announcement, adding "if it is a slow news day."
Yes, it was time. It was up to the people to take back their government. She would take her first step to help them accomplish that task.
Katryn did not want to turn people off of voting, or create the type of waves that would hurt the US or lead to one more of those "throw all the bums out" movements. There was enough of that kind of activity going around the country and she worried her name would be added to it. She wanted to bring people together in common purpose.
Katryn believed good, dedicated men and women were in government service. There were good people in politics too. She also believed the American public was fed up and beginning to see no politician as good for anything.