“Hi! My name is Mike Stein, and I’m running for county commissioner. If I could have just a few minutes of your time, I’d like to tell you more about how I plan to improve our county.” I said this phrase dozens of times while walking around my neighborhood knocking on complete strangers’ doors asking for their vote. I never imagined that I would run for county commissioner, or any public office for that matter.

I ran for public office in a community in which I’m not a native and against someone twenty years my elder who had lived here his whole life. On top of that, he had been elected to the county commission and to the school board some time ago when he was closer to my age. Even more daunting is the fact that I had never run a political campaign before and I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know that I had to set up a separate bank account for my campaign (though it makes complete sense).