The ‘After Election’ Hangover- For Candidates

The ‘After Election’ Hangover- For Candidates

While the morning after election results are more or less the sign of what voters did the previous day and they may have no regrets or hangovers from the choices they made for at least 6 months anyway, candidates face a far greater hangover the day after, especially the losers.

I admit it would be nice to take off to a nice warm beach and sip a nice fruit filled drink for 3 days after an election because so much has been poured into it the race, you feel you need to re-charge. Most of the time you’re so broke after putting so much into your campaign that the getaway just isn’t going to happen. More likely you will suffer the effects similar to coming home after a vacation from post election, then go on one.

The public may have an anger or hostility towards candidates of any race, ruthlessly turning their back on them as if they were a peddler who had tried once too many times. The facts though are that if you eliminated every loser from every election, you would be left with a dictatorship.

That’s right; the losers of any particular election are the celebration of our Republic. We live in a democracy but it’s a Constitution Republic, and our Constitution clearly enumerates the manner and time of our elections as well as the qualifications for a candidate. Without that, we would simply live in a tyrannical dictatorship. Please don't think you haven't heard the last from me regarding Obama's eligibility, simply because he hasn' put it to rest.

As a candidate I hope that my platform stimulated some debate, invigorated interest, and provided a choice for every voter who would be left with less had I not run. My sincere and best wishes go to the winners, however by appreciation and gratitude goes to all the losers.

This isn’t my first rodeo, couldn’t say it was going to be my last. Bret Favre keeps coming back and so do I. I remember my first loss in an election and how I said to myself, “I will NEVER RUN for public office again!” Indeed, one election loss is generally enough for any one person who actually put good faith effort into one-including commercials, signs, web sites, travel, and the public and co-candidate grilling and bashing that inevitably comes in many directions.Even as a write-in candidate thousands of hours went into the campaign 50 page web site,52 commercials,voting issues, platform, signs, and cross the country travel. I didn't get paid a dime to do it. Running an election race is tantamount to volunteering to some remote venture that will be forgotten in a week.

I’m asked occasionally “Was it worth it?” My considered response is personal. I’ve never run any campaign or election race wherein a lot of soul searching didn’t go on, sometimes for weeks or even months, especially knowing of the lost elections of my own past, and having some idea of what is expected, and what it will take to have a respectable showing.

That effort was always considered with prayer and supplication to God to help me see it through, if indeed I was to do it. In every campaign I’ve lost, there were moments and times when I said to myself, “okay, that’s it, this one is over. I can’t go on. The way is hedged up so high I won’t make it.

In every situation and circumstance I’ve been in when those circumstances came up and that included being short on money, being stranded in a vehicle, car problems, travel problems, and personal problems that seemed insurmountable, the unexplainable has happened.

Somehow, the engine was fixed, the car didn’t quit, the money came in, and the traveling was cleared. My own witness of miracles has happened. The process of seeing them and being a part of them made me grateful to God for preservation. I don’t use the word “preservation” lightly but rather mindfully with the opposite of being made “extinct” the very real possibility. While the steep mountains set before me have been climbed from the deepest valleys you’ve ever seen, in the darkest places and moments imaginable, the light has come and broke through all of them. I’m left with triumph at what seemed impossible.

If you saw the movie “The Replacements” Shane Falco played by Keanu Reeves says as the quarterback in the football huddle something to the affect “pain heals, chicks dig scars, and glory last forever.”



It’s true, but glory isn’t always received simply in the win, but it’s the journey!
I contributed the help from above as clear as a bell and who am I to complain, or to bemoan the clarity of Gods helping hand? If the whole world voted against you, and you were able to see God’s little finger in action, you wouldn’t care about the whole world voting against you, and that’s the comparison I’m so thankful for. I know that’s a little personal, but it’s the truth. Thankfully the truth sets us and keeps us free.

If you received 49% of the vote and lost, you’re still faced with as much as a hangover as someone like me who received much less and ended up in the exact same boat as you did. We have to face it, we lost, but we are not losers, because all of America stands upon our Constitution, and without those elections the whole idea of America would die. Without the losers, our elections would be a sham.

So, that is why in some measure I submit a virtual tropical paradise 3 day weekend to all the losers who tried is not a bad idea; they in the process made America stronger then she was and I’m thankful to have been a part of that. Look deep into the picture on this post and spend as much time as you like gazing at it because it’s all I can afford right now.



Cody Judy