Listen to the full, raw interview with former Mayor of Houston and current CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute Annise Parker. Mayor Parker gives you a true insider’s perspective on what it is like being a candidate (11 times!) and an elected official in three different offices.
The full, raw interview with Annise Parker, current CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute, and former Mayor, Controller, and Member of the City Council of Houston, Texas. Hear her thoughts on how to survive campaign life, how to separate work and personal life in politics, and how to deal with conflict on the campaign trail. Listen to her stories of what it was like campaigning during the holidays, the challenge of adopting kids in the height of election season, and how she won, lost, then re-won the support of the Baptist Ministers of Houston. Learn why she believes that even her worst day in public life was more fulfilling than 20 years in the private sector and why you shouldn’t discount your chances at winning an office even if you don’t look like a stereotypical candidate.
Resources
TCW Progressive Training Calendar:
Connect with us!
If you have campaign questions or want to learn more, reach out to us using the contact information below.
Twitter: @cmpwrkshp
Instagram: @TheCampaignWorkshop
Email: marketing@thecampaignworkshop.com
Joe Fuld
Twitter: @joefuld
Instagram: @joefuld
Martín Diego Garcia
Twitter: @gmartindiego
Instagram: @gmartindiego
Presented by The Campaign Workshop
Martín Diego Garcia:
So as we mentioned before, running for office is definitely not for the faint of heart. So now try thinking about doing that 11 times. Well our guest today, Mayor Annise Parker did just that. So she knows a thing or two about being a candidate and as a person from the LGBT community, your journey took from going from an activist within the community to mayor of the fourth largest city in the U.S. Houston, Texas. It's truly inspiring to me and I'm sure to others and I would imagine was not very easy. So thank you so much mayor Parker for joining us today.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Happy to be with you and really excited to talk about the process of, of running for office and what it's like being in office. But I have to point out that I ran 11 times. I won nine times. I actually have a colleague in local government, he won on his 13th try for office. I do not recommend this. At some point you need to say, you know, maybe this is not the career for me. I need to do something else. He ran so many times that he built up a little bit of name ID and it was sort of a fluke. He was a one term elected official. I think he's still trying to run again. So.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Right. I, I would say nine out of 11 is a good track record. One out of 13 maybe not so much.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Right. Well and for me I lost two races and figured out what I needed to do to win and then I won nine consecutive races for three different positions. Sometimes it's a matter of learning about how to campaign, learning the ropes, the technical skills. Sometimes it's a matter of being the right candidate for a particular race and sometimes it's a matter of the, the rights set of circumstances happen, have to happen in order for you to win your race. It would be great if there were a point A to point B to point C formula and if you just executed the plan, you, you win. But luck has something to do with it as well.
Martín Diego Garcia:
I bet. And now you went from city council to comptroller which was citywide. And then again, obviously mayor being citywide.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Oh my council races were, my council race that I won was citywide as well.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Oh, then so all of your races were citywide.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Correct.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Which is much different than running in a district race.
Mayor Annise Parker:
The first race I ran was a district race. It was a head to head campaign with a friendly incumbent. And it's very hard to beat an incumbent, particularly an incumbent whose politics aren't that different from yours. And one who hasn't had a particular scandal or mistake. My advice, don't do it unless you have some wedge issue that you can use to displace that incumbent. I did not. I was actually recruited by the LGBT community to run as the first viable, not the first LGBT candidate in Houston, but hopefully the first viable one, didn't turn out that way. But it was part of a broader initiative to, to try to create a, an LGBT friendly district. And I was hoping to run in an open seat. Didn't happen. So I ended up running against a, a challenger, but it, it wasn't good enough to the voters to say the LGBT community needs a position on the ballot or an L or a, a possible seat. Uh the federal government still doesn't define us as a protected class in that sense. And so in running against an incumbent, I had to have a compelling issue for voters to decide not to vote for him. And that's what I mean by a wedge issue. There wasn't one, he was an okay guy, he was gay friendly, he just wasn't from our community. And that wasn't enough of a, of an issue. I learned a lot about campaigning and, and some of the things I did to prepare myself in that race I used later, but he beat me soundly and I then ran a few years later in a special election, learned a lot in that election too. Uh for that election the issue was, it was a six week special election where the vote was in January. And I, I learned that voters are not interested in politics over the holidays. If it's an, if it's an unusual election date, you're not expecting election, you have no idea that it's going on. 19 candidates special election. I never once went to a candidate function in those six weeks where there were more people from the community than there were candidates. I finished third in the race though behind someone who had already been elected citywide as a Democrat and behind someone who'd already been elected citywide as a Republican. So they had name ID, and experience. So I did pretty well, but did not make the runoff and actually was ready to quit. And this is something that I think is important to point out that most people who run for office lose. 19 candidates, one candidate wins. The race finally won in 1997, seven candidates won one. Most people lose. And. most people who lose that first race stop. I wouldn't recommend you just keep doing it if you keep losing. But if you can see things to change to adapt to pick a different race, those sorts of things I would definitely encourage you to get up off the mat and keep going. You can lose forward. It's not fun. Losing is losing, shouldn't be fun people, some people do run with the goal of raising an issue or being a symbol or a spokesperson on a particular cause. I don't recommend it. I think you should always want the job that you're running for. In my case, I had a good job in the oil and gas industry. I was a very visible and public lesbian activist. And my biggest problem other than not being a very comfortable campaigner was that I was publicly identified in both of my losing races as Annise Parker gay activist. And a lot of candidates who were successful LGBT candidates win by becoming by, by being elected and it's almost not talked about that they're LGBT or they come out after they're elected. I was a public spoke spokesperson for the community, so it was part of my public persona. I actually had to dial it back a little bit so that people could have more data points and get past the Annise Parker gay uh in order for me to be able to talk about other issues that I thought were important to the campaign. That was probably the biggest issue for me. And there were some things I did proactively to make that happen for the, for the third race. But I also had to work on my own skillsets, how to raise money, become a better public speaker, become a more disciplined candidate in terms of the, the critical elements of a campaign. The field plan. I'm going to come back to how to raise money and being more disciplined in, in call time, things like that.
Martín Diego Garcia:
And so now ran twice unsuccessfully then ran again and won nine times in a row. What on earth made you run for office 11 times and did you find the 11th time easier than the first time?
Mayor Annise Parker:
I wanted the jobs and that was three different positions and I was termed out each time, which caused me to pause and decide do I want to look for some other place to serve or do I want to go back into the private sector? And each time I paused, I said no, I want to continue to serve and kept, kept going. But I, but I wanted the job and I have this conversation with potential candidates all the time and they come to me and they say, well, I want to be in office. And on my, depending on my mood, I might say, who the hell cares? Because it's not, the office is not the destination. The office is a tool. I wanted the job and I wanted the job because I wanted to work on city issues. I didn't run for Congress. I didn't run for school board. I ran for city council, city controller is a, administrative post in the city, and then I ran for mayor because I wanted to work on city issues. I wanted to pick up the tool, which was the office and use it to do things that I was passionate about. Now to your question, did it get easier the, the 11th time? Some things got easier. I got to be a better public speaker. I got became more comfortable. I knew the ins, the issues inside and out, but with each step up, the three different positions I was running in with positions with more scrutiny and that required more money. My council race 1997 that I won. It became the most expensive council race up until that point. $250,000 all in six years later, won my city controller race, most expensive race up till that point, $750,000. Six years later, mayor's race, three and a half million dollars. So the, the, the fundraising went up. They were all the same constituents though. So in one sense it got easier because by the time I ran for mayor, they had already voted for me six times. And by the, you know, that eleventh race, that last winning race, they'd already voted for me eight times and knew me as, as mayor. So some, some aspects got much easier. But anyone who takes any race for granted has a likelihood of losing. Experienced elected officials, and by that I mean they've been in office for a while, they're in the groove and they think they're doing such a great job, that there's no way their constituents might not send them back. Start dialing it in. That's when you're in trouble. You have to, you have to run scared, unopposed or scared. I have actually run unopposed twice. My two reelects for controller. I was unopposed. I was doing the happy dance the whole time because I did not have, I did not have an opponent and, but unopposed or scared.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Yes. Agreed. And you touched on this a little bit and we sort of speak on it to, in our first episode we talk a good bit about sort of the motivation behind running. Can you talk a little bit about what your initial motivation was for sort of jumping in those first two races? And did it change over time as the elections got bigger?
Mayor Annise Parker:
I was a dedicated community volunteer for 20 years before I ever first ran for office. I was elected to office, I was active in a range of city issues and I was very passionate about those issues and I helped other people run for office who I thought would advance those issues, primarily uh quality of life issues for the city. The first time I ran myself, it was partly because I had been recruited by the LGBT community, but it wasn't as if my only motivation was I want to be called council member. I was already working on, on issues connected to the city. I think it's really, really important to match what you are passionate about and the race you run for. A lot of people admittedly run for office because they want the title or they run for one office because they think they can be elected to it, but they really want another office. I've actually served with several men who will, would publicly acknowledge that they ran for city council, but they really wanted to be in Congress. They were terrible council members. Local government is about potholes and garbage pickup and barking dogs. And I was a civic club president. I was intimately involved in all those things before I ever came to city council. But I had guys on either side of me who were bored out of their minds, but they could get elected to council. They couldn't get elected to Congress and they hoped it would help them move up. Worked for one of them, did not work for three of them. I don't know if those are good odds or not. And because it, it shows if you're, if you're not really passionate about. I had been asked on a number of occasions if I wouldn't run for Congress. I have absolutely no interest in serving in the United States Congress. It's, it's the, it's not the destination. It's a tool. And, and I have other things that I am passionate about and I, that I want to do. And so that's, I think that's just fundamental because campaigning is not fun and anybody tells you that campaigning is fun, they're a damn liar. There may be elements of campaigning that can be fun, but campaigning as a whole is, is just, it's a grind. It's, it's grueling. It has an effect on your ability to earn a living, on your family, on your relationships with friends. I'll tell you the path to madness in my view is that when you get to the end of a campaign and everybody you knows, says, Oh, I voted for you, and then you look at the voter results, here's a secret I could tell who voted and who didn't. And the person who looks at me and talks about how they voted for me and I can see they didn't show up and vote at all. I actually don't recommend doing that because you'll hate people forever after that.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Right it's sort of like reading the comment section ever in your Facebook or your Instagram.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Don't read the comments!
Martín Diego Garcia:
Don't read the comments. So I mean, you touched a little bit about this, about as a first time candidate and particularly when you're running against an incumbent who has been there for a while, right? It is very difficult to end seat them.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Absent some absence, some problem or issue. And, and particularly in the nonpartisan races, it is very much about the personality of the person you face. In a partisan race, it's all about the, uh partisan stacking of that particular district. And that's it. It's, it's a, it's a different dynamic than simply running as an incumbent.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Right, right, right, right. And so for candidates who are running and maybe thinking about running and potentially not being successful the first time, what made you sort of get up and run again and then obviously finally be successful, but in those first two races?
Mayor Annise Parker:
I was passionate about the issues. I was president of one of the largest civic associations in Houston. I was the president of a community development corporation working on affordable housing. I was a United Way volunteer working on senior issues and I was an LGBT activist. So those were four areas of, of really intense work and I was spending 20 hours at--40 hours a week at work and 20 hours a week as a, as a volunteer on all these other things. And they all had to do with the city. So it wasn't a big step to say, I can work on the things I'm passionate about from the inside and maybe have more impact than working on them from the outside. It comes down to the passion. What are you going to do in the job? Why? Why do you want to be a council member or a member of Congress or a member of school board? You have to link that passion to, to a plan on what you're going to do. That's the other problem I see with a lot of, you know, beyond the, I want to run for office because I want to be, I guess I want to be important. You know, are you passionate about the work that that body does? And do you actually have something to offer? You may be passionate about, okay, what's going on in your local school district, but if you don't have a an idea or a set of plans or proposals to make it better, why would somebody support you? So it all has to work together. Yeah. And it has to make sense for you. But people don't vote for you because it makes sense for you. People vote for you because they believe that you understand their needs, their issues, and that you have something that is a value to them. You're offering yourself and what you're offering is a value to them. It's not about you. It is about the people who you're ultimately asking to vote for you. And, and a lot of, a lot of candidates forget that. You can be the smartest person in the room. You can have the best ideas and the best plans, but if they don't align with the folks who are your constituents, it's not going to work.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Yup, definitely. So switching gears a little bit to talk about what it actually feels like to be a candidate and living that campaign life. Can you talk a little bit about either some of the parts you really enjoyed about being a candidate and being in campaign life and some of maybe the more challenging parts about being a candidate?
Mayor Annise Parker:
I loved the policy side. I'm a policy wonk. I was already an active community volunteer. When I entered politics, the two losing races and then the ones that I won and I never, even after I lost races, I never stopped working on the issues that I was passionate about. And to be able to go and talk about issues that I thought were vital to the citizens of, of Houston. I love that. And the parts of campaigning that I like put it in it, put us in a candidate forum, stand us up in front of the room and ask us policy questions. I will win that all day long. I don't like cocktail party chit chat. I don't like retail politics cause I'm very shy and very reserved and it's hard to get over that. And I absolutely detest dialing for dollars. I don't actually know a candidate who really enjoys that aspect of it. Some people get energized by working a crowd. I don't but the, being able to compete in the arena of ideas I absolutely loved. But it's also, it's different if you're a woman, you get treated differently on the campaign trail. It's different if you are LGBT. It's, if you're a candidate of color, there's certain things you may be asked, different questions, you may be viewed differently and you have to figure out how to navigate that in addition to navigating all the things that any other candidate has to do. As I said previously in this interview, I have I got, I got easier with certain things, I got better with certain things. Obviously by the time I was in my third, my second reelect, my third campaign for mayor it, I was talking about my agenda. And my, the things I had worked on for four years because I was setting the agenda for the city. It's a fundamentally different position to be in. Then running for an open seat and talking about what I might do. Then you're actually defending what you did do and hopefully you have something good to defend.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Yeah, absolutely. Any challenging parts about it, particularly as you think about your personal life and mixing that with your job and balancing family and balancing all the other pieces of your life while you're being a candidate.
Mayor Annise Parker:
I am blessed that the person who's now my wife, we've been together 29 years. For long time. We couldn't get married. We've been married six years now was always 110% supportive even before I was in office as a community volunteer. But especially in office when my schedule was always crazy. She never once said, please don't go to that meeting. Why don't you spend more time at home? Not once. And when I couldn't do some of the things I should be doing at home or with the kids, she would pick up the Slack. Now the biggest challenge was that we adopted our girls who were, we adopted kids from state custody. They were seven and 12 and this was, we actually, it was my last year as a council member and I actually finalized my adoption of the two girls between the general election and the runoff with me running for city controller, high-stress on the personal side, high stress on the campaigns. Not a good idea, but in, in a way I was in the perfect position because as city controller I was in an eight to five management job as council member or mayor every civic association, once you had their civic association meeting and there's it, there's no boundaries as controller. I actually had a, had an eight to five Monday through Friday job. So I, that aspect was a lot easier. So there are differences between an administrative post in a, an executive, or legislative position. Mayor is a, is a unique position because you are the public face and voice of your city mayor, uh governor, president. Those are at different levels, comparable positions in that they are, you are uniquely identified with the role and you have a public aspect to it that makes you on point all the time. I, once I became mayor, even though I'd already served for 12 years in office and, and you know, elected six times, et cetera, et cetera, [inaudible] the, my visibility went up so dramatically that I still have, I'm now, I have been out of office for four years. I cannot be anonymous in Houston. Doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's not that everybody recognizes me, but I can't go to a restaurant. I can't go to the grocery store. I can't go to any public place without people knowing that I'm there and knowing who I am. And that took some getting used to, not that people were ugly or mean. It's just that sometimes you just want to chill and not have to talk about an issue or not to, not to be on the clock. A mayor is always on the clock and I know that used to my wife was again always excellent about it, but the kids not so much, you know? And, and that means that they couldn't get away with anything either because there was someone always going to tell on them because they were visible. They were visible too.
Martín Diego Garcia:
So now we know the campaign part is really only the interview and the job actually starts after election day. What were some of the most memorable pieces for you about being in public office and sort of now that you're former mayor, was it worth it?
Mayor Annise Parker:
Absolutely. It was worth it. I, I loved all the jobs, mayor, clearly the best, there's no better political job because it's operational. You have to make things happen and you actually have some ability to make things happen. And all of my races have been nonpartisan, so I was able to draw support from across the city. I had a good career in industry, but every day in public life, I would say even the worst day in public life and there were horrible days in public life. It was more fulfilling than the 20 years that every, any day in the private sector, the ability to shape the lives of the people around you, the ability to impact the built environment of city, the ability to pass laws that change the opportunities people have or the you know, to mitigate problems, change, transform people's lives for the better is an amazing, you know, it is a, it is a drug in a, in a way it is, this is so powerful. But there also, it is, doesn't mean that these jobs are easy. My schedule as mayor we actually had one of my body man, body man is the term for someone who goes with a public official and makes sure that you have a glass of water if you need to. If you get a handful of business cards, you have someone to hand them to. You know, if you, if someone nails you at a public event and just keep monopolizing your time, kind of gently scooches you away. He was doing a leadership program is actually, or a management program and he analyzed my calendar and Monday through Friday in my first term in office, I average 1300 events in meetings a year, not counting the weekends. And, and that's every morning. If I didn't have a breakfast meeting, my security detail. And I was a big city mayor, so I had a full time security detail. They picked me up at eight in the morning and my goal was to be home at nine o'clock at night. Some days I would be scheduled on the every 15 minutes, some days I'd be scheduled every half hour. And it was, there was no downtime if I was out of my house. And then the weekends, it's weird because it's, there's a, there's a fun run. Damn those fun runs. I mean like everybody, they want to see you at seven in the morning on, on Saturday morning and then you go do that. And then there'd be this awkward pause. And I might come home and then there'd be some public meeting at 11 and maybe go till two or three. And if there weren't some festival that I had to go to, I might have a few hours in the middle of the afternoon. And then every Friday, Saturday night there's a gala. So it's just, it's, it's intense and there's and it felt in some ways that for six years I didn't take a breath and that's it's not, that's not a complaint. It is an observation. I loved it, but it is depending on the size, you know, the size of the race, it, it can be a really difficult personally, physically and emotionally to go through that. One bit of advice that I would give to anybody who thinks about running for office, is you have to think about, you know, you have to think about the tool and what you want to do with it and which position your passions, but what surprises people when they get into office. Happy people do not show up at a city council meeting to tell you they are happy, happy people don't show up at the state house to tell you what a great job the state legislature is doing. Happy people don't show up at a school board meeting to say that their school is the best. No unhappy people are the ones who show up. And you get that. You get the negative over and over and over again. And for some people in public office, you begin to believe that the negative is all there is. And for others you would just shut it down because you can't take the negative anymore. And then you're not effective because you're not really responding to real legitimate needs. And so being able to, you know, people who run for office because they want to be loved, find another job. Because you, there may be people who are, are very happy with you and they love the job that you're doing, but those are not the ones that you professionally will come in contact with the most. And you just have to sort that out.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Right. And so with all of the ups and downs and the highs and the lows, would you do it again?
Mayor Annise Parker:
I would do it again. I was term limited out of three positions and, and I, I'm not a fan of term limits. I think the vote is an effective term limit, but we have to and if you're going to, and if you're going to have term limits, I think you ought to allow public officials a certain amount of this. It takes time to get things done. These are big bureaucracies and term limits. Eight years, 10 years maybe after that you start getting to a point of diminishing returns. But term limits gave me the opportunity to serve and term limits forced me to think you know at least twice am I, can I continue to serve in another role or should I go do something else? And so that was, that was positive. But, but without term limits, if I, if I had run for city council and an elected city council, I probably would have been a 20 year city council member. I really liked the job. Same thing. Controller. I, I was good at it, running unopposed. I must've been somewhat good at it. I liked the job. I could have continued to do it. Mayor. I absolutely, it was the best job. I absolutely loved the job and, and wish I could have done it longer, but I will tell you that after a few months out of office in decompressing, it was killing me. I don't know that it would have been healthy for me to have been, I would have liked to have served another, another term, but maybe 10 years, 12 years at the most, but someone who serves you know, decades in, in an office, I don't know how they do it because I lived and breathed it and I couldn't turn it off. And it wasn't, I mean, there's certain things I did to help protect myself and survive it, but it really was even though I loved it, it was stressful.
Martín Diego Garcia:
I can only imagine. And so now you've taken all of that knowledge and the skills that you've gained and are helping other people to step up to, to run for office by serving as the president and CEO of the LGBTQ victory fund and Institute. For those who don't know, the organization is a national organization that helps to train, recruit and support openly LGBTQ people to run for public office all across the country and all levels of office. Fun fact. It's also where I got my start in electoral politics. So it's very near and dear to my heart. And so as you thought about your initial run or when people ask you or come up to you and tell you that they are planning on running for office is there one thing that you tell them that you wish someone would have told you before you ran for office?
Mayor Annise Parker:
You know, it's a, it's a good question and there, there's no way to really convey what running for office is like, you, you have to do it. But for me, and this is I think true for a lot of women candidates, is you don't have to be perfect. You have to be honest. You have to be honest with yourself and you have to be honest with the voters. But you don't have to be perfect. I wanted to, I wanted to have an answer to everything. I actually had to learn how to, how to say, you know, I've not thought about that. Let me research it and get back to you because I wanted the answer and I wanted to be you know, I want like, I wanted to be the best student. And I worked hard at that and it actually, it being a policy wonk is something I enjoy in it and it served me well. But that you don't have to be perfect. And I think that it also discourages some people because, well, maybe I did something stupid here or there's maybe something in my past I'm not proud of. You don't have to be perfect in that sense either. You have to, you have to figure out what your own narrative is. Maybe the stupid mistake you made is something that you can weave into the story of why you're a good representative, what you learned from it, how it strengthened you. So being honest with yourself, what your, what your assets and your weaknesses are, and then figuring out a way to connect to the voters. Because again, it's not who you are and what you offer. It's what they need and whether you fit the needs of the voters.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Definitely. Definitely. And I mean as you are now sort of seeing a number of LGBTQ folks running for office, I know we've had some record years in the last cycle or two are there common sort of traps or mistakes that you see candidates falling into that you could advise our listeners who are thinking about running to avoid?
Mayor Annise Parker:
Well, the first mistake is to to think that they can't win because they're LGBT or they're a woman or they're an immigrant or they're person of color. Any one of us can win. Yeah, helpful to be a good candidate, to have the right race to have the training and the tools. But the fact of your demographics is not a reason not to run. And the idea, so the you can't win if you don't play. Isn't that what they say in Vegas? You can't win. You can't win if you don't run. And so the biggest problem we have is that so many people think, Oh, someone else needs to do it. I, I won't. Or I can't. So don't, don't take yourself out of the game. You may not be a good candidate. You may not be the right candidate for that race, but don't take yourself out of the game without even trying. And while we at victory, pride ourselves on evaluating can we only work with LGBTQ candidates, we don't work with allies and we work at every level of the ballot. And we pride ourselves at having a pretty good sense of what a, who a viable candidate is. But we don't consider that we have losing candidates. Our candidates aren't losers. They may not have won a race. They may not have been successful. But if they advanced issues that no one else was talking about, if they engage new people in the political process who had thought that the politics wasn't for them or no one in government cared how they felt, they have won, they have contributed something positive and they made the candidate may decide, well I didn't win this race, but are the things that I can do to better prepare myself and when the next one and we're happy to help them do that as an organization. That's the part I like the best convincing people that yes, you can run and win. Now sometimes what I'm doing is telling somebody, Hey, you are in the wrong race. You've never run for office before. You've never, you've never raised any money and you're going to run for United States Senate. Probably not. But you know, you also don't have to listen to me. Don't take yourself out of the game if you think you have a chance.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Definitely. So as we wrap up here, any sort of tips or tricks around candidates keeping themselves sane during, what is the insanity of campaign life?
Mayor Annise Parker:
It is very intense. Now, I would say that being mayor wasn't that much different from being in a perpetual campaign. Particularly we had two year terms, so I was actually always campaigning. But I, the other thing that, that some people think that you have to be a real extrovert to be in politics. There's a lot of introverts in politics. Not a lot of shy people. I'm actually introverted and shy, so I had to build in self protective things. When I hit my house, it might be nine o'clock at night, it might be 10 o'clock at night, but I turned off the phone. I didn't respond to emails when I was, I put in really long hours. But when I was at home, I was at home and I, you know, if I was going to take, read a stack of documents, I do it at city hall. I wouldn't bring them home with me. I had to like build a, basically build a moat around my house so that, that was my happy place. And you know, everybody has some out some way to self-protect and that was one of the things that I had to do. And then the fact that I had a wonderfully supportive spouse help if I had had a 16 hour day at work and then come home and my wife is sitting there glaring at me because I missed dinner I wouldn't have been able to do it. And so as part of the process of deciding to run, it's not you running for office, it's your whole family running for office. And you ought to think about that. One of the, I'm going to pause here for a second. It's one of the things I want to talk about is like how, you know, some of the really intense things that we often have to think about, we don't realize you can be confronted on the campaign trail. And it's not, none of campaigning is easy, but what do you do when someone gets in your face? I remember in my winning council race in 1997, I've been a runoff. There was a mayor's race was in a runoff and two of us in at-large seats were in runoff, the two at-large seats in a runoff. We're out in a very conservative suburban area of Houston answering questions. And we it was a candidate forum, so there was the six of us for the three races and we've been answering questions for an hour and someone's showed up in the middle of the room and yelled and like Ms. Parker, you have been up there for an hour talking about city issues. You've never once revealed your homosexual agenda for the city of Houston. And I just, I kind of blanked because here I was I'm, I'm an out lesbian. A part of it was in, everybody knew that and he's raising this issue. It was actually probably one of the better things that happened in that, in that campaign in an odd way because everybody in the room sort of drew away from, from him and stared at him, gave him the, I gave him the side eye and it gave me the opportunity to say, I'm here talking about the issues that I am passionate about, that I know are the most important issues for my constituents. And if you want to talk about specifically about LGBT issues, I'm happy to have those conversations offline. But this is a forum about what I want to do as a council member and prepare yourself for that. What are you going to do if someone, it doesn't have to be an LGBT issues, is someone's going to jump you about something. How do you keep your head in that moment? The other moment of confrontation I had as a, as a candidate was again in that same race I received a phone call one morning, as I was campaigning, I was still working. And I should actually point out that I was working in industry. I had a nine to five job in the oil industry. I was allowed by my employer to take days off in half day increments. And I had a lot of stacked up vacation time. So I campaigned. But the last two months of the campaign, I took an unpaid leave of absence in order to campaign. So that's one of the things people ought to think about. But I was getting ready to go to work at the oil company and I got a phone call from someone on my staff who said the Baptist Ministers of Houston and vicinity or having a screening today, you need to go to the screening. And I said, I'm going to work. It's not on my calendar. And they said, no, you need to go to the screening. And I said, well, why isn't it on my calendar? And they said, well, they didn't invite you. And I said, why am I going if they didn't invite me? Because you're a candidate that they need to hear from and you just need to show up. They should've invited you. And I whined a little bit and I finally agreed to go in the, and my campaign guy just said, I guarantee you if you show up and you sign in and you act like all the other candidates, they will screen you because they'll respect that you came. And I went back in, I turned around, went back in. I will tell you that I, I fluffed up a little bit. I got a little more feminine in my attire and I, and I went and it happened exactly the way they said I signed in and I sat with the other candidates and I don't know what the conversations were in the back behind closed doors, but they invited me in. I had a good screening and ultimately they decided to dual endorse me. One of my opponents was a Baptist minister. So here I am, you know, the out lesbian and the African American Baptist minister they do a dual endorsement, that not being discouraged, and I don't want to say push yourself into places you're not invited. But it was, a moment where I could've just said, you know, that, gosh, they don't want me there, I'm going to go away. And I didn't. Candidate screenings are very important because it's an opportunity for an organization to ask specific questions that they consider very important to their particular organization. You know, you might do big, if it's a big enough race, maybe you're doing, you know, televised debates or maybe you're doing big town halls, but you don't have an opportunity to really go deep on, on issues. And a candidate screening with a particular organization allows you the opportunity whether they really have an opportunity in their screening questions to, to go deep on, on issues. And, this particular screening that, that I invited myself to, was an opportunity for these, the pastors who were on the screening committee to, to get a real sense on the issues that I, that I wanted to work on. I had similar screenings with environmental organizations or with labor organizations. Luckily for me, I'm really big on doing my homework. So I had answers to this. I, I do want to close the loop on the, on the Baptist ministers because it's another example of how you prepare yourself emotionally for things that no one else should. No one can anticipate. The day that the ministers were having a press conference to announce their endorsements and they had dual endorsed in my race and they had dual endorsed in another race. And I was so proud to have the endorsement of this African American ministerial group that I showed up early and I brought a photographer with me because I wanted pictures that I could put in my campaign literature. And as part of the getting the endorsement, the group required that you contribute to their, get out the vote efforts and the, the cost of to get out to vote efforts was $1,000. So I had $1,000 check in my hand and you know, that's a lot of money in a, in a campaign that total raised $250,000, it's a big check. And I showed up and I got out of the car and there's a guy in the parking lot near me having a screaming meltdown and I realize it's one of the other guys that's in a dual endorsed race. And I started walking into the building and two representatives come out and meet me and inform me that they have decided to unendorsed me on this, you know, on the site. And in a, in a the two seconds I had to respond, I said, I am so grateful that you gave me the opportunity to screen with you. I'm so grateful that you trusted me enough to offer a dual endorsement. I understand that you may have problems with some personal aspects about my life have caused you to rethink this endorsement, but the fact that you were willing to meet me halfway, at least up until this point means a lot to me. I am absolutely convinced I am going to be in the runoff in this race and I want you with me. So would you do me a favor? Would you take this check and hold it for me? Don't spend it. And if I'm in the runoff, put it into the, get out the vote effort and I look forward to having your support then. And if I'm not in the runoff, no harm, no foul. But I trust you, with, with my campaign resources and because I'm so grateful that you trusted me with your endorsement, even though you felt compelled at this point to change your mind. And I was polite and professional and went on down the road and I had their endorsement in the runoff.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Wow. Just goes to show. It's that personal communication, right? It's just that one on one conversation with other human beings that sort of get you there.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Sometimes. I don't. Yeah. Then I went home and had it. Then I went home and screamed into the pillow for a while.
Martín Diego Garcia:
Well, of course, of course. What else would you do? Well, thank you so much, mayor Parker for your insights and helping sort of lift the veil for our listeners around what it actually takes to be a candidate run for office and live that campaign life and, and post-campaign life live that public official elected official life. If you want to learn more about the LGBTQ victory fund and Institute, check out the links that are gonna be in the episode description as well as some other resources that we're offering you all as listeners around what it actually takes to run for public office. So thanks so much and make sure you tune into our, our next episode and we'll catch you then.
Mayor Annise Parker:
Thank you.