A SENATOR’S START

SOMETIME AROUND 1995, I kicked off what was, at that point, the most significant electoral race of my career.

I had come to Colorado State University from my hometown of Yuma, Colorado, and had been on campus for barely a year, but I already felt prepared for leadership and ready to run for office. With no experience in student government, no real base of support, and certainly no clue what I was about to get into, I announced a run for vice president of Associated Students of CSU along with my running mate. I will never forget the Collegian’s editorial assessment of our campaign for student government. It was two words long: “Too conservative.”

With such ignominious judgment, we marched on through the election earning a vote count that almost matched the word count of that editorial. Little did I know that 15 years later, I would embark on yet another election that impacted Fort Collins and CSU when I ran for the United States Congress. While I do not remember the Collegian’s endorsement in that race, I can only imagine the editorial was similar in tone.

But it was that very first student election – spending time with peers and interest groups on campus – that helped me understand the demands of public service and being the person in the arena, so to speak. It gave me the first taste of truly working to convince others that while we may share different philosophies, we want the same result: the opportunity to succeed.

I remember meeting with student groups and associations, sororities and fraternities, discussing our campaign and its (lacking) platform. We held candidate forums and scrawled our names across sidewalks and the Lory Student Center Plaza. We marked up chalkboards with pleas for votes. We even did a stint at the Stump on the Plaza.

I also remember the awkwardness of that first campaign: putting yourself out there for everyone to see and opening yourself to a world of criticism. Walking into a sorority house and talking about student government wasn’t exactly the kind of introduction that got you invited back for a formal. It was part humbling and part embarrassment. But looking back on it with the clear-eyed benefit of hindsight, my first political campaign also instilled lifelong lessons about civic responsibility.

That very first campaign taught a lesson that was partly about courage and partly about curiosity.

It takes courage to go into new places in front of complete strangers and empty your heart to them, to bare your soul about what you envision for a better school and community. To explain your worldview to a group of people who may think you are nuts for wasting their time and hoping it doesn’t take too long before you hit the exit.

It also built curiosity. The best ideas are those built on the shoulders of experience. A candidate may have certain beliefs about a particular policy, but meeting people with actual experience on an issue helps the candidate put details and life into an idea. A candidate without curiosity is a pen without ink; that first campaign taught me about the importance of getting to know people, places, and issues.

Even when a fellow student disagreed with our platform, I learned how to listen, process new information, and respond. (Who could disagree with reduced student fees? But I digress.) Most important, I learned people have different experiences that lead them to live and think the way they do; just because we disagree, they aren’t necessarily wrong. We just believe in a different approach.