Never take a pregnant woman to a pie supper

Monday morning, I found myself explaining the concept of the “pie supper” to a younger co-worker.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

For those that don’t know, “pie suppers,” or as I like to refer them “the legal fleecing of the candidates,” are a Whitley County tradition.

Various non-profit entities, including: volunteer fire departments, community centers, school groups, athletic teams and others routinely hold “pie suppers” during election years.

They invite members of their community out along with the candidates, of course. The candidates are usually given the chance to introduce themselves and say what office they are running for.

Then there is the auction of the pies, cakes and other sweet desserts. The candidates, or their surrogates, are expected to either buy something or make a donation, which is also considered acceptable.

On any given Friday night during election season, there will often be multiple “pie suppers” happening.

There are two really interesting stories related to “pie suppers” that I will pass along here.

One involved a friend of mine, who was running for office, who took his pregnant wife to a pie supper about 20 years ago.

When a plate of brownies was put up for bid, my friend’s wife exclaimed fairly loudly, “Ooooh brownies.” Of course, this resulted in several people running up the bid for the brownies, which my friend ultimately bought for his wife despite the high price.

This led to a valuable lesson for my friend, who would later tell me “Never take a pregnant woman to a pie supper.”

This is a valuable advice that all of the candidates for office might want to follow…LOL.

So how much good does it do a candidate to attend “pie suppers”?

This is a very good question and I don’t have a definitive answer, but I will pass along a story told to me by another friend, who was a candidate for office.

There was a small pie supper going on and about 20 people were there. The crowd was pretty evenly split between both candidates, and had decided that whichever candidate showed up for the “pie supper” would be the one that all of them would vote for in the election. I’m not sure what the plan was if both of them showed up.

At any rate, my friend had been out campaigning that evening and had already been to two other pie suppers. It was late and they didn’t really feel like going, but decided to stop by and make an appearance any way.

The other candidate didn’t show up at the pie supper so my friend got the votes of everyone there.

A lot of people may be thinking right about now that 20 votes isn’t a lot, and you would be correct that it isn’t. In this case though, my friend won his race by less than 20 votes.

To pie supper or not to pie supper? is not for me to say. I will leave that decision up to each individual candidate, but there is no doubt that running for office is an expensive endeavor whether or not you like sweets.

While most don’t spend this much or anywhere near it, I have heard of some candidates spending $20,000 – $30,000 and not even winning their race.

When I talk to someone, who tells me that they are running for public office, my frequent comment to them is “Good luck and remember that the worst thing that can happen is you win.”

It usually gets a pretty good laugh from both incumbents and challengers.

The candidates, who have never run for or held public office before, usually just assume that I am joking.

A frequent reply I get from incumbents is “You got that right!” or words immediately to that effect.

I am not sure that the general public has an appreciation for how difficult it can be being a public figure.

During an election year in particular, incumbents and candidates in general will have people coming up to them wanting to talk all the time.

When you are out campaigning for votes, this is a great thing. When you are at Walmart grocery shopping or stopping off at a convenient store to get a quart of milk while on your way home or you are at a Little League game to see your kid play, then it is not so great some times.

After a few weeks of campaigning some candidates find themselves overwhelmed by all this and decide that running for office isn’t for them, or at least not at this point in this lives, and drop out. It’s understandable.

I don’t think badly of them for doing that, and I don’t think anyone else should either.

When it comes to the topic of possibly running for public office myself, my frequent quip to people is that I haven’t lost enough senses yet to run for office.

I am only half joking when I say that.

Actually, I have a lot of respect for people willing to invest their time and money in running for office. We need good people holding public office if we want things to get better.