In 2004, inspired by Howard Dean's amazing campaign, I ran for State Representative in Connecticut's 149th assembly district.  I had never been involved in politics to any great extent before Governor Dean's Presidential bid, and yet when I got interested in politics, I fell hard.  Initially a complete political novice, I ended up running the house party program in Connecticut for Dean, and served on the Dean for CT steering committee.  When he ended his campaign, Governor Dean asked his supporters to run for office.  My husband looked into the races in our area, and found the State Rep seat in our district had been unopposed for almost 10 years.  So I threw my hat in the ring.

I quickly found that running for office is time intensive and exhausting - but surprisingly not that difficult, with one exception.  That exception was fundraising.  I had all sorts of help in terms of strategy and campaign advice.  There were free campaign trainings available in Connecticut, and I had a very helpful mentor in the legislature.   Volunteers from the Dean campaign in Connecticut were generous with their time and helped me out a great deal.  I had all the pieces in place - except the money.  I am naturally a pretty shy and reserved person, and it was very very difficult for me to call people and ask for their money.  Intellectually I understood that the money wasn't for me personally, but it was still very very difficult for me to make those calls.  As well, I was fairly unknown in the district except among the local grassroots community (who unfortunately were not wealthy enough to fund my campaign).  I tried my college alumni list which produced some results, and raised some money over the internet.  It was a struggle to get past about $5000.  My opponent, meanwhile, a well liked incumbent, had no trouble raising almost $40,000 in the blink of an eye.   I was extremely fortunate in that Governor Dean ended up coming to my house to host a fundraiser for me, and we ended up raising about $9000 total - enough for a couple mailings and some lawn signs.