Running for State Representative is hard work. You need to find some way to get your message out in a race that many people pay no attention to. How do you do it? Perhaps you can get a major politician to come and help, the way Gov. Dean did for Kim in 2004. Perhaps you can raise a lot of money from wealthy individuals and be able to blanket the district with information about you. If you are lucky, you live in a state that has public financing of state legislative elections, and you can raise a fair amount of money and then spend time talking to the voters. Or, you can do what Sean Tevis did.

Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in District 15 in Kansas. He created a web comic, Running for Office: It's Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner.

In the comic strip, he is told that needs to raise $26,000 by August 5th. That’s only 52 people donating $500 each. However, he doesn’t know that many people that can donate that much money, so he sets his goals on 3,000 people donating $8.34 each. He notes that no candidate for State Representative in Kansas has ever had more than 644 donors. His advisor suggests that raising money from 3,000 donors would be impossible and would become the subject of newspaper stories.

His advisor is half right. As a result of the comic strip, he rapidly breaks 3,000 donors, and it does become the subject of newspaper stories. Even the Wall Street Journal has picked up on the story.

You need to find some good way to get your message out, and Sean has gotten the message out about his campaign, and even managed to weave in some wry comments about the issues. It is a campaign to watch.