collecting signatures

so a friend of a friend is helping me campaign. I hate politics and politicing -- it's not my thing. However it is the only way to be elected as as Texas insists on electing its judges in partisian races, ... we have a lot of totally unqualified folks parading as judges and it is a nasty political process.

Q: How can you be a judge if you never even tried a case?
A: Move to Texas and be a better politician than ever you were a lawyer

SO if it's so bad why bother? Because it's so bad.
That being said I went to a tea party thing today and actually it was pretty nice. There was a huge one last Monday that I didn't go to, and this seems to have been by all counts a lot tamer. It was more like a July 4th event than a pack event and I did get some signatures (only 900 to go) ...

What if I had gone and it was totally extreme and angry? I don't know, I probably would have left.
I'm not sure what the breakdown is for states that appoint and states that elect, or which states have partisian races for judges and which don't but this really is not a very good system. Not that appointment is necessarily a good thing either - the guy who lost the seat I'm running for was appointed and he is by all counts a perfectly nice and decent guy, Eagle scout, etc. but he was never a trial lawyer. Maybe that's why he lost last year. I guess he would disagree since he is my primary opponent, and he has about $20,000 already ...
I guess it's just politics -- he lost last time so they (including the republican party) give him thousands of dollars to run again against the same guy he lost to last time? Too bad I'm not a white guy with a lot of money who works in a big firm that has a lot of money ...