A humorous (and instructive) memoir about a progressive woman who

runs for very small-town elected office in a red county—and wins (yay!)—

and only then realizes the critical importance of the job

Back in the fall of 2016, before casting her vote for Hillary Clinton,

Adrienne Martini, a knitter, a runner, a mom, and a resident of rural Otsego

County in snowy upstate New York, knew who her senators were, wasn’t too

sure who her congressman was, and had only vague inklings about who her

state reps were. She’d always thought of politicians as … oily. Then she spent

election night curled in bed, unable to stop shaking, texting her husband, who

was at work. And after the presidential inauguration, she reached out to Dave,

a friend of a friend, who was involved in the Otsego County Democratic Party.

Maybe she could help out with phone calls or fundraising? But Dave’s idea was:

she should run for office. Someone had to do it.

And so, in the year that 26,000 women (up from 920 the year before)

contacted EMILY’s List about running for offices large and small, Adrienne

Martini ran for the District 12 seat on the Otsego County Board. And became

one of the fourteen delegates who collectively serve one rural American

county, overseeing a budget of $130 million. Highway repair? Soil and water

conservation? Child safety? Want Wi-Fi? Need a coroner?

It turns out, local office matters a lot to any government by the people for

the people.