Diary of a First-Time Candidate

What was a shy, sheltered lady like Cindy Miller doing in the middle of an aggressive campaign for a seat on the Palos Verdes Peninsula school board?

There she was through the months leading up to the Nov. 5 election, taking on a school board president who was backed by the Peninsula’s political and social Establishment, speaking up at forums, racing from one kaffeeklatsch to another, fielding questions from skeptical reporters, stuffing mailers and licking stamps, walking door to door.

It was not at all what one would expect of a woman who had been voted the most bashful girl in her high school class and who, until she plunged into politics, would never have dreamed of challenging any authority figure.

“Getting into a political race was so totally uncharacteristic of me that I still can’t believe I did it,” said Miller, a 43-year-old Rolling Hills housewife and former librarian. “I kept thinking that somebody else must be doing this.”

Like many other ordinary citizens who try their hand at politics for the first time, Miller said that anger with the actions of officeholders was her primary motive for giving up the comfortable obscurity of private life.

She said she was angered by the district’s handling of school closures and other problems brought on by declining enrollment, and determined to do something about it--in effect, echoing the age-old cry to throw the rascals out and let a newcomer take charge.

Miller’s personal reflections are taken from tape-recordings that she made for The Times during the campaign and after the election. Additional material was obtained through periodic interviews.

The purpose of the project was to chronicle the experiences and impressions of a first-time candidate for public office. But the real story of Cindy Miller’s venture into politics--one that may hold lessons for others--is in the personal victory that she and her friends say she achieved in the campaign.

“I once heard a radio psychologist say that death and public speaking are the two things that people fear most. Death will come when it will, so I can’t do anything about that. But when I finally decided to run for the school board, I knew I would have to do something about the fear I’ve always had when I get out of my comfort zone.”

Over the years, Miller recalls, she made several attempts to overcome her shyness in public by getting involved in community service. Once she filed for the Peninsula Library Board, but then quickly withdrew when she realized that even running for an uncontested seat entailed some public speaking.

Some time later she signed up for a leadership seminar, thinking that it might help bolster her self-confidence. She was fascinated by the speaker’s assertion that influencing other people involves skills that can be learned by almost anyone.

“I had always believed that leaders were born,” she said. “If you weren’t born a leader, you followed. Somebody has always told me what to do and I would do it. Someone has always run my life.”

In retrospect, Miller said, she believes that the control began in the middle-class Boston home where she grew up. Her parents provided for all of her needs and kept her sheltered and protected, but she could never do anything completely right.

‘Always Qualifiers’

“Whatever I did, I could have done it a little bit better,” she said. “I was praised, but there were always qualifiers. Eventually, I became my own worst critic--and so incredibly shy. Really, a very solitary person. Whenever there was a social event, nobody knew I was there.”

She attended Michigan State University in the early 1960s, when the whole world seemed turned upside down. “When the feminist movement came along . . . it didn’t seem to have much to do with me.”

She knew Tom Hayden, the assemblyman, when he headed the radical Students for a Democratic Society at Michigan State, and Rennie Davis, who like Hayden was to become a member of the “Chicago Seven.” Once she stayed up all night typing a paper for them.

“But I didn’t really feel involved in a personal way,” she said. “Well, in a fruity sort of way I was involved, but I never felt swept up by what others thought were the cosmic issues of the day.”

An Issue Was Born

About 20 years later an issue came along that affected her in a personal way--the well-being, education and future of her 12-year-old son, Matthew.

In 1983, the year that Matthew entered the Dapplegray Intermediate School, the district trustees took up a proposal to close the campus and consolidate its students in a 7th-through-12th-grade configuration at Miraleste High School.

“The idea of putting kids of Matthew’s age on a high school campus was just totally crazy and unacceptable,” Miller said. “When I heard about it, I got really angry and upset. I had to find out what was going on.”

She began attending school board meetings. Eventually, she overcame her stage fright enough to join with other Dapplegray parents in making statements to the trustees--a formidable group, she said, that treated critics with arrogant disdain.

Read From Script

“Cindy’s nervousness was obvious,” recalled her husband, attorney Norman Miller. “She had to push herself to get up there, and then she read everything from a script.”

But Cindy Miller persisted and eventually found herself in the unaccustomed role of spokeswoman and leader for a small group of Dapplegray housewives who shared her concerns.

After months of hearings, the board dropped the merger proposal. But by then, Miller and her new-found allies had tuned in on the district’s larger problems. The school board, they concluded, was out of touch with the community’s needs. It was time for change, new directions.

Cindy Miller, the shy housewife, had at last found her cosmic issue.

“Politicking is much different than I imagined it would be. I guess I thought you just presented your case and the voters made an objective choice among the candidates and that was it. But I’m finding it a totally different experience, with a lot of unexpected personal trials and ordeals.”

Miller assembles her committee of housewives. Naomi Phillips is the only volunteer who can claim any experience in politics, having worked in several campaigns. She is designated as Miller’s campaign manager.

First, Phillips counsels, you must establish a platform and find the best words and phrases to express your position. Then you ask your friends to host coffees, where invited guests have an opportunity to get acquainted with the candidate and, it is hoped, offer contributions.

Then you prepare flyers, schedule precinct walks and organize volunteers to canvass the voters.

At first, Miller worries most about raising enough money to pay the expenses of the campaign, but that proves to be the easiest part. Money starts to flow in, largely through the coffees and other social and professional contacts.

“It’s really a crime how much money has to be spent on these campaigns,” Miller says. Still, when just the printing and mailing expenses mount into thousands of dollars, it’s nice to see the donations coming in. More than $5,000 is collected and spent on the campaign.

Newspaper Coverage

The committee places a high priority on attracting newspaper coverage, and Miller dutifully makes the rounds of local newspaper offices to hand out her candidate’s packet of information.

The response to a political unknown, she finds, can range from polite lack of interest to downright rudeness from some editors who, she feels, are already committed to the candidacy of her opponent, board President Martin S. Dodell.

One newspaper that offers endorsements schedules an interview with the candidates at the Mira Catalina school. Miller feels lost and ill at ease among the better-known and seemingly more self-assured candidates.

After her interview, she blames herself for not making a better case for her candidacy. “I know I could have done better,” she says. “I’m really very upset with myself today. There are important issues that I didn’t even mention.”

Car Breaks Down

To add to her distress, Miller’s car, which has always been so reliable, starts to break down, followed by the clothes dryer at home, and she can’t find time to fix them.

In the middle of one hectic day, her car dies again, right in the middle of Silver Spur Road. It’s one straw too much.

“Here I sit,” she says, “waiting for my dear husband, who permits these cars to deteriorate before he’ll do anything about them, to rescue me. I can’t handle car problems. They get me down like nothing else can.”

Matthew, who has taken the first few weeks of the campaign in stride, is beginning to complain that he is not seeing enough of his mother. His usual bedtime is 9:30, but with mother out campaigning every day, he doesn’t get home from a friend’s house until after 10, when she hardly has a minute to help him with his homework.

“I’ve told Matt that we should have some time for family togetherness this weekend and maybe we can have a little shopping spree for him,” she says. “I think he’s reasonably content with that for now.”

Family Neglected

She must turn out a steady stream of letters to potential supporters and that reminds her that she owes letters to her family back East. “I’m sitting here writing notes to strangers, and my whole family has to be neglected.

“This experience is giving me a better appreciation of people who serve in public life,” she says. “I wonder especially how a man who is supporting a family can find the time. It is truly a sacrifice.”

She feels overwhelmed and reminds herself that she is doing her best. “Everything I do is a maximum effort,” she says. ‘I don’t know what more I can do.”

“I mentioned before how I lost one friend because she disapproved so strongly of my becoming a public personality, but I’ve gained so many new and exciting friends and they really help pull me out of these defeatist moods. People I never knew before are giving just unbelievable amounts of time, and money, too.”

She finds other ways of uplifting her mood. She’ll get her nails done and buy some new clothes.

“I want to get something brighter and more cheerful than I usually wear,” she says. “It should be very silky and somewhat tailored, but feminine.”

A brilliant blue blouse is one of the first additions to her wardrobe. She feels it gives her an extra spark while making her daily rounds of meetings. She discovers that her talent for organizing, long devoted to running her household and hosting gatherings of family friends, is a strong asset in political campaigning. She comes to enjoy the committee’s planning and plotting.

‘Like a Game’

“So much of politicking is just trying to outmaneuver the opposition,” she says. “It’s like a game in which you try to anticipate what the other side will do next, then come up with a strategy to block or outflank them.

“It’s such a silly, devious game at times. Everybody lies. You try to make the other side think you’ve got more money to spend and more support than you really have. If you have a gathering and only 20 people show up, you’ve just got to tell everybody that at least 100 turned out.”

Of course, she says, she will always be completely honest with the voters and never stray from her principles. Still, she realizes, the truth is not always simple and a candidate should be careful not to blurt out something that could undermine the whole campaign.

She also enjoys the ritual dance that candidates perform in a gathering, with everyone jockeying for position when a photographer is around, or when an important personage arrives on the scene. The prize goes to the candidate who is seen talking with the most people considered “right.”

Nobody Shows Up

The unending round of coffees and dinners begins to wear her down. At one of more than three dozen events, the hostess thinks she’s giving a party and doesn’t have the vaguest notion of the intended purpose. Another is a candidate’s nightmare: A friend gives a coffee and nobody shows up.

But Miller accepts the traditional wisdom that political coffees are essential. Just one contact with a key individual might make the difference between victory and defeat, or lead to a contribution that will keep campaign expenses in the black.

The coffees, along with videotaping sessions designed to improve her public speaking style, also help prepare her for the dreaded moment when she must put in an appearance at the first candidates’ forum. She must appear more relaxed in front of an audience, her coaches tell her. Not so stiff. More spontaneous.

The first forum, in early October, is at the La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes Estates. Miller is in a panic.

“I’m trying to keep calm, but I think I’m going to have to take a tranquilizer to cope with this stress. The reason I feel so upset and nervous is because I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know how I will react with all those people staring at me and judging my performance. What if I just sit there, babbling something stupid, or even freeze up completely?”

Miller survives the La Venta forum. In fact, it wasn’t much of an ordeal. The moderator, contrary to Miller’s “paranoid fears” that the event would be stacked against her, seemed completely fair and impartial, and the questions, screened in advance, were not difficult at all.

Of course, she still needs more improvement. But, on the whole, she feels she made a better impression than her opponent, who is known for his articulate and self-assured manner.

By the time the forum at the Silver Spur school comes up in mid-October, Miller feels she is ready to take another step toward freedom from her fear of public speaking.

If the opening questions are on the hostile side, she may be forced to take a more aggressive stand--to put the opposition on notice that she can handle whatever tactics they may try.

“At last, I can put this tremendous obstacle behind me forever and feel satisfied with myself. Now I know what they mean by the power that a speaker can feel when he develops a rapport with his audience, and there were quite a few who were giving me a thumbs-up sign at Silver Spur. I feel so proud of myself. It’s such a nice feeling.”

Other things come easier. In the past, she had always planned her life “150 years in advance, down to the last possible thing that could go wrong.” But now she wakes up in the morning, ready to take one day at a time.

“I just look at the day’s schedule and I know that everything will get done,” she says. “I know that I just have to start doing it and everything will be taken care of.”

Several years ago she had worked sporadically in real estate sales and despised the phone solicitations. But that fear also seems to evaporate when she joins her campaign workers at her husband’s office to canvass voters.

“I worked out a quick, short pitch and the response was incredible,” she says. “We were calling like mad and I didn’t get a single, rude person. Absolutely nobody hung up on me.”

Attitudes Changed

She notices a change of attitude among employees at the district headquarters. “Before I filed for the school board, some of the people there were downright hostile,” she says. “Now when I call or stop by, it’s ‘Yes, Mrs. Miller this and yes, Mrs. Miller that.’ It’s nice, really nice to have all this incredible courtesy.”

She no longer feels intimidated by newspaper editors and reporters, even though, she believes, they may hold the power of political life or death over aspiring politicians. She expects most local newspapers to endorse her opponent, no matter what she says or does, so there’s not much to be gained by being humble when her turn comes for personal interviews.

“I have been married to a tough trial attorney for 17 years,” she says, “so when it comes to a verbal confrontation, I don’t feel I have to back off. I can state my case and they can do what they want.”

“It’s Tuesday--the Big Day is here! I feel so excited and happy, not a trace of anxiety. The last two weeks have given me the best experience of my life, because I know I have found something that I do well and that makes me feel good about myself. I really believe we’re going to win. But even if we lose, I think I’ll do it again!”

There are a thousand things to do. Everybody is rushing madly around. Some volunteers must fan out in key precincts for a final round of knocking on doors. Others must do the last-minute phone canvassing to help get as many stragglers to the polls as possible. Victory hinges now on a large turnout by voters who want a change in the school district’s leadership.

Miller feels she must take time out to oversee preparations for a victory party that night. A caterer has been engaged, but Miller’s instincts tell her that she must have a hand in preparing the food. She must, at the least, make her “famous guacamole and tuna salad” for the guests.

At the party, the political novices get their first exposure to the alternating boredom and tension of waiting for election returns. A moment of jubilation as the first report on absentee ballots shows Miller ahead of her opponent. The margin is only eight votes. But it may signal a trend.

It is not to be.

Defeat creeps up so slowly, through the long hours of watching the scrolling of names and numbers on cable TV, that the group seems almost indifferent to the final result--more than a thousand-vote margin in a total of 7,500 ballots.

The campaign workers gather in the kitchen. It was a good try, a good showing for a candidate who came from nowhere and took on the Peninsula Establishment. There just wasn’t the name recognition. Only 17% of the voters turned out.

Naomi Phillips refuses to end the night on a depressed note. She starts a joke and Miller picks it up. Laughing makes it feel better.

“I’ve changed the message on my answering machine. It’s no longer Cindy Miller’s campaign headquarters. Last night, I didn’t feel sad, but now I feel a real void. There was such terrific camaraderie among the committee workers, and I know we’re just not going to have that goal and purpose any more. The disappointment is much greater than I thought it would be.

“When I came home last night, I didn’t find many messages of regret on the answering machine. But there were a couple that I found very touching, and I must say that I finally did cry.”

Defeat, she finds, is like a death in the family. People are hesitant about approaching the loser. They don’t know what to say. But Miller is sure the discomfort will pass quickly. People soon forget.

She says she feels let down by the community. During the campaign, she had heard so much discontent with the way the schools were being run. But when the chance came to change things, not many could find the time to vote.

Perhaps, she thinks, there aren’t any real solutions, no possibility of change--unless it is imposed from outside. William J. Bennett, U.S. secretary of education, is talking about a voucher system that would bring radical changes to public schools. The Los Angeles Unified School District faces the possibility of a new desegregation effort that could involve the Peninsula district. Every year, more parents are sending their children to private schools.

“I’m not much of a maudlin type, so I’m not going to sit here for very long brooding over what was or what might have been,” she says. “I’m one of those people who never look back.”

‘Cindy 1987’

The campaign committee meets to conclude its business. Some of the workers find it hard to let go of the dream. Sharon Logan arrives with a new lapel button that says, “Cindy 1987.” Linda Moriwaki gives Miller a bouquet of yellow roses, symbolizing a new beginning.

But Miller refuses to think of running again in two years. She wants to get back to the old familiar routines. She wants to clean her house, which has been a mess for months, get her life back in order so she can start taking care of her family again.

Still, as the days pass, she is intrigued by the continuing interest in her as a candidate in the future. A teacher at Dapplegray hands her a note that says simply, “Next time.”

The Women’s Republican Club asks her to chair its education committee and the League of Women Voters offers a post. Miller organizes a successful move to gain a foothold in the PTA, which she sees now as one of the power bases in school politics.

Many Opportunities

“I see all kinds of opportunities starting to open up,” she says. “Things that would never come my way if I had not acquired some visibility.”

Definitely, she will continue to attend school board meetings and speak out on the issues as they arise. Two weeks after the election, she decides that the idea of running again is “tempting, very tempting.”

But there’s no need to make a declaration now. She will fly back East to visit her family over the Thanksgiving holiday. When she returns, she will have her options open and she will see what happens. Take it a day at a time.

Her husband offers his view of Cindy Miller’s political future.

“I doubt if she will ever want to settle down again as just a housewife,” he says. “She has the bug now, no question of that.”