In the first blog I wrote about how I started the whole thing back in 2014. In the previous blog I wrote about how my campaign was getting traction and that I was getting into maniac mode. In this final blog, I will explain how it all ended.
Full steam ahead
I had a detailed timeline of actions and milestones and things were going just as planned. I was still touring the country, and I knew I was doing something well when the party headquarters asked me to contribute to the party manifesto for the European elections. Because of my work in the Dutch Parliament, I couldn’t contribute openly, but the fact that I was asked was one of the key indicators that things were going as planned.
Marietje Schaake vs. Sophie in Veld
Then came another call. Sophie in ‘t Veld, leader of the EP fraction asked me to be on her campaign team. She wanted to be the head of the national delegation for another 5 years and in order to achieve this, she needed to win the D66 primaries. I knew Sophie long before I became a member of D66; hell even before I became a lobbyist. I knew her from my time as the President of the Young European Federalists. She was in fact the only person I ever voted for. Moreover, her ideas about Europe are very close to mine. Her opponent, Marietje Schaake, had different policy ideas than I did and was more into tech policy. So for me, it was a no-brainer. What was very awkward was that a lot of members (and friends) from D66 Utrecht (my hometown), sided with Marietje Schaake and openly campaigned for her. The battle proved to be one of the toughest EU primaries in the history of D66. Sophie and Marietje were pouring a lot of energy into their campaigns. What’s more, they both announced publicly that they would leave European politics if they would lose. So the stakes were high. While they both didn’t know it, my political future was also riding on the idea that Sophie would win, since I wasn’t planning on running for the European Parliament if Marietje Schaake would win. Our ideas were simply too far apart. So I did whatever I could to help Sophie. It was nerve-wracking. And then Sophie called me in the morning. We had won. I was working in the Dutch Parliament that day and I was high on euphoria. I don’t remember ever being so stressed out about a primary. What I really took away from those campaigns is to ignore the algorithms. All my socials where geared towards Marietje Schaake. I later learned that her team was also pretty confident. Another takeaway is that personal matters. Sophie had a lot of personal ties in the regions of the Netherlands. And my final takeaway was that you need to call upon people months before the actual campaign starts. When the campaign reaches its zenith. People have already made up their minds.
When you do the math and things don’t add up
So at this point, I had most of the things going for me. I had worked on my profile as someone who knows a lot about the European Union and people recognized me as an expert. I had a network of supporters within the party; people that were willing to endorse me. “My candidate” (Sophie in t Veld) won the primaries. I had my first interview with the selection committee and everything hinted at a good spot on the roster for the European Parliament. Yet, as the elections were approaching (we are now somewhere in October 2018) I came to two realisations. The first one was that my wife still wouldn’t endorse me. She wanted me home with our young kids. I pitched my best ideas to her, I begged, I argued, I tried to reason with her. But she simply didn’t want to lose her husband to politics. We ended up in a situation where she agreed she would “tolerate” me running. The other realisation, which was even harder to swallow, was that I was not going to make it. I knew for sure that Sophie in t Veld would pick Raoul Boucke as her number two. Knowing the party, that would mean that a woman would probably be selected as the number three. Felix Klos, who had an impressive run during the primaries, would probably get the number four spot. That would leave me somewhere between five and ten. And even that was wishful thinking. I studied our internal voting system in detail and knew that it would be impossible to go from 5 to a position that would allow me to enter the European Parliament. I also knew that even though I made a lot of strides and efforts, I would not get in the vicinity of the 20.000 preferential votes. Elections are much more ruthless than lobbying campaigns, simply because it’s a brutal numbers game. You either have the votes or you don’t. And I didn’t have the votes.
The big U-Turn
Now, I could simply be happy with my spot and join in for fun and experience. Or simply to help my party out. But two factors prevented me from doing so. The first was because of something silly. Almost superstitious. I had studied all the elections from ‘79 up to 2014 and I came across an awkward fact. In the history of European Parliament elections (in the Netherlands), nobody had ever succeeded to obtain a seat, after they failed in previous elections. Let that sink in; either you get in right away, or you don’t get in anymore. This could be just a coincidence. Or being “new and fresh” also weighs in as a bonus. But if it carries any meaning; then you only have only one chance to get it right. Secondly, and much more personal. Most of my successes in the political and policy arena can be attributed to my ability to nurture and sustain an abnormal drive. I knew that if I would go on that I would not be able to stop myself from actually trying to obtain a seat. Regardless of the odds. My personal life was already suffering from the campaign. I started to have falling-outs with friends and family. I was spending all my resources on the campaign. And I was not a person you wanted to be around. The evening that I pulled out of the campaign I was having a huge inner struggle. I felt like a tremendous loser. And then I asked myself the prevailing question:
“What if through an accident or illness five or ten years from now I never get the chance to enter politics?”
And the answer was the final nail in the coffin for my campaign:
“If you have an accident or illness five or ten years from now, you probably wished you spent all that time with your family”.
When the list of candidates did come out in January 2019, I was making a snowman with my kids. I was happy – I knew I would not be making a snowman if I was on the list. I would be on the phone to call people, either to try to get a better spot or to defend the spot I was given. Doing everything in my power to push my case further. For a brief moment, I was really happy about my choice.
Aftermath
This happiness was short-lived. I really underestimated what it would do to me to pull out so abruptly after four years of campaigning. I was getting anxious and even depressed. I had to close down my Twitter temporarily to not follow the European Parliament elections as it triggered remorse. Due to Twitter’s policies, I lost all my followers. On the day of the elections itself, I was not able to ignore the hype. People were voting, people were cheerful, but I was in a full-blown depression. Not being on the list after so much energy and time, was unbearable. As the election results were pouring in it took me a couple of months before I had the ability to analyse them and to return to having fun in EU politics.
Third best decision
Life is never this dramatic. Pulling out of the EP elections has proven to be the third best decision in my life. I bounced back and discovered I had learned so much from my run. Anything from analysing voting data, to public speaking to how voting systems work. I also learned a lot about party dynamics. I still am engaged in EU constitutional reform but in a more activist way. You don’t need to be in politics to be the change. More importantly; by joining D66 I met some wonderful people, who just might be friends for life. Finally, I discovered how much time you free up when not running a campaign or running for office. As one banker told me; time is your most precious commodity. The time you can spend with your nearest and dearest, learning, reading or simply writing blogs 🙂