I deserve an Oscar.
Tonight I walked into a room full of people, none of whom I had ever met. It was our riding's delegate selection meeting, and it was very heavily organized by the Mackay and the Orchard people. Every person in that room knew before they came, for whom they would be voting. Every one of the delegateships was accounted for, twice over, by each of those campaigns.
There were 10 delegateships up for grabs, and I needed a fair number of votes to win one of them. It would be a miracle if I got more than one vote, that being my own. I was the only Bachand supporter in the room, and I had done no organizing at all(as I said, I know nobody in this riding association).
My strategy: talk-up a few girls, find the weak people in the room, those who I could influence. I was handed a strategic tool by an Orchard organizer who mistook me for an Orchard supporter, and basically told me their voting strategy. A massive flaw in that voting strategy opened up an opportunity for me to talk to the Mackay people and get a few votes from them.
The Orchard people made yet another huge error, by contesting the identification produced by a Mackay supporter. If that one person had been allowed to vote, I would not have had the 10% of the total vote that I needed to win my delegateship, and the Orchard folks would have had another delegate (strange that allowing a Mackay supporter to vote would produce an Orchard delegate).
At some point, around 4am in the morning, one of those Orchard organizers is going to wake up and realize his mistake. Is it actually possible to "kick yourself"?
Anyway, through my acting skills, and some strategic slip-ups by the Orchard campaign, I got exactly the number of votes I needed. Also I met a gorgeous girl, whose name I forget. I didn't think to ask for her phone number, but I likely would have never called her anyway.