A one-time candidate for Michigan House in Southwest Michigan has written a book about her experience of running for office.
Julee Laurent ran in the Democratic primary for state House in the former 79th District in 2010, ultimately losing to Mary Brown. She would have faced Al Pscholka in the general election if she’d won the primary. Now 15 years later, Laurent’s “Small Town Politics” seeks to pull back the curtain on the experience of running for state office in a small-town.
Laurent tells us she actually wrote the book right after the campaign.
“It was therapy for me,” Laurent said. “I needed to get the whole story out and I kept a lot of notes and newspaper clippings during it and I took some of those journal entries and started creating chapters and the book really flowed naturally. It came out of me so fast.”
Laurent says a theme in the book is the sour reaction she got around St. Joseph after running as a Democrat. She says it took a while for her to get her life back on track with many people frowning on her challenge to the status quo. So, does she share any scandalous stories in the book?
“I think quite a few, actually. A lot, on purpose. I wanted it to be as raw and unfiltered as possible. I went back and spent the past couple months editing it down. And there’s some names that I changed because some of the people maybe passed away or had been through something traumatic.”
Laurent says 2010 was a momentous time in both small town and national politics, giving rise to the Tea Party movement, which later morphed into the MAGA movement. With her book, she also wants to send a friendly warning to anyone thinking of entering politics
“It’s really hard for the little guy to come in and win an election,” Laurent said. “These elections are not set up so that just anybody can do it. They paint a picture: anybody can hold office. But I dare anyone to try to find someone who’s not from wealth, from a family that has ties from a political incumbency.”
Laurent waited until 2025 to publish “Small Town Politics” because she wanted her kids to graduate first. Also, she’s leaving Southwest Michigan at the end of the month. Laurent says her decision to publish has nothing to do with that, though, telling us it’s just time for her to move on.
Julee Laurent’s “Small Town Politics” will be available on Amazon starting March 15, or as Laurent wants us to call it, “The Ides of March.”
