Pedro Sánchez launched his candidacy at the PSOE Federal Committee in Fuenlabrada by announcing that he will personally walk every kilometre of Spain's national road network before November 29, campaigning from a mobile podium mounted on a flatbed truck and sleeping in a tent pitched each night on the shoulder of the A-4.
«We have to govern after November 29, and we have to arrive there on foot,» Sánchez told the crowd, according to the itinerary his office distributed at dawn. The route covers every provincial capital, every village with a town hall and every roundabout where a housing protest has been held, with the candidate scheduled to shake hands at each stop until his palm is bandaged nightly by a travelling nurse.
The party apparatus has been reorganised around the march. Regional secretaries now serve as road captains, party offices have been converted into bunkhouses, and the Federal Committee has voted to hold all future meetings while walking, with members required to keep pace or lose their speaking slot. A spokesman said the format «keeps us close to the people, at roughly four kilometres per hour».
Begoña Gómez walked the first stretch beside him, and the couple embraced in front of supporters before Sánchez dedicated the day's only unscripted sentence to her. By evening the truck had reached the second province, where a local mayor met the convoy with a jug of water and a request that the candidate not stop in his town again.
«We will govern after November 29,» Sánchez repeated at the roadside, «and we will govern from the road, because the road is where the country lives.»