FaithOur faith underpins everything we do as a family. We're Catholic.The Catholic Church teaches we are to have a personal relationship with Jesus, so we pray together regularly as a family and attend church regularly as a family.The Catholic Church teaches we're to help the poor, so we moved into the heart of Cleveland, Ohio, where were involved with various outreach work and sometimes take the homeless into our place. We also financially sponsor youth in the Third World and give to any number of other charities.The Catholic Church teaches abortion is wrong, so we regularly protest abortion on the streets and work diligently to help change societal factors (poverty, broken families, relaxed sexual mores) that lead to abortion.The Catholic Church teaches we're to be good environmental stewards, so we live simply, recycle practically everything, bicycle or walk most places within a five mile radius of home.The Catholic Church teaches we're to be good parents, so Liz and I spend a lot of quality time with our kids, limit television to primarily a few wholesome 50's episodes (Andy Griffith, Flipper) a week, do a lot of outreach work together to form the kids in the ways of helping.I mean, we're not a poster family for all this. But we do try.

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Library

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Stumping

STUMPING We have stumped in countless towns in the past 12 years. Unlike other campaigns that analyze reams of demographic data to determine where to go, we go to: whatever town is next on the map.In those towns there are many random meetings with people who might agree with what we stand for, or not. This makes for spirited discussion, some heated arguments.And in all this, I've also heard many good ideas. And in all this, I've also heard many not so good ideas. Yet through it all, grassroots democracy has happened again, and again. In fact, a majority of our platform has been developed through these encounters. I mean, I'm not smart enough to have come up with all the policy ideas myself. (My wife Liz will tell you that.)But I was smart enough to listen, as I'm doing this day at the Steel Car Trolley Diner in Lisbon, Ohio. In the truest sense, ours is, indeed, an American Peoples Platform.Joe

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Agrarian

AgrarianAs we travel, we often stop at farms where we pitch in with, well, whatever needs to be done. In these photos, I'm chopping wood on a farm in eastern Ohio.I'm told wood warms you twice. It warms you when you burn it and when you cut it. And were asking Americans to warm up to the idea of going back to a small farm agrarian based society, like it was in the old days.These small farms and this rural way of life, was once the backbone of America, I told the Country Today newspaper in Wisconsin. There was a vibrant interdependency between the local farmer and the local community. Kids grew up healthy and learned the meaning of good honest work.Somehow we've gotten away from a lot of that.But should we have?Joe

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The 50s

I told The Review newspaper in Alliance , Ohio , that that's the era we'd like to see the country go back to, in some respects.America's small downtowns were vibrant, the air was cleaner, neighbors helped neighbors more, the streets were safer, the pace of life was slowerOur kitchen is a tribute to that era.There's a 1,000 piece Norman Rockwell painting puzzle (minus two pieces our young son Jonathan either hid or ate).There's a 50's style stainless-steel toaster. The toast, as it did in that era, goes down and comes up real slow.Likewise, there's a manual, stainless-steel egg beater, a collage of black and white photographs of family members taken during the 50's, a retro Campbell 's (m, m, good) Soup picture.We've been told our current faster pace, all this hyper-speed advancing technology, these microwave ovens and faster toasters were good for us.Are they?There's hardly time for the kids and neighbors anymore, the streets grow more and more violent, pollution is increasing exponentially, and the toast, well, I believe it's less appreciated and getting burned more often now.Joe

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