Year 2023
This year I’ve started to ramp up the campaigning/stumping. I also participated in a rather intense Primary Season with the American Solidarity Party. In addition, I continue on as the main reporter for two small newspapers in our area. And I’ve done a number of house painting jobs as well – to keep up my populist image (wink)…
In January, I wrote an article about a local bicycle shop that sells a good deal of winter biking apparel, and such.
Goggles, Gortex winter apparel, gloves, studded tires… I once interviewed a bicyclists who bicycles year round. He said: “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.”
I try to bicycle in the village, at least somewhat, in the winter. I have a mountain bike with tires that have pretty good tread. They do pretty well in the snow. Our position paper on the environment calls for Americans to make sacrifices to help avert climate chaos for our kids.
On Feb. 3, there was a catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Extremely toxic chemicals (used in cleaning fluids, paints, plastics…) were released in massive plumes above the town. These chemicals also leeched into the soil, the waterways, and so on. It was all over the national news.
While a good majority of people were hyper-focused on better railroad safety, I wrote a column saying what we should be ‘hyper-focused” on is: WHY ARE WE USING THESE TOXIC CHEMICALS IN THE FIRST PLACE! Common sense.
In March, I was approached by a representative from the American Solidarity Party about vying for that third party’s presidential candidate nomination. After some prayerful discernment, I threw my hat in the ring. (The ASP, formerly the Christian Democratic Party, in its essence, has taken the gospel message directly, as well as Catholic Social Teaching in general, and turned it into a platform.
This party endorsed me in Campaign 2016, when they were first getting started. I also vied for their nomination in Campaign 2020, and lost. But, well, here I went again…
Running in the ASP Primary was a multi-dimensional thing. The party has an “ASP Voting Members Discussion” Facebook stream that’s quite active. Members continually asked the candidates (there were six) all sorts of policy questions, etc., so most nights I was looking back over our position papers, then responding, then responding some more to follow-up comments. While time consuming, it was motivation for a good refresher on our platform, which is, indeed, quite extensive. In fact, it was more extensive, by a factor of 10, than any of the other candidates.
As with other Primaries, candidates are regularly out campaigning, with the party electorate assessing what kind of traction the candidate is getting. Because of all my general campaigning/street corner stumping, media experience, etc., this was second nature to me. On several weekends during the Primary, I did tour legs out into northwest Ohio.
I was interviewed by newspaper reporters in conjunction with campaign stops in Upper Sandusky, Defiance, and Napolean (all in Ohio). I also did stops at various places to record videos in regard to things I was highlighting -- and how it matched up with ASP platform points. As just one example, the ASP is strong on environmental stewardship.
And I stopped at a large “solar farm” to do one of the episodes. There were, actually, a good number of episodes on subjects from abortion, to transportation, to agriculture…
The ASP Primary season also included four, two-hour Zoom Debates. These turned out to be quite spirited, yet primarily civil. And the debates also took a lot of preparation, especially, again, given the scope of my research around each of our positions.
At the end of the day, however, I came in third in the ASP Primary – and switched back to running as an independent. [*Incidentally, a lot of the Primary participation was done late at night, because of the newspaper and housing painting during the day. In order to keep up my populist image, and pay for groceries, and the like.]
And speaking of painting, in late summer I took a job painting at a local nursing home facility. During coffee breaks, and such, I spent time talking with residents, hearing parts of their life stories. I also interviewed the Nursing Home chaplain one day. He said he was starting a program to solicit people in the community to come in for “Listening Sessions,” to hear these stories as well. Excellent idea.
Our position on Social Security notes that it shouldn’t be just about a “monetary fund,” but in addition, it should be about these elders feeling “socially secure” (and valued) in their towns.
Nearby Lima, Ohio has an astronomy observatory. And I interviewed a local astronomer around an April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse, which will be best viewed at, of all places in the world, right here. He said hundreds of thousands of people will descend on this area from all over the globe for that day. And they will spend millions of dollars to get here.
You have to wonder: Wouldn’t that money be better spent? For instance, it could be spent donating to the Sierra Club, to the Audubon Society, and so on, to enhance life on this planet. Our administration would feel similarly about the Space Program. That is, spending billions of dollars to go out “there,” when we should be fixing right “here.”
I also wrote a couple articles about two local farmsteads that grow everything organically, and sell locally. Our position paper on agriculture notes that our administration would attempt to evoke a shift back to a much more agrarian based, small family farm orientation.
As things were heating up in the Middle-East, I wrote an article about a local woman who is a “Landing Signal Officer” on a Navy aircraft carrier in Virginia. A “Strike Force” of two carriers have already been sent to the conflict, and her carrier could, perhaps, be next.
Staying with the military, I did a story about a local man who had a high school friend die in Vietnam. A few years after, he got on his motorcycle, rode to D.C., went to the Vietnam Memorial, traced his friend’s name from The Wall onto a piece of paper, then got on his motorcycle and rode back.
The first thing he did when he got back? Stopped at his friend’s mother’s place and gave her the piece of paper. *Our position paper on the military includes sections noting that, at every turn, our administration would honor (including providing as much help as possible for) veterans, and those actively serving.
During this time, news outlets were reporting that the ancient cities of “Sodom and Gomorrah” were found by archeologists. What’s more, they found the pottery had been melted, and the upper skeletal parts of bodies they found were all completely burned from the base of the backbone, up. The scientists surmised this was all a result of a: “heat event.” Hmm.
I subsequently wrote a column wondering if we, in fact, were as, if not more, evil, than they were in Sodom and Gomorrah (based on Biblical accounts). Wholesale abortion, total gender fluidity, First World, off-the-charts-gluttony in the face of so much potentially relievable suffering in the Third World; trashing our planet… Let’s just say, it wasn’t what you’d call a “feel good” column.
But I did feel good about a group of students I met at Ohio Northern University shortly after. They were members of the “Institute for Civic And Public Policy” (ICAPP). These were, primarily, Gen- Zers who were taking their politics seriously. They co-sponsored a village Mayoral Debate on campus, get involved with candidate campaigns/and issues, and even put together a “Get Out The Vote” drive on campus for the 2022 Mid-Term Elections. They were so successful, that ONU has been designated one of 20 “Voter Friendly Campuses” in Ohio.
Inspired by all their proactivity, and because, frankly, it was starting to get late in the 2024 presidential campaign, I designed a campaign magnet for my 2005 Equinox. And a week into November, about one year out from 2024 Election Day – I put the magnet on my car!
Have I mentioned that I’m doing this all without paid political consultants?
​
