If we want to restore government to the people, we also have to restore to the people the election process by which the people exercise their political choices. This means no "battleground" type strategies - we write nobody off and we trust the people.
We have to trust the people's capacity to understand truth and their capacity to be motivated to vote for truth. We have to go to the people. We go to the small towns and listen to what people have to say, because in the small towns government is closer to the people and we can learn more about how self-government is supposed to work. We go to the inner city communities that have been taken for granted in the consultantocracy's mad rush to find "swing voters," and we take up their battles not just to win votes from them, but in order to win justice for them. We go to the suburbs and we confront and challenge the con games that have been tricking those voters out of their votes for too long.
Everywhere we go, we attack the predatory political and corporate elites head-on, and fight them tooth and nail on behalf of the people. We carry the fight to the enemy head-to-head against the Radical Republican incumbent, and we keep carrying it to him, and we don't play any nicey-nice as if this were just a parlor game; we play tough and determined because it's real, real life and it's real, real struggles for the great majority of the people who get nothing out of having a corporate mouthpiece for an attorney general. We never concede a millionth of an inch of ground to the Radical Republicans; we confront their lies head on at all times.
We spend our time not in polished conference rooms pandering for big checks, but in the towns and the cities and the suburbs talking and listening to real people. We organize for our victory with grassroots people-to-people methods - in-person meetings, house parties, rallies, at porches, picnics, town squares, living rooms, restaurants, union halls, coffee shops, and over the Internet. We expand the campaign's outreach and visibility through the creativity and resourcefulness of our grassroots steering committee, local coordinators, and volunteer network, as well as our dedicated staff. We hold true to the role model of Harry Truman telling the pollsters and pundits to go stuff it and going out to the people whistle-stop by whistle-stop to take on the corporate special interests on behalf of the people.
We organize at the grassroots level, we campaign at the grassroots level, and we fundraise at the grassroots level, on the ground where the people are.
Representatives of the inner-circle consultantocracy have been heard to say, "No consultant in Texas would be willing to help David Van Os." The reason being that, "He won't take advice and insists on doing things his own way." As a matter of fact no truer words could be spoken about my attitude toward those who do not understand speaking and acting from the heart.
I do insist on a grassroots campaign that talks to people, listens to people, puts people first, and that trusts the people. I do insist on doing everything within my power to restore the political process to the people. I do insist on campaigning from my heart all the time and never from anybody's script. I do insist on saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I do insist on sharing my heart and my passion with the voters and not letting any handler try to hold me back. I do insist on campaigning in out-of-the-way parts of vast rural Texas that the consultantocracy has ignored for a generation or more. I do insist that an old-time populist, real Democrat will beat the Republican money and the Republican power machine in a contest for the most powerful office in Texas government, the attorney general, in 2006, with a people-oriented grassroots campaign that speaks truth to power. I do insist on showing the doubters, nay sayers, pundits, and cynics that the back-to-basics old Democratic campaign style that "gives 'em hell" against the corporate interests on behalf of the people and MEANS it will win anywhere, everywhere, any time.
David Van Os
Democratic Candidate
For Texas Attorney General 2006
www.vanosfortexasag.com
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