I wish! John Edwards was my first choice as the Democratic nominee and my active blogging and support for him at Daily Kos is what brought me to blogging politcally. I found my voice again. And so has Gary, Gary Pritchard who is running for California State Senate in the 33rd district.
When I traveled Nevada for Edwards to canvass and talk to Las Vegas residents about why I thought he should be the nominee my husband was impressed, he was proud according to his own words, that I had gone out and DONE SOMETHING. It meant a great deal to have his support even though he voted for Obama in the California primary.
So when Gary decided to run for California State Senate it had to do with my work for John Edwards' campaign. He said he was not only inspired by Obama's words and his desire to bring people together but by the fact that I went and put myself out there.
When I heard my husband tell this story at our DFA training when someone there had asked him why he chose to run I realized that he was proud of me. It was a moment that made me proud too, he had seen that my newly awakened passion was sincere and it had brought me back to life in some ways. It had brought some meaning back into my life that was not just about my family.
So, you see, if it hadn't been for Edwards running for office, Gary wouldn't be running for office, I guess that's an endorsement of sorts? No?
I'm hoping to raise $5,000 for my husband campaign before June 1st and I need the help of Daily Kos. Please. Gary is running to get a "D" on the ballot and he's a good progressive and an amazing man. Help him and send a message to all good Democrats that when they chose to stand up and to get a "D" on the ballot all Democrats will support them.
I’m painfully biased to Gary, he’s my husband and he’s running this race partly because I asked him to and mostly because he wanted there to be a "D" on the ballot.
I blog about politics because I care about what happens to our Country and I care about the issues that are facing so many Americans, such as my friends and family. Everyone is affected by the continued breakdown of almost everything we take for granted in American, such as health care and our quality of life.
All politics are local and both Gary and I want to help build a larger Democratic base in a very Republican County, please help us do so.
Thank you.
Heather Pritchard
If you want to mail contributions, you may do so at:
Gary Pritchard for State Senate
10 Santa Clara Street
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
I am going to include the part from Gary's website that tells you about him.
About Gary
Who I am
When I decided to run for office, I knew that I would need a biography. I also knew that I didn’t want it written by someone other than myself. I felt strongly that I would be the best person to tell you who I am while summing up the whole of my life experiences in one page.
I can count the times that I’ve bothered reading a political biography on one hand. The better ones I read came across as disingenuous while the worst were like pharmaceutical ads on TV. I’m hoping for somewhere in between phony and slick.
The Basics
I’m a 37 year old California native who was born in the Central Valley town of Bakersfield and raised near the southern entrance of Yosemite
National Park.
I now live in Aliso Viejo with Heather my supportive spouse of 10 years; Charlotte our exuberant five year old daughter; and Sophie our
family’s high-strung weimaraner.
I am a dedicated educator in the public school system. I completed college in Southern California where I attended Chapman University,
the Claremont Graduate School, UCLA, and UCI. I hold a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences and am a tenured professor in the Fine Arts and Communication Division of Cerritos College where I have taught since 1999. In the summer, I am also a lecturer at UCI.
As a tested leader in the California Community College system, I have served as a department chair, sat on curriculum and program review committees, co-authored grants for the National Endowment of the Humanities and federal vocational education programs. I have chaired tenure committees, reviewed textbooks, authored new curriculum including distance education courses, and have participated in a variety of local and national conferences and symposia.
As your senator, I will follow the same principles that made me an effective leader in education. I will work hard to make sure the people who need the most help get it. I will never waste time and resources with murky issues that advance the interests of the few over that of the average citizen.
I will be an empathetic leader dedicated to improving the quality of education, expanding healthcare to include more of California’s children, and maintaining our parks, oceans, and natural resources. I am for fiscal responsibility but not at the cost of cutting programs necessary for the health and well-being of all Californians.
I will legislate on behalf of those among us who want our schools to remain well-equipped and adequately staffed, who want the air we breathe and water we drink protected and maintained, who want our state’s public parks and beaches to remain open, who agree that healthcare isn’t a privilege for a few but the right of all. In short, I represent Californians who think about the possibilities our state offers rather than its limitations.
More About Me and My Reasons for Running
If you’re reading this, you are a deeply concerned citizen who values your vote as much as I do or you are about to write a hit piece on me. Maybe both.
This section is what I wrote when I asked myself why I care about winning this seat as much as I do and what it is I hope to accomplish while in office. If you want to skip ahead, then the short answer to this is because I disagree with cutting
funding for public education and believe this is tantamount to bankrupting our state.
If you think education had already failed many of our kids, think LAUSD graduation rates, try thinking about the future of our state with our ‘good’ schools now facing dramatic cuts to programs and teaching staff. Having taught in the Los Angeles area for over a decade, I know first hand what Orange County residents are about to get a taste of. Anyone for crowded classrooms, overwhelmed administrators, frustrated teachers, and most importantly disappointed kids who perhaps for the first time will know what their government actually thinks of them.
Heather (my lovely spouse) and I come from working class backgrounds and are the first members of our families to go to college. Heather’s is second generation Sicilian-American and her father was born and raised in Missouri. She was born in Queens, New York and raised in Huntington Beach, California. My mother was a Native American/Mexican homemaker from the Fort Mojave Tribe and my father a blue collar worker whose family migrated west from Oklahoma. Were just the typical Italian-Indian-Irish-English-American family.
My father and mother were both teenagers when I was born. Three years later my mother’s life would come to a tragic end and my father would be a single parent. He knew he had to take whatever jobs he could to support us. Eventually, my father found work as an independent truck-driver and was absent during most of my early childhood. My grandparents agreed to help my father create a stable home for me surrounded by a loving extended family.
As a result of having spent so much time with my grandparents, I grew up having a great deal of respect and fascination for the Americans who lived through the Great Depression and World War II. I listened earnestly to the stories of my grandparents and what kind of sacrifices were made so that there was food on the table and clothes on their backs. Education was what they sacrificed to survive during hard times and consequently became what they stressed the most in my life. They told me that if I did well in school, I would have opportunities they never did.
For them, education was more than the self-centered pursuit of acquiring knowledge or the arousing intellectual curiosity, the defining quality of an educated person was their citizenship. Not simply a product of living in the United States but something that they felt was earned by actions. When my progress reports came home they would first check my citizenship grade. For them, that was the most important element in my early education. It wasn’t until I took my first social studies course that I discovered what my grandparents taught me was abiding faith in FDR’s ideas of civic responsibility.
Education was decidedly different for me than it was for my mother and father. I attended public school from kindergarten through college and was always encouraged by teachers to live up to my potential. The lessons of civic responsibility that my grandparents valued resonated throughout my life.
Both my parents had difficulties in school. My mother was from the reservation while my father suffered profound hearing loss as a child. In the 1950’s and 60’s, the school system was not especially sensitive to the struggles of Native Americans or to the needs of hearing impaired children.
In the case of my father, the classroom was a difficult place for him to spend his days. Having to wear bulky hearing aids exacerbated his feelings of low self-esteem which made it difficult for him to ask for help. He didn’t want to stick out any more than he already did. What my dad learned was primarily survival skills so that he would not stick out in a hearing world. On his own, he learned to read people’s lips quite well while his verbal and written language skills to this day remain rudimentary.
While in school, my teachers stressed that a good education would open doors which otherwise might be closed. They showed me to how think critically about the choices I make. They impressed upon me the importance of thinking about possible outcomes alongside the sacrifices that would need to be made. In doing so, they taught me to see my life in terms of balancing possibilities with sacrifices. This was radical thinking in the Pritchard household where sacrifices
always outweighed possibilities for both father and grandparents. I am proud to say that these life skills helped form the person I am today. I think every student in California should have the opportunities that a great public education provides. It is shameful that our legislators have let us and our children down.
And our greatest hope up ticket is a Democratic Nominee Obama on the ballot with coattails for all. I believe, as does Gary, that Obama can bring about the change we need in this Country and the more Democrats we can get in federal and state seats the better it is for all of us. Things must change, please help us change the OC to blue or at least make it easier for the next Democrat to stand up and run for the 33rd.