This past Monday (Martin Luther King Day) I had the opportunity to spend a lot of the day with a congressional candidate. It was a chance for me to have a wide-ranging conversation with my recently chosen candidate for Congress in PA-12. I met Aaron Anthony at a democratic club meeting in my local community about a month ago. At that time I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes each with 3 of the 4 democratic candidates running in PA-12. While all of the candidates I met on that day struck me as good progressive voices, Aaron stood out. After attending a candidate forum in early January with all 4 candidates attending, my opinion about Aaron was reinforced. I think he presents us with the best chance to flip the district. Anyhow, I volunteered to help out by doing some event photography for the campaign and Monday I got the chance to follow through.
Aaron's personal commitment to volunteerism has bled over into his campaign for congress. Campaign volunteers showed up at four locations (Beaver, Allegheny and Cambria counties) to help prepare food in a shelter, work on rehabilitating a building to serve as a new food pantry, to distribute food from a food pantry and to fill backpacks for kids. Aaron went to two of the events and I tagged along to take pictures. My chauffeur between the events was Aaron. Since the travel time between the events was almost an hour each way, I got the chance to talk issues and politics without interruption. I learned some things about the nitty-gritty of campaigning that I hadn't ever considered before Monday.
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And that brings me to the purpose for this diary. If you aren't already rich and self-funding your campaign, a ridiculous portion of the day has to be spent chasing after funding. Couple that with the fact that pre-primary endorsements are difficult to get and you end up with money being almost the sole factor involved in choosing our candidates for the fall. It seems to me that we should be endorsing our best candidates early on in the process. Not endorsing a preferred candidate because of not wanting to appear to have a preference is equivalent to endorsing the candidate who has the most money. I think we all agree that money is not the best way to choose our leaders. Too much money is what's wrong with politics. We shouldn't be tacitly endorsing money by not endorsing quality. That is how the country ended up in the mess we find ourselves fighting against. If you are in a position where your endorsement can help your favorite candidate, not endorsing them hurts their chances and lessens our chances in the fall.
If your organization has a policy to not endorse a candidate, there's no reason you can't make a statement like "[ORGANIZATION] has a strict policy against endorsing candidates in the primary. Because I feel [CANDIDATE] is the best candidate to beat [TRUMP-ENABLER] in the fall, I wish to make a personal endorsement and ask you to take a serious look at his/her candidacy. I like [CANDIDATE] because [REASONS]
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Here's an example:
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I think Aaron Anthony is the best candidate to unseat Keith Rothfus (R) this fall. I am personally endorsing him for Congress from the 12th district of Pennsylvania. I think he's the best choice because
- 1. His passion for people shines through whenever he speaks
- 2. He listens well.
- 3. I agree with his stance on the major issues (we haven't talked about everything yet)
- 4. He is an articulate advocate for progress
- 5. He doesn't pretend to be someone he's not
- 6. He's relatively young and is bringing a strong fresh voice to the district.
- 7. His background in education will bring some much needed expertise to a body filled with professional politicians making ill-informed decisions about education.
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I'd like to know if you agree that individuals should feel free to endorse candidates before the primary as that will help level out the influence of money early in a campaign?