Charleston, SC, March 5, 2013- Our public transit public advocacy organization just sent this message to the 13 Candidates for US Congress in the #sc1 race who haven't taken a bus ride with us. We've held three guided rides. Twenty Candidates are running. One wants to abolish public transit. We'll continue to update our readers on our progress with this difficult effort, which attempts to actually get candidates to talk to voters outside of their fundraising effort and partisan bubble.
Six Candidates for the #SC1 Seat in the US Congress have taken Hungryneck Straphangers’ (www.busec.org) invitation to join us for a guided ride on the CARTA public transit system in the past month. The candidates have have been on the bus with us are Turner, Moffly, Larkin, Hoffman, Bryant (all Republicans) and Larry Carter Center (Green Party.) We are still hoping the Democrats and the remaining Republican and Green party candidates will take a ride with us before the primary.
All the candidates who have been on the bus have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of fresh potential voters, a great opportunity in a campaign which has been dominated by events where a large field competes for the same pool of base voters. While these less engaged voters can be tough sells, candidates of both the Green and Republican parties have found votes on board.
Next week our organization will begin distributing thousands of printed tickets at bus stops telling transit voters who has been on the bus with us to assist them in selecting who to vote for in the primary. Transit riders regard having an actual, on board local transit experience to be important in determining which candidates are in touch with their day to day experiences.
While we’ll be dealing with more detailed, transit connected issues later in the campaign, we’re going to confine our outreach voter education prior to the primary to this simple fact of who has taken a ride on the bus. We won’t be endorsing candidates in the primary (or general election later).
If you would like to ride with us before we approve and print the final version of our rider’s information ticket, our last guided ride before we go to press will be held Friday morning, starting at 7 am at the SuperWalmart at Oakland Plantation (on N. 17 near
Wando High School) starting at 7 am. We’ll ride the Express Bus into the City of Charleston. Candidates can then either continue on to Citadel Mall to meet another load of riders headed into the city from there and return to Mount Pleasant on the Express or dismount the Express downtown for an immediate return trip on the Express (likely to be nearly empty outbound at that hour) or the 40 Regular Service bus which will have a heavy load of service workers headed to Jobs in Mount Pleasant. Republicans will find more Republicans on the Express bus. More Democrats ride the 40. All candidates should meet at least 100 voters and be done prior to 9 am.
Guided rides can also be arranged earlier than Friday morning by request.
The Facebook signup for the Friday ride can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/...
Our general web page on the CARTA with the Candidates effort can be found at
http://busec.org/...
I can be reached at (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
Thank you for your time and attention. We appreciate everyone who has taken on the grueling effort to offer themselves for public service in these difficult times.
Most of these candidates spend all their time fundraising and attending partisan events in this special election and are oblivious to how angry and alienated working class/transit riding voters have become. SC has one of the lowest rates of voter participation in the US. Sometimes it appears that both parties like it that way. The path to victory in this election will be taken by those primary and general election candidates who convince some portion of angry, alienated voters that it's actually worthwhile to go to the polls.