2/25/10: It’s time to stop the ‘Endorsements’ Game!

With yet another story today on Kevin Rennie’s blog about a political endorsement being given or not given, it is time for politicians to stop spending their time each day trying to get another RTC Chairman, BOE member, or Zoning official to come out publicly in their support, so that yet another press release can be issued by the candidate! I know the first reaction to this is going to be that I would not have this same opinion if our campaign was piling up endorsements in our race for Congress. However, this is not the case as our campaign from day one has been focused on winning the primary in August as evidenced by our certified letter to State Central Chairman Chris Healy shortly after our announcement on November 7th of last year. In that letter, we asked for some of the rules and guidelines regarding the August primary……we’re still waiting for his response as of this post over three months later!

While I respect the service of the politicians who are truly interested in moving our country forward, the majority of Americans believe our current political system is broken. For far too long, the political class has told the average American what is right and what they should think. Now, after sitting out the process for far too long, average Americans have stepped up and become engaged at a level politicians have feared they may for a very long time. They have told the political class that after trusting them to do the right thing in the past, and being disappointed time and again, this top down political structure will no longer be accepted. These average people, plain spoken and unpolished, have begun to force politicians to do what they were elected to do and address real issues facing our country. They have told the career politicians ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

To this point, I feel that no longer should a select group of ‘politicians’ be the only votes that decide on who our nominees will be going forward at a closed convention this May. This has been the way things have been done in the past and look at where we are in 2010. We can’t allow a handful of people to decide who our nominee will be any longer. We need the voters to tell the elected officials who they should support and not the other way around. The game of endorsements only makes people more skeptical that there are back room deals and insider promises and many question what is promised in return. Especially troubling to me are any endorsements given prior to all the candidates being allowed to address an RTC, or speaking to the person doing the endorsement. How can any endorsement that is made under these circumstances, or before all of the candidates have even entered the race be taken as a serious deliberation by the person or group giving it?

What I propose for future elections is that we go directly to a primary that will pick our nominee, based on the votes of average people, and not connected insiders. This will allow all the candidates to make their case directly to the voters and will force the candidate to answer the questions of the people they want to represent in Washington, DC. Rather than spending hours and hours on the phone trying to persuade one local mayor, councilman, state central member, etc, that they should come out with an endorsement, candidates can instead walk a street in Bethel, or Watertown as I did last week. They can talk to the same people I did who will be directly affected by their policies and these citizens and business owners can tell them what is happening on Main Street instead of K Street.

At the end of the day, I believe every person who has a vote at our convention in May will vote for any of the Republican candidates over their Democrat opponents in November. In order to grow our party and win in November, we need to get the votes of the average citizen and I feel this is best served by walking the streets of our district, and not the halls of the Capitol.

The link to the story is at : http://www.dailyructions.com/that-was-a-conversation-not-an-endorsement