From the AL 6th Cong'l district: I am not crushed

I am not crushed in the Alabama 6th Congressional district.

I am on to 2016.

If you look at what happened in the Alabama 6th Congressional district this year, you would think I should be crushed.

I want to tell MAYDAY supporters why I am not crushed.

I think I created a campaign that has latent potency. I think my campaign should be studied by reform candidates in other Congressional districts.

Let me put this out there, and you can decide for yourself.


The conundrum

The starting point is that there a conundrum about conducting a single issue campaign or conducting a campaign with other issues besides campaign finance.

The problem with a campaign with other issues is that the candidate risks losing large percentages of voters because voters have strong views opposite from the candidate's positions on other issues and will not vote for or will even be strongly against the candidate for that reason.

A candidate who tries to run a single issue campaign (the campaign finance issue) has a great problem that most voters won't accept and vote for a candidate who declines to take a position on other issues.

This a big conundrum for MAYDAY and for any candidate who wants to identify him or herself as a MAYDAY candidate.

This conundrum could even be sufficiently great for MAYDAY to decide its plan is impossible.

I went the single issue route.

I think I developed a strong logic and strong tactics in constructing my campaign.

Make no doubt that I am still at about zero in the Alabama 6th Congressional district.

But please hear me out, follow what I constructed, and think about it.


My campaign's construction

I started by asking, "Is there something fundamentally wrong with Congress?"

I thought there was reason to think that persons who should answer that question would not answer that question and would avoid answering and ignore me.

I started with the Alabama state Democratic and Republican parties. See Letters to Alabama GOP and Democratic parties.

I escalated my question to Senators Sessions and Shelby, 6th district Representative Bachus, and others in the Alabama legislative delegation in Washington. This foray started with this Open letter to Alabama delegation in Washington. Follow up on this can be found at Representative Bachus' response and through links set out there.

There were six other candidates in the Republican primary. For four months, over and over and over, I kept asking  whether something was fundamentally wrong with Congress. For four months, the other six candidates would not discuss or answer the question and avoided it and ignored me. See, e.g., Answer the questions, 6th district candidates.

The avoidance of my question carried over to the local media and local political commentators. See Reviewing the bidding with one week to go.


Dealing with "single issue" problem

The "single issue" problem was difficult for me in my campaign.

I did my best to make the "root" problem argument. (Rootstrikers website says, "The people must recognize that corruption is not just one among many important problems. Corruption is the root problem, that makes solving the others so difficult.")

I said, with a failed Congress that could not properly do its job for the American people, discussion about other issues was academic, rational discourse to find compromise and common ground was impaired, etc.

For examples of the difficulty I encountered with my "single issue" campaign and how I tried to deal with same, listen to this telephone interview of me by Dale Jackson: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0pswxf2GBm4, and see this entry: From a DeMarco supporter (updated)


What I have accomplished

I have a soapbox in the Alabama 6th Congressional district. My campaign did not end on the June 3rd primary election date. I continued as a write in campaign. I am poking wherever I can at the Alabama political establishment. Check out #alpolitics and #al06 from the past two days. See the current posture I am working with in this link The betting in AL 6th Cong'l district.


What is the potential

What is the potential of the campaign I constructed? What if similar campaigns were constructed in other Congressional districts? Could they build on one another to gain publicity and attention that Congress refuses collectively to respond to the American people on the question of whether something is fundamentally wrong?

I have reached the limit of what I can do or push on my own.

It is up to MAYDAY and its supporters to decide whether I have created anything of value which can be built on.