Why Am I Running

I don’t recall politics being discussed around our house while growing up. I never knew who my parents voted for, and call it ignorance or indifference, it just didn’t matter. Government did not seem to have much of an impact on how we lived. We felt free! We burned our leaves in the gutter on the street and burned our trash in a bin on the driveway. We rode in the car without wearing seat belts, paid cash for medical, dental, and optical bills. Schools taught useful academic skills like math and reading, and we were taught to love our country, reciting the pledge of allegiance each morning and learning to appreciate our nation’s past. We were also taught basic life skills like how to use tools and make things out of wood and metal, how to cook, how to make a budget and balance a checkbook. We knew what we were. Boys were boys, and girls were girls, and it was easy to tell them apart, and rarely did they mix, at least until middle school. We were taught to respect our teachers, the police, and others in authority, honor our parents and elders, and treat other people’s property like we would want them to treat ours. They were simple times and mostly peaceful, and people were prospering. Yes, there were problems and scandals, and crime and violence, but they were infrequent, and we knew who the good guys were and who were the bad guys, because, back then, you could usually count on the broadcast news shows and newspapers to report it accurately.  

I first got involved with politics when I voted in the 1964 presidential election. Of course, that was in Mrs. Anderson’s 4^th grade class. Later in life, I would occasionally help my sister in her campaigns, by marching in parades and putting out yard signs. I didn’t mind helping someone else get elected, but it was not something I ever considered doing myself.

It was the Covid pandemic and the summer of insanity of 2020, the highly suspicious outcome of the 2020 and 2022 elections, government mask mandates, forced distancing, forced business closings, and pushing of a dangerous and deadly vaccine, the fabricated J6 farce with its unconstitutional arrests and imprisonments, the invasion at the southern U.S. border, and many more travesties that made me realize that I can no longer be a bystander. My wife and I decided to attend the precinct caucus earlier this year (2024), and I put my name on the list to be a delegate to the district convention. To my surprise, people voted for me, so I went. And then I attended the state GOP convention. It was there that I was invited to think about running for the position of state representative for house district 38A. Ordinarily, such an invitation would come as an ego booster, but considering that no one was willing to run against the incumbent in 2022, I took the invitation to mean that they were desperate to have someone on the ballot, even an inexperienced, “old” guy. Nevertheless, after a long weekend of thought and prayer, I agreed. My rationale being that, if nothing else, it would give citizens in my district, who share my views and my values, a reason to go vote on November 5. It is for those citizens living in the Brooklyn Park, Osseo area who are “fed up” with what has happened to our cities, state, and country over the past 4 years that I am entering this campaign.  I want the citizens in our district to have someone on the ballot who represents them, and if enough of them vote, we just might win.