A long time ago I made a Pecha Kucha presentation about how our American Political system was screwed up. That we’ve alienated voters by insisting that you have two choices, ketchup or mustard- and screw any other flavors of politicians. It was called “Coin flip politics” and it’s gotten a whopping 122 views since it was posted Jan 16, 2012
Despite a majority of voters not belonging to either party- and being locked out of who they get to choose from in the general elections, we continue to have a system of minority tyranny.
I suggested ranked choice voting would be the solution, but along with that comes the problem of actually knowing what candidates stand for- or who bought them. I even suggested we eliminate campaign donations altogether and pay for elections, which would be limited to 6 weeks of campaigning. Boy was I naive. I built this idea out and tried to present it at TEDx- and was denied the stage. So I started writing a book- and got about 25,000 words down, and then my parents decided to take 4 years of my life to care for them- and die, and a trusted bookkeeper robbed me blind etc.
But, the ideas kept forming and the strategies to sell them grew into my 2 non profits: the 501(c)3 Modern Policy [1] Institute and the 501(c)4 Reconstructing Dayton [2]. For those of you who don’t know the difference- the “3” is non partisan and not directly involved in politics and donations can be written off as charitable. The “4” is capable of being involved in political speech- but should be non-partisan.
I funded the groups with the settlement from my federal case against the library for violations of my civil rights over taking photos in a public space [3].
Reconstructing Dayton is attempting to help inform voters of their choices in the upcoming elections. Doing long form video interviews of candidates. We started in the midst of Covid- doing them on the deck of my office and interviewed John McManus, Zack Dickerson, Bob Matthews and recently did interviews with 3 of the Democratic candidates for Congress (Jeff Hardenbrook didn’t respond to requests).
You can watch the videos on Youtube playlist, or go individually:
There are posts to go with each interview: candidate interviews [4] and as of today, I’m the only one he hasn’t created a post for.
I also have mentioned a major campaign goal: to build a donor registration system for the FEC [5] that records all campaign donations and expenses in real time. This was a key part of the platform we hope to build with the Modern Policy Institute. Because, voters need to know more about a candidate than they know what is in the box of cereal they had.
I’ve posted the Dayton Daily News links [6] to information about the candidates for OH10: Dayton Daily News finally acknowledges Democratic Congressional primary a week before the primary and links to the lame League of Women’s voters guide: Vote411 [7]. And on the front page of my campaign site [8]– I’ve posted photos and links to all resources on all 4 candidates to try to make it easy for voters to research all their choices.
We didn’t have any debates, or forums- or even real interviews through the normal channels. I’ve run in the D primary for congress and literally been to dozens of forums each time in the past- and I always recorded them and posted the information for all: Go back to my videos in 2012 [9] and you’ll see.
I did speak to a group yesterday- a liberal lunch group, about my thoughts on the Montgomery County Dem party reorg, and the race for Congress. At the tail end, Alexander Sharp of Reconstructing Dayton spoke for a few minutes about Proportional voting.
No other candidate goes to the same lengths to make sure voters are informed.
I also promise, if elected, to livestream at the end of each day, my thoughts and ideas about what happened that day in Congress to keep my constituents informed.
Please take the time to research all your choices. And, remember who brought them to you, and to like and subscribe to both youtube channels. Thank you. Remember, voting is this Tuesday, May 3, 2022.