In short, this campaign is about meeting with people throughout the district to show them that spreading the word is worthwhile. It’s about minimal spending, no fundraising (no major donors and no PACs of any kind). If I win, I will be answerable to all the people of District 1, and no one else.
See also my No Fundraising page.
In the meantime, here is my introductory video from March 11 about the campaign itself, followed by a full transcript with a few links. This video outlines how I initially envisioned this campaign, shortly after filing, and it still captures the spirit and flavor. I’ll post an updated video as I get more details in place.
You can turn off subtitles/captions with the [cc] button on the video controls. There’s also a Transcript button…
To turn subtitles off…
The subtitles settings are either the “captions” button (looks like speech bubble icon), or the “…” after you hit Play. If it already shows “off” just hit “auto” and they should go away (vimeo quirk on mobile).
Transcript…
Hello again.
I’d like to tell you a little bit about how I’m structuring this campaign.
The key feature, which may seem a little odd, is I’m not raising any campaign funds. Let me explain a little bit why. In short, it’s 2026 and I really believe given the kinds of connectivity we have now with websites and social media and these videos, that campaign spending is suspect.
In my mind, the typical view, the standard view, is that you need a party to back you and do all the party stuff, and you need to spend two to three million dollars, or in a tight raise twice that. And what’s it for? Well, the money is primarily for ads and consultants and yard signs and things like that. Yard signs aren’t that cheap. I mean you can get them moderately cheap, but the reality to me is expenses can and should be very low.
And so far, I’m not asking for any money. I’m asking you, please send $0. Because there’s a filing fee; my website is $20 a month; I’m hosting videos on Vimeo, $12; So it’s a little here and a little there.
I expect to spend actually under the $5,000 limit that requires an FEC filing. So I probably don’t even have to file for the FEC, for the federal, although I may anyway.
So far I do have my first collateral, it’s a very nice business card, which basically has this nice slogan: Let’s be the first district to put people before parties. I think that’s pretty good. And it’s got the contact on the back with the QR code and the website, phone number. And this is where people can connect.
So I’ll be traveling throughout the district, sending cards around, meeting with people. I’ll probably make a little more collateral. A thousand business cards is twenty dollars. Okay. So not a big expense.
Ads in my experience are not necessarily horrible. There are some very lovely ads, but most ads, 95%, to me are about trickery and fear. And I just, I can’t do it. I’m allergic to that.
In 2024, looking it up, the total campaign spending in the United States for federal and state races was twenty billion dollars. Approximately, give or take a few billion. Now that’s not a big percentage of our GDP, we’re a very big country, but it’s twenty billion dollars. And I just don’t feel right with that. It just doesn’t seem right.
So I’m hoping there’s enough other people who feel that way. And if you get on board with what I’m doing and you support me and I can give you cards, you can just share on the various social media. I think this can work, and we’ll find out.
April is going to be the big month. I’ll be getting out and meeting people personally. I also believe, rather than short soundbite type slogans and messages, is to have conversations with people. And I think I can bring a lot of people around. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people across the political spectrum and they usually connect, because I’m genuinely interested in why they feel the way they do, and I want to understand the differences.
So, I feel if I can do that, if I can win someone over in a five or 10 minute conversation, they can spread the word. So, that’s what I’m going to do. That’s the nature of my campaign: direct connection to as many people as I can, small groups and one-on-one, and hope that they, you, will share the campaign.
Thank you for your time.