Nevada Vote Direct

Some of our members have complained that I am not posting regularly to the discussion pages to keep everybody up to date about the campaign. And I have been very conscious of the need to do this. I’ll try to make it habit of it now that we are in the last two months of the campaign.

It is impossible for me to gauge the level of support that I am raising at the various candidate forums that I have been attending. For example, last night I was in Fernley for such a forum. The setting was the lunchroom gymnasium of a public elementary school. (Never mind that such places give me the hives. What if reincarnation is really true and I shall have to do that again.)

Most of the time at these forums is taken up with little speeches from the candidates, and as you might guess these sparkling entertainments are after a while quite tedious. Thus, last night in Fernley, I was suddenly conscious of the remarkable nature of free citizenship in the world and in history. What we did last night doesn’t happen everywhere or everywhen.

After all, in a world where countless other distractions and commitments keep us running from curb to door day in and day out, and where indeed there are so many more enjoyable things to do with our time, isn’t it really rather extraordinary that people make the effort to attend dreary candidate forums? Of course, it was my unwelcome duty to turn this around, and ask people why we continue and persist in these practically empty exercises in a sham democracy that we might well call “demockery.”

I noted that in these forums we ask our candidates various questions on the pressing issues of the day. But when the elected official comes to vote, his decision rarely conforms to the answers he gave in the forums. The representative votes neither as the constituents want him to vote, nor as he himself would care to vote if he suited himself. Instead he votes at the demand of a few big money special interest supporters of his reelection. This fact is elementary, and we could not waste our time at candidate forums if we did not studiously ignore it, and ignore it we do. Though there is some obvious foolishness in this, there is some nobility in it as well. For at these forums the small burning light of freedom is passed to the future. It is the idea of freedom that animates these events and it’s the idea that these events help perhaps to keep alive.

But one can’t help noticing also that most of the attendees are of a certain age, as older French women like to say. Will young people start attending these forums when they reach a certain age? Some of the mainline churches are asking the same question. And symphony orchestras. There’s a new world being born out there that we may not entirely recognize.

As I was saying, I can’t gauge the support for Nevada Vote Direct that comes out of these forums. First of all, the ordinary citizens at these events number at best about 50% – that is to say, the citizens who are not candidates or their aides and families make up a small percentage of those that attend. At one such event for the Washoe County Public Employees Union, I met only one employee from the union, while everybody else whom I met was either a candidate or with the candidate. One wonders if it’s really worth it to go to these events, but one never knows who will be there. I might meet one individual whose support could make the difference between winning and losing.

Moreover, the candidates and their associates are in most cases people for whom the political system as it is dominates all thought and imagination. I have noticed that people involved in politics, or those who consider themselves most informed and wise in political matters, are the least likely to appreciate the idea of Nevada Vote Direct. For them, the status quo is reality, and there is nothing but reality. So, then, the response of most of the people at these forums probably does not provide a good measure for how the campaign is being received by the public.

But, even so, I have to say that of those people at these events with whom I actually get a chance to speak person to person, at least half have responded with the same enthusiasm that I found on the street during our petition drive.

Today we were at the Candy Dance Country Fair in Genoa, one of the world’s most beautiful little towns in one of the world’s pleasantest valleys – a favorite place of mine. And what a splendid day it was. The sun was shining and it was warm, but not too hot. I stood on a shady corner and passed out campaign postcards to passers-by. People seemed friendly and relaxed. It was fun.

I was so amused the other day. Driving in the car, I surfed by NPR on the radio. I heard a woman talking about her campaign for Congress and it caught my attention, especially when I realized I was listening to Jill Derby, my fellow candidate in this year’s congressional election. Ms. Derby is running as the candidate of the Democratic Party.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned from Ms. Derby that she is running as an independent. Or perhaps she said, as an independent voice. I write only from fallible memory. And I don’t mean to imply that Ms. Derby is trying to deceive anybody about her membership in the Democratic Party. Never mind that, as the candidate of the Democratic Party, she has raised well over a million campaign dollars. As an independent candidate for Congress who is also not a member of any political party, I can bear witness to how hard it is to raise any amount of money whatever if one is not a candidate of a major party. Obviously, a truly independent candidate, or independent voice, is not a good investment. The return is uncertain.

But what amused me really quite a lot was to hear Ms. Derby say that people are fed up with the corruption of government by big-money special interests. Now, Ms. Derby has heard my little speech at several of the candidate forums that we have attended together in recent weeks. I never fail to speak of the corruption of government by big-money special interests, because that is the stated motivation for the development of Nevada Vote Direct, and the entire motivation of my campaign for Congress. I don’t recall being asked to devise sound-bites for other political campaigns. Perhaps I really ought to go professional. Anyway, I’m pleased that my message is getting through. Yes, Ms. Derby, people are fed up with it. And we are fed up with the political parties, including yours, because the political parties are the funnel through which oceans of money from special interests flow into the system. The political parties and political corruption are two sides of the same coin.

At the aforementioned candidate forums, one hears candidates of every stripe cursing and swearing before the crowd: “I will be YOUR representative. I will do YOUR will when I am elected.” Funny how in all my recent travels through our district I’ve never met a citizen who hears these vows with anything less than slightly apathetic and mild contempt. Some few feel a much keener sense of nearly violent reproach. In between, the great majority are, shall we say, philosophical.

But since both of my fellow candidates, Ms. Jill Derby and Mr. Dean Heller, seem to view their role as one of representation, in the true sense of the word – that is, to fairly and honestly reflect and represent the will of the people in our district - why not, then, withdraw in favor of my candidacy? After all, this is really something of a no-brainer. At Nevada Vote Direct I have provided technology for determining and objectively measuring exactly what the will of the people actually is – their will, that is, with respect to every actual question that comes before the Congress. Obviously, I am the candidate best equipped to do the job.

I wonder why the other candidates haven’t yet phoned to ask me to design a similar system for each of them. Hey, I’ll do it gratis, no problem.