First off, I would like to congratulate Scott Mattson and William Albers on their hard fought for and well earned victory here at OurCampaigns. You both ran an honorable campaign, and I salute you.
I would also like to thank Dave Jones, who would be Vice President at OurCampaigns right now were he not saddled with an albatross at the head of the ticket. You were truly a blessing to this campaign, as you have been to this site. Your drive, vision, inclusiveness and integrity are second to none. Thank you.
I would also like to thank those members here at OurCampaigns who endorsed the Walker-Jones ticket : Seth Hinshaw, Metamorphosis, RParker, John Haring, Joshua L., nystate63, JR725, Matthew Easton, TexasDemocrat06, Joe, Liberal, Pragmatic Conservative, Southern Democrat and Phillyeagles. Without your support, we would never have gotten this far.
Thank you also to all of you who voted for the Walker-Jones ticket. Each and every one of you took a stand and crossed party lines to vote for us. I am humbled to have earned your support, and I hope I have not let you down. This campaign was about issues and priorities, not parties, and I thank you. As a side note, the Walker-Jones ticket polled 9.12% more than Theodore Roosevelt's 1912 Progressive showing, tops for a third party in real life.
To the team of Bob Heaney and Howie Kent, I say thank you for an honorable and well fought campaign. You have both enriched OurCampaigns so much, for which we are all thankful. Howie, I am so sorry for having gotten snippy with you yesterday on the campaign trail, and I hope you will accept my apology. I hope Bob and Howie will remain active members, and that in the not too distant future, we will see their names on the ballot here at OurCampaigns once again. In Maine, George Mitchell lost to an Independent for Governor, while Theodore Roosevelt finished third for Mayor of New York City as the Republican nominee. Keep your fighting spirit alive, and persevere.
Thanks also go out to Dave Trotter and John Haring. You both enriched this contest, presented many new ideas, and hopefully layed the groundwork for the future. It was an honor to compete against you.
So, where do we go from here?
First, I must restate something from this past campaign. I Will NOT run for President of OurCampaigns in the August election. The votes I received were for the message, and not the messenger. If I ran in August, we will obscure all the gains we have already made.
Where does the Abolition Party go from here? I fully intend to keep the party active. If no other candidate in August ideally represents ALL the membership at OurCampaigns, I feel we must field our own ticket.
Many names for such a ticket come to mind who I would be honored to have represent OurCampaigns and the Abolition Party. I apologize for slighting anyone, but I will limit my list to 15 (in no particular order): Dave Jones, Valerie, politix USA, pimpalicious, Metamorphisis, Joshua L., Seth Hinshaw, ILWeather Guy, Inspector Morse, Joe, Pragmatic Conservative, JoeAgain, dalmavs, Bozo the Pope and Joseph Keene; they would all be honorable and powerful nominees, and better than who headed the ticket this time around.
I offer my services to President Mattson in whatever capacity I might serve. A role such as Postmaster General for 4 months would appeal to me, for even though I lost, I still very much want to send a personalized email to as many members at OurCampaigns as possible, especially inactive ones, in order to strive for a more active and involved membership.
I also ran encouraging every member to invite at least one new person to join, which I myself will do later this week.
A while back I said that I would go through and mark all NASCAR drivers as silly, which I now will finally have the time to do.
I also promised to send some of the paltry election figures which I had to Seth Hinshaw, which I have always intended to do, but now finally will.
I said in an article during this campaign I would try and post some of Drew Pritt's verifiable data which he isn't able to. I still intend to, when I see it, although more times than not, other members have beat me to the punch.
I am thankful for the elections having been by secret ballot until all votes are cast. We must continue this in the future here at OurCampaigns.
If I am given access to do so, I would like to combine multiple listings for the same candidate. This will help to ensure a more accurate and reflective database.
I will finally have time to once again enter data for all of the real races out there. If anyone has any Congressional (US House or Senate) general elections - all candidatews, or Gubernatorial elections - candidates with 5% in the General Election, they want posted, I will try and help - as long as you have the patience to put up with me!
My thoughts for future candidates:
* Run as a person on the issues, and do not worry about party. The best candidate is the one who will serve ALL members at OurCampaigns.
* Get your own website to post campaign messages and information on. Mine was from www.angelfire.com, and was free of charge. I went the extra mile and actually bought a domain name. However, that step is not needed for an effective website.
* As a third party candidate, I loved the dates of the Republican and Democratic primaries. However, those parties should consider moving the primary to end two weeks before the general election. I believe the one week time frame is what really hurt the campaign of Secretary of State Bob Heaney this time around.
Later today, I plan to release a post-election Abolition Party convention report, a full financial report for my campaign, and one more announcement I have to keep under wraps for now.
Later on, I plan to release a statement as to why I belong to the Abolition Party. Also, the printer keeps telling me the campaign poster is almost done, so I will unveil it whenever it is.
Thank you, everyone, for giving me the opportunity to run here at OurCampaigns. I am sorry if I have offended or upset anyone here. I hope I have been a decent member here in the past, and I plan to contribute as much as I can to this site in the future. Thank you.
