I want to thank my fellow DFNH members for the extraordinary support in my campaign. With that support and the excellent experience and training from the Dean Campaign and Latinos for America at the Democracy Fest, my campaign manager and I were able to create a very strong campaign. There were successes but my own election was not among them.

I was faced with a Republican campaign to take all four at-large seats in my district, a plan which had many subtle elements and at one point looked quite inevitable. Parts of their campaign succeeded in that they got a new member in and a trojan horse in on the Democratic ticket. However their long term incumbent, who set up their plan, was defeated and I managed to get more votes than he did.

What was unanticipated was that I was undermined by a Democrat incumbent (Henry A. L. Parkhurst) who was so fearful of the Republican plan that when the shape of my campaign became clear he saw it as a personal threat and panicked and ran a negative campaign to undercut my votes in our mutual hometown.


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I did not forsee just how hysterical he would become. My plan was to beat the Republican incumbent and get all four Democrats elected, so I worked hard to run as a team. He used the benefit of this and then turned it against me. Luckily the benefit spilled over to another candidate who is considerably more honorable. Only fear prevented my plan from being accomplished.

I plan to have a recount done at this point since the Libertarian/Republican who did get in is only 60 votes ahead. I want to confirm the process by which my saboteur fellow Democrat got a huge spike of votes and simultaneously undercut both of his "team mates".

Running the campaign was an exceptional experience from the point of view of meeting people in my district. I learned about the lifestyle and concerns of a broad spectrum of people. There was a marvelous sense of community among my supporters and my only regret is that I will be unable to represent them. Their particular concerns likely may not be adequately served by any of the other candidates.

I want to work on recruiting and training candidates for local elections in my town and even in my district for next March. I plan to organize the information I gathered in this campaign into a database for my next election. I am particularly interested in organizing the information around issues rather than candidates or parties. I understand this is one of the ways the Republicans have been so successful and it makes a lot of sense from my experience in this campaign.

In a way I think the result of not winning at this time has important possibilities. For me, for example, I can be more effective in the particular issues I feel most strongly about without being in the legislature. I can build an even stronger base with the extra time. I can dog the legislators that did get in and hold them responsible. Most importantly by not being on the inside I can continue to speak out loudly without concern for compromise and that is something we will all need to do after this right wing takeover of the country.