The Day After

What I learned while running for Congress

I woke up around 6am. After a day of standing in the hot sun shaking voters’ hands, I was hoping to sleep in later, but my body doesn’t function that way. I stayed in bed, thinking about the past few months while my wife slept. I thought about all the relationships I’ve built, I thought about John Beatty, John Henley, Mike Clancy, and the great conversations we had. I thought about the great voter experiences and everything the people taught me. And I thought about what a success it was. But after lying there for a couple hours, I thought about how I lost. For me it was never about winning or losing, it’s always been about the ideas and the people. How can I get my ideas heard and how can I learn from, and help people? I knew everyone else would wake up and see that I lost (badly) and think I failed. And that brought me down.

When my wife woke, she could see I was down and as she held me and kissed my sunburned forehead, she asked me what was wrong. I vented all my disappointments, all my mistakes and I cried. She reminded me of triumphs, how I stuck to my principles, didn’t fundraise, barely campaigned and didn’t finish last. She reminded me about the Madisonian Republicans, and all the young people who reached out wanting to be a part. She reminded me of my intent. She reminded me that it didn’t matter what other people saw because she saw my success. We got up to shower and she asked me what I wanted to do today, I told her I wanted to write but first recharge with my family. We decided to take the girls to lunch. Oliver was with his dad and Gabe was with his girlfriend. I asked Julia to pick the restaurant because she’s done so much to help the past few months around the house. She said she likes going out but doesn’t like to pick restaurants, and likes burgers so I picked Parallel in Ashburn, it has great burgers and brunch so I knew my wife would love it too.

I packed the kids up, rolled the windows down, blasted NEEDTOBREATHE and headed out. The warm summer wind felt great whipping my hair around. I remember a few years ago seeing Julia with hair whipping in her face and asking why she didn’t put it up, it had to be annoying. She said, “I got used to it, so it doesn’t bother me.” She was right, the wind whipping my hair was annoying at first, but I got used to it and now it was calming. As we approached Ashburn the side of the road looked like a graveyard of broken dreams with all the political signs littering the view. I thought about all the effort that went into chasing this dream for each of those who lost, and I hoped they found success within the failure. I had a wonderful time with my girls, we played eye spy and enjoyed a delicious meal. I talked with Julia about the importance of speaking truth and highlighting success in others who do honest work. On the drive back, the twins fell asleep and when we got home, they cuddled up with me on the couch and we passed out together.

And now that I am recharged, it’s time to write about what I’ve learned.

I learned the political environment is like a having bad parents. Parents who are more concerned with wealth and winning than governing and the people’s interest.  I learned how it shapes candidates with surveys, demands for fundraising and advertising. It’s an environment that values division over unity. It was disappointing to learn but not surprising. I think most people from the outside can see, but when you’re in the environment, it can be hard. I learned most people living in the environment believe that politics is about money and advertising, but I also learned it doesn’t have to be.

The biggest and most frightening thing I learned is that we have lost truth in our society. Truth has been attacked from every angle, from the left with CRT and gender identity and from the right with stop the steal and vaccine conspiracies. People believe their version of reality and history is correct and few bother to understand other perspectives. For most people, they believe they are fighting for their survival, a way to preserve their way of life. And when people feel the need to fight for survival, they tend to lose reason. But what they don’t understand is that it’s always been that way and a functional republican government allows them to debate and govern without violence or revolution. And to see truth again, we need to repair our republic back to how our founders envisioned. We need a system that once again allows reason to prevail.

So many in politics are deceitful but I won’t let their environmental demands affect me. I plan to be upfront and honest with my ambitions. Others build alliances in the dark and talk behind each other’s backs, but I will not do that. I will build my alliances in the light for everyone to see. I will spend the next two years building the Madisonian Republicans into a strong faction. One built on a platform of limited government, family values with the intent to repair our republic by expanding the house. The goal is to build a grassroots structure that can help good people with good ideas run for office without having to get their hands dirty with money and manipulation. The plan is to create a new environment for politics to live. We plan to have 3 or 4 Congressional Candidates running by 2024 including myself again. I know that will make some in the current political environment upset but I am not here to follow orders, I am here to build, and I am here to lead.

Yesterday I received several notes from people who did not vote in the primary because of the loyalty waiver they would have been forced to sign in support of whoever became the republican nominee. I had to sign one of these to run for office as well. This type of behavior is what shapes people into believing we have no other choice. But we do. The waiver has no legal standing and is not enforceable, it was nothing more than a data collection strategy for the party. A way to shape voters. Republican government is built like capitalism and capitalism is built like nature. People will naturally work for their personal interests and if those interests’ hurt others, then those who are hurt will stand up and work against them as long as the environment allows them. Competition feeds both republican government and capitalism. If the republican party wants to control the market on who and who cannot run for office, and force loyalty to their voters, they are not following the principles of either republican government or capitalism. They are following the principles of socialism and authoritarianism. Capitalism and republican government embrace competition, socialism and authoritarianism stifle it.

I do want to take a moment to congratulate Hung Cao on the victory. He ran a good race inside the current toxic environment. I believe he is a good man and wants to do good for this country. He has a great story and I commend him on his journey and his service to this nation. I don’t know much about his policy ideas because he didn’t present them during any of the stump speeches I saw. I asked him directly about this at the RPV event and he told me he had to get to office first before presenting ideas. As an informed citizen of the district, it concerns me, because if he isn’t careful that toxic political environment might grasp its claws into him and use him as a weapon against the very government he wants to serve. He may not even realize it; he may just get used to it. I have lots of policy papers and ideas I am willing to share and collaborate on. I hope he takes me up on my offer and isn’t scared of a little competition.

Before I leave you, I want to take a moment to thank my wife and family for the support the past few months. It has been an interesting journey and one I could not have made without them. I also want to thank all the people who’ve contacted me telling me how proud they are that I stand on principle and won’t conform. My goal is to speak truth so we can find reason again. In the words of James Madison “ambition must be made to counteract ambition”.