Friday, April 5, 2013

Post Campaign Thoughts - Part II

Continued from Part I:

From the outset, Curtis would tell me that our prayer needed to be that God would breathe life into what we were doing, that we would stay behind Him and let Him either give life to what we were doing and find favor with it, or we would know that it was not meant to be. In earlier blogs I described to you instances that reveal the true godly character of Curtis, one titled “Observations Worth Considering” and another entitled “Conjecture Or The Rule of Law”. I encourage you to take the time to read those, not so you can find out more about Curtis, but rather so you can see what kind of traits you should look for in a candidate.

When it became clear to the other candidates that the Bostic campaign was beginning to surge, things began to happen that one should I guess expect in a political campaign but nevertheless became a real eye opener for me. We began to take fire, lots of fire. Polling told us we were climbing through the ranks, but the heat from the other top tier candidates was an even greater indicator. I have always considered facts and truth to be fair game to use against another candidate. But probably the most difficult thing for me was to watch flat out lies and mischaracterizations being hurled at my friend. What was even harder to take was the source of most of it, definitely not where I expected it to be coming from. Politics and the quest for power can bring out the worst in individuals and I got to see it firsthand. Conversely, from our side we did everything we could to just run on our record and let the chips fall where they may. It is difficult to do that when the record is continually distorted and you don’t have the means to use media to combat it the way that the other larger political machines could do.

At the outset of our campaign, we were given little to no chance of making much of an impact. I learned a tremendous amount about running a campaign for elected office. Candidates that I thought were men of integrity at the outset, severely let me down with their action when they came under pressure or perceived that they saw the election slipping away from them.

As for me, I have given the last 15 years of so of my life pouring my time and passion into teaching and mentoring high school kids about the United States Constitution and limited government from a biblical worldview. In the last few years I have developed courses and seminars to be taught in churches or other local activist groups so that adults that have never been taught these “1st Principles” of the founders can be equipped to elect good, constitutional, limited government candidates and so they can have the knowledge and understanding to hold them accountable once they are in office.

I knew what Curtis stood for and I knew that we shared the same heartbeat for bringing our nation back to the Rule of Law. I stood shoulder to shoulder with a man of enormous integrity in the face of withering personal attack. The undertone in a lot of this attack was nothing more than anti-religious bigotry, although those that perpetrated it would probably never admit it. It’s almost as if today, we see so little of what people like Curtis Bostic represent, we see so very little of it, that when it shows up, people feel like it’s just too good to be true and have to tear it down.

I’m disappointed that we lost an opportunity to elect someone with what I consider to be the most important qualities necessary for federal elected office; strong biblical worldview, mastery of the United States Constitution, and the rock solid integrity to execute the office that would be entrusted to him. Before we wrapped things up at the campaign office  this past Tuesday night, Curtis asked me if I would do it all over again. Without hesitation, I told him that I would. Our Constitution, our nation, and our hard fought liberties are worth our time, efforts, resources, and toil.

There are a few people you meet in life that you know you could charge the gates of hell with using a water pistol; Curtis Bostic is one of them. It was an honor to team with Curtis in this campaign. In my opinion, for whatever its worth, he might have been one of the best candidates for federal office I have seen in my lifetime. If I have one regret it would be that I was unable to convince more people of that fact.

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