Back in 1955 when Troy became a city, it was pretty controversial, many wanted to stay a township to keep the taxes lower.  I would say that history has shown the value incorporating, but I believe the people who were against the City in 1955 are more or less the same people who are motivated to see the city shrink and maybe even die today.  Or at least their ideological inheritors.

Thank you all so much for your support!  Together so far we raised almost $600.  I cannot thank you enough for your donations, sharing, and comments.

Running for office even at the local level is not easy, but it is incredibly rewarding when people support you like you have me.  The sacrifice you have made in my name shall be put to great use.  I am going to work my butt off to ensure I do everything I can to win.

Tomorrow I will be knocking on doors for at least 4 hours, and at least that much on Sunday.  If I want to win I need to be knocking doors at least 10 hours a week in addition to all the other campaign work.  This is on top of raising 3 kids, my day job, and coaching my 8 year old son’s soccer team, and last but not least being a good husband.

My point is that your support makes it that much easier for me to keep working late nights, easier to keep knocking on doors, and to easier to keep fighting the good fight, as I see it.  I encourage you all to think about your level of political involvement.  The system is only as good as the people who are running it.  You don’t need to run for office, although I think everyone should try to be a precinct delegate, it is the most powerful position in the U.S. that you have never heard of (most likely).

Show up to a local party meeting, be it Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian etc.  I think you will be surprised when they get there.  At that level the leadership is almost always just volunteers, and the members don’t all think that their party cannot do wrong, in fact many are there because of what they think the party is doing wrong.  My eyes were certainly opened up in the process.

The bad news is, to quote Walt Kelly, we have met the enemy and he is us.  The good news is that is  something we can control.  So if you don’t mind a touch of advice: do what you can when you can, and you will sleep well at night knowing you did what you could.  I do at least.  Once again, thank you so very much for all your support so far.  9 more hours to go, can you help me get over $1,000?

It’s far the worst in the world except when you consider everything else in the world, to paraphrase Churchill.

Next thing we know he will suggest that we pool resources together to fight fires as a community.  What a jerk!