At The Starting Gate

Last Thursday, I received this letter from the Office of the Secretary of State:

Dear Chief Sponsor and Candidate: 

We have reviewed the filing of candidacy by Individual Electors (form SEL 114) for the office of United States Representative, 2nd District for the 2018 General Election and find it to be complete. Your petition is approved as submitted with your indication that you will not be paying circulators.

We have approved your petition for circulation on white, 8 ½” x 11” uncoated paper, using the signature sheet template provided. Your petition number is G18-01. Any variations of the signature sheet must be approved in writing by this office prior to circulation. Prior to circulating any sheets, you must review with circulators the legal requirements and guidelines for circulating candidate nominating petitions. You must also monitor circulator activities to ensure compliance. 

The completed nominating petition must contain at least 3,942 valid signatures. Each petition signer must be an active registered voter in Congressional District 2 at the time of signing the petition. 

The signature sheets may be submitted to this office for verification no sooner than May 30, 2018, and no later than 5:00 pm on August 28, 2018. However, signatures must be submitted in sufficient time to allow our office to complete the signature verification process prior to the August 28, 2018, deadline. We recommend that the signatures be submitted to our office no later than August 14, 2018. If you have any questions, please contact me at (503) 986-1518. 

That afternoon, I picked up a friend at Portland Airport and we discussed some campaign strategy on our drive back to the Columbia Gorge.  In a nutshell, our goal is to add value to the discussion of what our government can do with shared resources.  

We believe that we can approach a campaign with civility and ensure that the priorities of the voters are heard.  We recognize that the odds of a non-partisan candidate making the ballot without any campaign donations is going to be a challenge, but we are prepared to make this happen.

For those of you who take the time to follow our campaign, I truly appreciate your time - and would like it more if you stay engaged by sharing your thoughts with us. If you believe that it is time for elected officials to represent your priorities over the priorities of the wealthiest campaign donors, than I am your candidate.  I will not be asking for any campaign donations.  

It would be helpful if you could share our message with as many of your connections as possible and help us get signatures on our petitions - and, of course, I hope over the next few months to get to know you better and earn your vote in November of 2018.