Running For Office

The idea of running for office seems intimidating to many. Perhaps even financially prohibitive. But that's just not true. First of all, you wouldn't be running for president, senator, congress, or governor. That does take a fortune. Only the wealthy can afford to run for those offices and hope to win (no wonder the working class is screwed). I'm talking about low-level offices. School board, city council, county board of supervisors, registrar of voters, county clerk, and similar type positions. The type of offices that most people vote the straight Mo ticket. You know, eeney meeney, miney, mo. Indeed, many of those who run for these offices often run unopposed.

Most of your higher offices have a filing fee which can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the office, and which state, county or city it's in. Naturally, the filing fee would be considerably more to run for mayor of Los Angeles than for say, Laurens, SC.
Besides, when it comes to a major metropolis, like say Chicago, do any of you think you have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Rahm Emmanuel? Even city council of New York City, San Fransisco are also long shots for us, and probably a little pricey. How could we hope to compete with the big businessmen who tend to run for these offices? Businessmen love to sit on city councils. That way they can manipulate new laws to favour their businesses.

The kind of offices we will be running for usually have NO filing fee.

No comrades, we have to set our sights realistically, which means low. For example, when I ran for school board, it only cost a couple hundred dollars to print up a bunch of signs, and I made flyers on my computer and then xeroxed them for just a few bucks. Alright, I didn't win, but the other four candidates didn't do anymore than signs and flyers either. I also did not have to pay a filing fee.

Anyone who decides to take this challenge won't be out there alone. The ANP has it's own Political Advisory Board. Two of it's members are our two most experienced comrades: Chairman Suhayda, and Political Adviser Bowles. Chairman Suhayda has been an activist since the late 60's, and Comrade Bowles has been one almost as long. That's a lot of experience. If I had had their guidance last year, I probably would have won, especially when you consider that five people were running for TWO seats, not one. Believe me, next time, we will be working closely together. I hope to have some discussions with them on this matter this summer at Laurens.

Here's something else to consider. Many of us are out-of-work because of the economy. Political offices pay a salary. How much depends of which office, and where it is located. If you ran and won, you would not only be helping your Folk, but you'd be earning extra money, maybe even a whole living while doing it.

Some of you may be asking, "I don't know how to get started." That's what the Advisory Board is for. They can help you not only get started, but they can help you through all the paperwork, and then assist you with your campaign. Naturally, if you're running unopposed, you won't need to campaign. Just don't forget to vote for yourself. You never know. If no one votes for you, and you don't vote for you, even though you ran unopposed, you don't win. Of course, most jurisdictions require even someone who is running unopposed to receive a minimum number of votes or the election must be done over. But what if you failed to vote for yourself, and you missed the minumum by just one vote? You'd be kicking yourself. It could happen. Back in the 1780's, Congress voted on whether to keep English as our language, or switch to German. English won by a single vote, so it could happen.

You can even start right now on your own. Call your county registrar of voters and get their web address. Then look up which offices will be coming up for election, and consider those that interest you. You can then learn what you need to do to register, and all the documents you'll need to apply. Registration won't begin until a certain date, which will be on their website. As the time nears, contact our Political Advisory Board for guidance.

Comrades, outdoor public rallies and marches are a complete waste of time. Distributing literature only helps to a certain point. We MUST start running for offices. Last year there were three ANP candidates and one NSM candidate. Only one ANP candidate won. The other two, plus the NSM candidate (the late Jeff Hall) , although we didn't win, we all received enough votes so that our loss was respectable, and not a humiliation. Our time has come again. Once we start winning offices, it will also help our membership. If the lone wolves see that we actually have a chance at winning, more of them will get off their butts and get involved.

The time is now! Let's not waste it. Besides, 2012 is a presidential election year. More people vote in presidential elections than in any other. This could be our year, but only if some of you have the courage to run. Remember, you don't have to run openly. These low-level offices are all non-partisan. You can "officially" run as an Independent. Your secrecy will be preserved, so you won't have to worry about being outed. Our one victory last year is serving under the radar.
You can too. But you still must have the guts to run. How about it? We need you.

Dan 88!