I would like to follow up on my previous post in which I wrote of the virtues of grassroots campaigning.  Now, I would like to get into specifics.  All too often, politicians speak in fluffy generalities and vague, feel-good non-statements.  But Joe Bologna is not a politician.  And I would like to explain to you exactly how Joe Bologna is going about his grassroots campaign.

The core of it all is talking to voters face-to-face.  To do this, Joe is going door-to-door in precincts and neighborhoods across Escondido.  He walks up to voters' doors, tells why he's there, and, if the voter is interested, will discuss the tough issues facing Escondido and why you should elect Joe the mayor this November.  Our campaign may not have much money, but Joe Bologna is pounding the pavement every day, talking to voters, and spreading his message of fiscal responsibility and a government that listens to the people.

In addition to Joe walking the streets, he is getting invaluable help from volunteers who are also knocking on doors and spreading the word.  It would be physically impossible for Joe Bologna all by himself to get to every house in Escondido.  But if we have enough volunteers ... anything is possible.  And our volunteer team is growing all the time.

This is what Joe Bologna's campaign is doing.  We may not have the big bucks in this race, but we have the energy -- and we will have the voter support.

The North County Times recently released the latest fundraising totals for Joe Bologna's competition in the mayor's race.  The numbers were astounding.  The race for Escondido's next mayor is breaking all fundraising records.  It's just one more sign of how important money has become in American politics.  No matter the race, no matter at what level of government, our elections have become about who can get the most money in the shortest amount of time.

This is not what elections should be about.  The extreme focus of modern campaigns on money, money, money takes the focus of the candidates and the electorate away from the issues and the multiple crises that face us in this day and age.  But most of all, money depersonalizes politics.  If campaigns are about fundraising they can't be about people.  And it is the people of Escondido who the candidates running for office in Escondido should pay attention to.  Joe Bologna believes this, and so do I.

The focus on money allows campaigns to obscure, obfuscate, and even downright lie about the issues that the people care about.  They will "promise you anything you wanna hear, to win the crowd [they]'re chasing!  [They] spend billions of dollars to make [their] point clear!"  The vast amounts of money infecting our electoral system cheapen the American right to vote.  And it inevitably leads to pandering, elitism, and inauthenticity to the point where our elections seem more designed to entertain us than save American from the hole we've fallen into.

Contrast this to when a candidate leads a true grassroots campaign.  When candidates put themselves forward to be elected to public office, and they go out to the people, candidates cannot avoid authenticity.  Voters who examine candidates face-to-face can tell the truth from the falsehoods.  When candidates put people first before the election, you know they will put people first afterwards.

Joe Bologna is running a grassroots campaign.  He will be outspent ten-to-one by his opponents.  But is going out there and speaking to voters face-to-face.  Joe Bologna is putting people first in his campaign for mayor.  He knows he is at a disadvantage when it comes to sending out mailers and advertisements.  He is refusing to focus on gathering all the cash possible.  Joe is convinced that the people of Escondido will have the final say -- not money.  His belief is firmly stated: "I will not buy this election."  And Escondido will be better off for it.

I believe most politicians are basically good people.  Their incentives may be wrong.  And they may be contributing to policy that is leading to the slow decay of our form of government.  But the individuals themselves are (for the most part) intending to do good.  However, all too often the politicians of today make the unfortunate mistake of believing themselves to know better than the voters.  And so they become wary.  They don't say what they really think.  They say one thing to one group and another thing to a different group.  They attempt to manipulate voters instead of presenting who they really are and what they really believe.  No one can say this doesn't happen.  It happens so much we've become accustomed to it, and surprised (even offended) when it doesn't.  In a word, it's called politics.

How does this happen?  When politicians decide they are better suited to decide who becomes the next senator, or congressman, or mayor, they attempt to "fool" voters into electing someone the voter may not actually want.  So the politician, knowing the voter wouldn't voter for him or her if the voter knew everything about the politician, attempts to only reveal a part of the whole picture.  The politician panders, and waffles, and even outright lies sometimes.  He or she figures out which way the wind is blowing and runs in that direction as fast as possible.

We have become so accustomed to this model of the "public servant" that we expect, when a politician is truly "honest," only ambition, narcissism, and greed will be revealed, as the following video shows.

But is this really all that we can hope for?  NO!  Especially not in local elections, where there are many good people who truly care about their homes and their community.  What we need are for the regular citizens to step up against the career politicians so that we can have a government that truly represents the people once again.  And in Escondido, that's what has happened.


Joe Bologna is a regular citizen, which a wife and three (almost) grown children.  He has owned a business in Escondido for the better part of twenty years.  And he's lived here for thirty.  Joe knows and loves this city as much as anyone ever could.  And that is why he is running for Mayor of Escondido.  Because we need someone to step up.  A vote for Joe for Mayor is not only a vote for the future of Escondido, it's a vote against the pandering, waffling, ambitious, career politicians that have managed to infiltrate every level of American government.

With the hotel deal recently passed, and water subsidies coming up as an issue, I think it is useful to discuss the core issue in each of these controversies: government subsidies.  Proponents of subsidies maintain that government can promote growth or socially beneficial  projects through government funds.  Critics of subsidies question the usefulness of giving taxpayer dollars to private businesses or the process of choosing the winners and losers in business competition.

Ultimately, though, both sides of the subsidy debate agree that the purpose of subsidies is to manipulate the market to conform to the designs of planning officials in either the local, state, or federal government.  And it is in this that the true problem with subsidies resides.  When government decides which businesses are successful and which fail, that choice is taken out of the hands of regular citizens.  When the man on the street walks into a McDonalds, or a Walmart, or a Starbucks, by purchasing their product this person is casting a vote for that venue to remain and/or expand.  Subsidies take this choice away from the vast majority of people and put it into the hands of a few officials or city staff.

In addition to this, by determining the success of certain businesses at the expense of others, government perverts the supply of goods and services so that this supply no longer matches the real demand for goods and services.  Some businesses succeed that should not succeed, and others cannot provide services that people really want.  This system of subsidies then becomes entrenched and calcified, as the end to the subsidies means the failure of these businesses and, en masse, an economic recession.  Whether government is manipulating the local farm industry or interest rates and monetary policy at the federal level, subsidies can cause significant problems to our country's economic well-being.

The following is a useful video that explains the issues at stake much better than I ever could:

The number one question I get when I tell voters about Joe is: Do you really think he can win?  Can Joe Bologna, who is not part of the Escondido political machine, beat the establishment candidates and fix what's really wrong with our city government?  And such questions make a legitimate point.  Joe is the underdog in this race for mayor.  He doesn't have lots of money from special interests and out-of-town developers.  He doesn't have the support of the downtown business establishment.  And yet I remind these voters that it is not the downtown business establishment that has the final say in who becomes Escondido's next mayor.  It's not the political machine that ultimately picks from among the various candidates.  It's YOU.  You, the voter, are the one who chooses who will be on our city council, and you, the hard-working Escondido resident , can choose someone other that the machine's choice.  It's up to you.  So when people ask me if Joe can win I say, Yes, if we have your help.

We need to get the word out (and we are).  We need volunteers to go door-to-door (and people are already stepping up). We need donations to be able to afford supplies (and we realize times are tough).  This is how we will really make a difference here.

And when the election is over, and the ballots are counted, what we are doing here will not end.  We are working as hard as we are in order to revitalize Escondido.  We want our city to be restored to its former place of preeminence in the region.  The city council over the past decade has done a great job of incredibly mismanaging our city.  But we can bring Escondido back to where it was before, and not only to where it was before; we'll make Escondido better and stronger than we were going into this crisis.  We can do it, with your help.

The Declaration of Independence was written by a man whose passion and ideals we seek to uphold to this day.  Thomas Jefferson believed in individual potential, he believed in liberty, and he believed in the capacity of the human spirit to do good without having to be forced to do so by any external, coercive authority.  These are basic American values that have survives for over two centuries, and indeed, proven themselves over and over again.  Yet while such ideals may have remained in the hearts of Americans, all too often they have been lost within the bowels of government bureaucracies and the labyrinth of legislation impose by the "leaders" of this country.  And it is therefore wise to remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, enshrined within the Declaration of Independence:

• "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

We can, as a people, survive the problems we face today, and not only survive, but emerge better and stronger than we ever were before.  To do this though, we must remember another of Jefferson's convictions – the most important level of government is the local level.  Democracy isn't what exists in the meetings at a lobbyist's office or the memos sent between various executive agencies.  Democracy is what exists when a group of people in a community get together to discuss who to vote for on election day.  Or when a working parent with bill to pay attends a city council because they care about their community.  Local democracy is true democracy, where every citizen has a voice (or every citizen should have a voice) and government can reflect the wishes of the people.

So when we go about fixing the problems that America is facing today we need to start by fixing democracy at the local level.  This is an area of government where each of us can make a real difference.  And the problems local government faces aren't small, they are manifestations of the same issues facing the state and federal levels.  Here is Escondido we are facing recurring budget deficits, wasteful spending of money we don't have, high taxes and fees, choked out businesses, myopic city officials, copious red tape; and they pretend everything is alright.  This is what we can fix – here and now.

This campaign for Joe Bologna for Mayor is seeking to provide a means for people to take action to solve the problems in our community and the problems in our country.  Joe is a citizen who has offered forth his name to give people a chance to remake our city government.  Joe Bologna, like Thomas Jefferson, believes in the goodness and wisdom of average, everyday, working people.  And he strongly feels that our city government needs to represent these people instead of their own interests.

In the next four months (election day is on November 2nd), Joe will be talking to people in the neighborhoods and on the streets of Escondido.  He will be going door-to-door, house-to-house, to talk to the people who can make democracy work, the young, the old, those who are working, and those who are unemployed due to the policies emblematic of a corrupted system.  And Joe needs you.  Democracy is about people getting involved in their community.  And democracy in November will be about people getting involved to take our government back from those who have thrown us into this crisis, and continue to do the same things that brought us to this point.

In this blog I will keep you updated on what is happening in the campaign.  I will be posting every Monday or so, and will discuss how things went in the previous week, and anything we have planned in the week/s to come.  I will also occasionally post video I think are relevant or at least interesting.  Feel free to comment or contact us on the Contact Us page.  The internet is a fantastic tool for people to communicate and discuss and plan how to better our community.  And that is truly the core of American democracy.  Websites and blogs didn't exist in 1776, but I'm sure Thomas Jefferson would have loved them.