JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Important Open Discussion for 2006 and Beyond: Please Chime In!

I think this discussion has been helpful to get some topics out. It seems to me that the "tool" of having a slate of representatives in each congressional district to utilize politically is something we need to create. I am not sure how we match that with the chapter program and perhaps they are really 2 separate things.

The challenge, of course, would be to find 435 JPF Reps to mirror the Congressional Districts. That means mobilizing well over 1% of our membership to get actively involved at a much higher level than the average member and on a voluntary basis. The question is if that is even possible?

So have emailed me off line saying that perhaps this project could turn into an actual independent political party in the future. Though there are all sorts of fun ideas that could spring out of that, if we do something like that, then we won't get any support or cooperation from either of the two main parties and I am not sure what good it could do. I've actually considered getting involved personally as a State Rep or State Senator here in Indiana, but as an independent, it's a gigantic financial uphill battle. Frankly, I wish we didn't have parties and only slates of candidate names. I think then folks could make decisions based on what was right for their constituents instead of blindly following 1 party. What really stinks is that even when Republicans and Democrats agree on issues, they feel compelled to be against whatever the other party favors for solely political reasons. My optimistic hope is that a group like us, at least on our small number of issues, can be the bridge between the two so instead of agreeing with each other, they are agreeing with us little guys in the grassroots community.

Brian