Our grassroots strategy

I must reiterate that our goal is to evolve our country's governing processes. We must do so peacefully from within the system. Any type of violent action would be unacceptable and counterproductive. We do not want nor would we support in any way riots, intimidation, or any other form of violence. We are nonviolent. We are not revolutionaries. We The People are citizens who believe that solving one issue at a time with collective intelligence in a Collaborative Democracy would be the most effective governing process. As the owners of government, we wish to be the collective governing rulers and we must behave as we expect good rulers to behave. We must demonstrate the values of our cause including non-partisan collective intelligence and lawful actions.

Forming a political party would not accomplish our goal. Obtaining a majority of the voters in three-fourths of the states would be an impossible task for a new political party using the standard political advertising approach without the support of the media. As has been demonstrated in every Presidential election where a third party candidate ran, the media completely ignored the third party candidate. [6] John Stewart illustrated it well in a show of his in 2012 about the 2012 election coverage and the snubbing of Ron Paul by the major networks. The episode is both humorous and eye opening. If you wish to check it out, enter qrgo.page.link/tJGiE in your browser.       

Part of Ron Paul's vulnerability to cancellation was his acceptance of the rules of the traditional political game. We can't win the traditional game either. Promoting our cause as a new political party would be a disadvantage because a "party" represents a different concept to voters than a "movement." The framework of a political party creates the assumption of an ideological political platform that competes with those of the major parties. A movement to do away with political parties could be confusing as a platform of a political party.

Many voters might not be interested in a new political party. Voters would assume a new party was just one more third party along with the current 209 state-level ballot-qualified political parties, making it harder to differentiate our message. They could write off our message before they even heard what the party stood for, making it harder to get their attention.

Trying to place candidates on the ballots of every state would take much more time, effort, and cost to comply with the regulations of each state. It can take 14 months in advance of an election to get a name on a ballot if you are not a major political party. Due to the costs and the difficulties, the Libertarian Party is only recognized in 33 states, the Green Party in 17 states, and the Constitution Party in 12. However, even though a political party would be of little advantage and would waste time and resources, it may be necessary for legal reasons in a few states. But a political party would not be a successful strategy.

Our best option is to use write-in candidates. A number of states have ballot access laws that are so oppressive that no third party candidates have ever qualified to be on their ballots. However, all of those states allow write-in candidates with no fees or petition signatures required. Only six states do not allow write-in candidates for Congress. We do not need those states to win enough legislators in the national or state elections. Regardless, we would probably register as a political party in those six states to put our candidates on their ballots to elect as many legislators as possible. [7]

A grassroots approach is our best strategy

The most viable plan is to create a grassroots tidal wave of voters who write in our candidates for their voting districts and for the President on their ballots.

I actually participated in such a write-in campaign in 1982 that was successful. [8] Ron Packard ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives in a Southern California district. However, he lost the nomination in the Republican Primary by less than 100 votes out of around 80,000 cast. Johnnie Crean, the winner, spent over $750,000 on advertising in the primary, which was a massive amount at the time for a seat in the House.

Packard organized a substantial person-to-person phone campaign promoting him as a write-in candidate. (There was no internet or social media at the time. Email was a new thing and few people had email or the email address of anyone else. Telemarketing was rare so people still answered their phones.)

The Republican Party put tremendous pressure on him to end his bid. But he refused. He won the general election with 37% of the vote. The Democratic candidate received 32% and Crean received 31%. Because of the grassroots campaign, Packard was elected to Congress as a write-in candidate where he continued to serve for 18 years.

Packard's numbers illustrate our strategy. Packard took voters from both parties to get just enough to win. We must do the same and a grassroots movement is the way to do it.

Our grassroots plan

Write-in candidates would be less complicated and less expensive than a political party campaign and are our only practical option. Our four-step plan is very simple and straightforward.

1. Spread the word. We will promote our book as free on our website or available on Amazon. We will provide videos on our website containing the same content as the book. Our marketing will include advertising on social media, using influencers, and promoting PR. We are building a pilot Citizen Governance Website through donations to help generate interest and secure followers as well.

2. Develop a list of supporters. We will request and encourage those who support our cause who would vote for our candidates to sign up for notifications on our website. They will enter their email address and phone number (for text messages only) and the zip code where they live and vote.

3. Develop a list of candidates. We will develop a list of candidates for each voting district, selecting candidates from among volunteer supporters in the district who are qualified.

4. Send messages when it's time to vote. Using the contact information and zip codes on our list, we will know how many supporters we have in each voting district. We will not bother people with voting until we have enough supporters to accomplish our task. There is no advantage to voting before we know we can win.

Starting in 2024 or when our voter base is sufficient, we will notify our supporters of the election along with each office on their ballot for which we have a state legislator or congressional candidate. We will include the bios of the candidates and ask them to verify their intent to vote for each one. They can click on a link in the message to go to our website to verify.

Before the election, we will send them the exact name to write in on the ballot for each office. We will include a picture of the ballot with the name entered to make it as clear and simple as possible. There would be a maximum of 5 names to write in per ballot, two legislators for their state, two for Congress, and one for the President. As we would have confirmed the number of voters, we could validate the reported vote counts after the election.

We would not need to spend millions of advertising dollars promoting candidates or a spokesperson for our cause. Without advertising specific candidates, we might catch the power elite and the major parties off guard. With luck, we will not be seen as a legitimate threat until after the fact when the votes are counted. Moreover, we will not compete until we have enough votes committed for our candidates in enough districts. This simple, clandestine plan would prevent the major political parties from running any negative advertising against a specific candidate before the election. Their negative propaganda could only be focused on our central message and our movement as a whole, assuming they deem it a threat at all. Negative propaganda could backfire for them, advertising our cause to those who were not aware of it. My guess is that they will spend their efforts and money on opposing the other major party and tell the media to treat us as a joke, allowing us to operate in stealth mode.

No effort on your part

Accordingly, we will not ask you to solicit voters or approach strangers. No phone calls, emails, canvassing, petitions, or the other standard political tasks of supporters. (However, we would love it if you referred our book to your family and friends.)

You would not have to accept a new ideology. You can keep all of your own beliefs. You do not need to trust us to rule you as you do the political parties. Our goal is to empower you and the rest of us to solve the issues together.

All we ask is for your email address and your voting zip code. You don't have to take any special action except to write in the candidates we send you and it will be your choice to do so at the time. We won't ask you until we know that your vote will be worthwhile and not wasted on a "third party" candidate.

A new, different grassroots strategy

Our claims about politics are common knowledge. We wouldn't need to prove them or provide references or experts. It wouldn't be a debate. Most people are not fools. They understand what is going on in Washington. They just haven't had a viable alternative. The more the politicians, the media, and "experts" objected to our movement, the more curious and then determined the people might become.

This could be the most massive, grassroots political marketing campaign ever imagined. Its stealth and uniqueness will be a marketing advantage. I believe that ending politics is something that almost everyone could get behind. Being anti-political and solution-oriented could become the trend.

I cannot predict how long it would take to obtain enough voting supporters to win the necessary seats in the legislatures of the states and Congress. In the worst case, I believe that every new generation will have a greater desire to be free and to participate in governing themselves. The indoctrination of automatic respect and compliance to the control of hierarchy and politicians has decreased with each generation. Gen-Z and the millennials are much less indoctrinated than older citizens are as a whole.

I assume the number of supporters will continue to grow over time as illustrated in Figure 17-3. Once we pass the tipping point of about 10% of those who vote or about 15 million supporters in the US, the number of supporters should increase more rapidly to the 62 million or 1 in four adults that we need to pass the amendment. [9] Once we know that we have enough supporters in enough districts to elect sufficient members to state legislatures and to Congress, we will participate in every election until the amendment is passed.

We will know exactly how well our movement is doing by the number of US supporters who sign up on our website, allowing us to monitor the curve of supporters shown in Figure 17-3. If we cannot get enough people to pre-vote for our Collaborative Democracy by giving us their contact information and the curve levels off, then there would be no need to participate in any election. It would be a waste of time and money. Therefore, our movement will validate itself through your advance vote by signing up for notifications of our candidates, or it will fail. If you are ready, please sign up for candidate notifications on our website at EndPoliticsNow.com/notify-me.

Figure 17-3

A candidate contract

Currently, the President is elected by the Electoral College, not by the citizens. Electors are appointed by the two major political parties. To become an elector, the political party requires the elector to pledge to support that party's presidential nominee. A party's right to require a pledge of loyalty before appointing an elector was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 1952 case. [10]

Using the same concept, we will create a contract wherein the write-in candidate that we support agrees in writing to support the amendment and for all laws required to implement our changes. If they violated the agreement, we would replace them in the next election.