Van Os for Texas Attorney General :: In David's Own Words: February 2007

ELECT THE PEOPLE'S LAWYER: David Van Os, Democrat for Texas Attorney General

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Monday, February 12, 2007

Dare to Believe and Dare to Win

A good friend of mine lamented, "Even a politician with the very best intentions has to compromise integrity to the almighty dollar."

This is what the elitists of the Consultant & Donor Party WANT us to think.

It is NOT necessary to compromise integrity for the almighty dollar. I reject that premise.

Let us together reject the premise that the exercise of self-government has to entail inevitably the compromise of integrity. Let us all reject it, dear friends. Every moment in which we accept the premise that loss of integrity is inevitable, another citizen gives up on democracy because he or she cannot find reason to hope that the ideals of honest citizen self-government are achievable.

It was not fatalism or cynicism that motivated the revolutionaries of 1776 to believe in the impossible hope of defeating the Empire of Great Britain. They took on such a logically impossible venture because they were inflamed with their incredible twin vision of government by the consent of the governed, in a society that existed to further the universal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They accepted impossible odds because they believed in their dream, not just as a dream, but as achievable reality.

What do we owe both our legacy and our posterity, if not to discard cynicism, and to offer our hearts to dream that monumental dream, and to believe in its possibilities the way uncounted numbers of quiet unsung patriots down through the years have dreamed and believed?

Dare to dream it. Dare to believe in it. Dare to speak for it. Dare to fight for it. Dare to achieve it.

posted by snarko! at 10:26 AM |

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Open Letter to Nassar of Texas Blue

[also published on Texas Blue, in response to On Running Races and Pointing Fingers]

Mr. Nassar,

You are so obsessed with trashing me it seems you are not capable of hearing anything that is contrary to your formula.

The state rep candidates you mention were some of the targeted races. So of course they would have a different perspective.

That is just one example of how you mix up all the metaphors and comparators to support your objective.

Another example of how you mix up contexts is trashing me because I didn't jump in everybody's face at a rally bugging them for money. Ordinary people are thoroughly turned off with politicians hitting them up for money every time they turn around. Sure, I told people who talked to me at rallies, when they said they wished they could contribute more, "that's OK, don't worry about it, I'm not here to ask you for money, I'm here to fight the robber barons for you."

And sure, when wannabe political operative snobs like you came up to me to cross-examine me about how could I expect to win without more money, I said things like, "I'd like to raise more money but I'll win without it if I have to."

And when people asked me to rate myself as to my chances to win, I declined to do so. I might have even said, it's not about winning, it's about fighting. Why would I say that?

Because you for sure can't win if you don't fight. And because, Democrats need to stop being oddsmakers in relation to themselves. Nobody ever goes into a fight knowing for sure if they're going to win or not. Worrying about winning makes you too cautious. Like a basketball team that starts watching the scoreboard instead of focusing on making the shots. You fight the fight, one move at a time, one step at a time, one day at a time. Ask any sports coach.

The culture of defeatism that you, Mr. Nassar, and the consultants and bean-counters that you aspire to be one of, keep ramming down Democrats' throats is a philosophy that is afraid to win because it is afraid to fight unless you think you can control the outcome in advance with your bean counting. Trust me, Mr. Nassar, the ordinary people out there, outside the tiny little political operative box that you operate in, are fed up and disgusted with that whole attitude of elitist control. They see and they know the political world is run as an insiders private clique. I've been out there, Mr. Nassar; I've listened and I've heard. Have you? I don't think so.

Buddy, you haven't come close to walking in my moccasins, and I have earned the right to be heard. You have come nowhere near earning the chips to put me down. Not even close.

The real deal is this. You don't like me because I reject the formulae and scripts of the political operatives that you aspire to be one of someday when you grow up. It threatens your career ladder plans. Admit it.

Admit it, or come out from behind your keyboard and debate me publicly. I'll come to Denton to do it. Well, are you ready?

David Van Os

HEAR MORE ON THE TOPIC IN THE DVO INTERVIEW ON TEXAS BLUE >>

posted by snarko! at 1:35 PM |

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