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WE CAN DO BETTER
You�re going to hear me talk a lot in this campaign about bridges. I�m shareholder in an engineering firm, so the metaphor comes naturally to me.
We need to be building more and better bridges in this county and in this precinct � bridges of concrete, but also of caring and cooperation.
I was raised by family who taught me how to be a good businessman, the value of hard work, the value of money. But they also taught me, by word and deed, that there are more important things in this life than money. In fact it is those kinds of family values � a high-minded pragmatic idealism � that define the Democratic Party, at least the Democratic Party that I belong to.
That is what is in jeopardy today if our party disappears from the state, and that is what is missing from our precinct.
Of course there are good Republicans , good Independents. But in modern history, it is our party that has valued bridges and bridged values � connecting black and white, rich and poor, the hopeful and those in need of hope.
Some of you know this was a hard race for me to decide to run. But I have been blessed with examples in my life to teach that there is a time to be content, and a time to stand and be counted.
Our county commissioner is wrong when she tries to set Buda against Kyle.
She was wrong to throw out mental health programs for kids.
Wrong to say vaccinations for poor children don�t matter.
Wrong to have opposed county parks � doubly wrong to have opposed them and tried to take credit for them.
Wrong to promise to cut her own pay and then raise it dramatically.
She�s wrong to have wasted millions � millions � on roads because she could not manage them and would not cooperate with others who could.
In fact, after seven years, she has little to show; she has rarely been on the right side, and when she has �once or twice showing real courage � she�s been ineffective. Because she has spent her time blowing up bridges instead of building them.
She�s been wrong on rail, wrong on Rick Green, and wrong on being radical right�.
�. I say we can do better.
They will be shielded by the powers of cynicism, fear, and incumbency. But we can do better.
They will be reckless and passionate. But we can be passionate -- and fair. We can do better.
Si trabajamos juntos, luego unidos ganamos. I know what I�m asking of you. We�re all afraid of seeming foolish or na�ve in modern politics. But I�m asking you to leave pessimism to the other side, to be optimistic about the possibilities of government, despite all its faults. To be optimistic about the challenges that face us.
This is only a local commissioners race � and yet that�s what makes it important. I don�t know anymore if I can change the world, but I know we can save this place. This is home, the place we�re dug in. We can do better.
How we present ourselves to the world, how our traffic moves, how we plan, whether we save our creeks and make jobs, how we treat the weakest among us, how we grow � these things matter.
It�s only a local commissioners race. That�s not much and it�s everything. It�s a race about whether our party in this county survives. It�s about what kind of home we make.
We can do better. We have done better. Together, juntos, unidos, we will again.
Join me. I need your help. Check the website, it will be up next week.
Juntos ganamos.
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