Who's Willing to Run?

If you are willing to throw your hat in the ring and be a candidate, then please let us know (more on that later). But before you do, you should take a moment to assess whether you can do a good job. Although the Constitution sets forth only a very few requirements to participate in our governance, it's just common sense that if you don't have certain basic skills, you probably shouldn't run. For example, if you don't understand the difference between a million, a billion, and a trillion, you have no business being responsible for spending those amounts of taxpayer dollars. You should be comfortable working with such large numbers, and with basic algebra so that you can manipulate the numbers and interpret the results yourself. You should also be a decent reader of English, and an adequate writer as well, because there will be a lot of reading and writing and correspondence involved in the job. You must have an active conscience, without which you won't be able to independently weigh the “goodness” and “fairness” of an idea or proposal. And you must be willing to think independently, and be totally committed to not just “follow the leader”. And not only with regard to leaders in government, but also including any other leader, such as a leader of a corporation or business organization, a leader of a church or other religious body, a leader of a family, or a leader of any other type of formal or informal organization. You must be willing and able to think for yourself, and to write and vote in accordance with your own considered views and conscience, and not be “awed” or unduly swayed by others.

Politics has a reputation of being a dirty business, full of liars and cheats and egomaniacs who will say and do literally anything, anything , to influence others, particularly a newcomer to politics. Assuming that's true, you should also be able to independently understand and assess complex information and ideas. This includes not just the information itself, but also the probable, and even the unlikely but possible, motivations of the source of the information. If not, you will be too easily fooled. And perhaps most importantly, you must be absolutely determined to resist all attempts to lure you from your duty with offers of money, or power, or sex, or threats of embarrassment, or violence, or anything else. You must be totally committed to resisting all such influences.

If you don't have these qualities, you probably shouldn't run for office. But if you do have them, then you absolutely should. In short, if you're a reasonably intelligent, ordinary “common” citizen, have an active conscience, are not easily intimidated, and are willing and able to think for yourself, you will almost certainly to a better job than a two-party politician, virtually none of whom seem to have any of those qualities.

If you will be a candidate in the upcoming election, then please let us know by sending an email to info@AmericanIndependents.org with the word "candidate" in the subject line. Please include the web address of your campaign site if you have one. If you don't have one, you can set one up quickly for free (search "free website" for options). Hopefully, a non-politician will be running for every available seat. When we spread this message and identify our candidates, we ordinary people can vote together to displace politicians in the very next election!

Independent and third party candidates running in the next general election are listed here. If there is more than one such candidate in a voting district, we have indicated the one that appears to us to be most likely to be ordinary citizens, most likely to care about their constituents, and least likely to behave like a politician, based only on freely available information. We have not researched platforms and positions, and express no further opinions or endorsements. These indicators are presented so that we who are disillusioned with party politicians can vote together for the same alternative candidate, even if that alternative doesn't express our views as closely as the party politicians'. Remember, party politicians hone their message to be as close as possible to what the most people want to hear. But they do so simply to get us to vote for them. Based on the history of two-party politicians, they seldom or never express their actual views and opinions, and they almost certainly have no intention of following through on any of the promises they make. So it doesn't matter if what they say is pretty much what we want to hear, because they never do what they say they will. So let's not worry so much about independent or third party candidates' platforms, and concentrate instead on selecting a candidate we can trust to tell us the truth, to care about us ordinary citizens, to resist the influence of special interests and party politics, and who are most likely to work hard to support our freedom and reduce our burdens. Isn't that what we really want? So let's at least concentrate our voting power as effectively as we can on the non-politician candidates indicated here, even if what they say isn't as close to what we want as what the politicians say. The truth is that in spite of that, what they will DO is almost certainly closer to what we want than what the politicians will do.

If there is no such candidate on the ballot in your voting district, and if it's possible to run as a write-in candidate, let us know if you're willing to run. We'll post your name here so voters in your district will know that a vote for you isn't just a vote for a new legislator. It's also a vote for a new, more effective congress .