15,241 Votes for Freedom

03. Nov, 2010 Categories: Events by Jake Towne 25 Comments

Without new ideas during times of peril, societies stagnate and often decline. During the collapse of the Roman empire, the time intervals between emperors shrank and shrank without change to the underlying corruption until its collapse. The elections of 2008 with the Democrats’ theme of “Change!” and 2010 GOP theme of, well, “We’re not Democrats” have the same overall feel about them as this quote from Quigley a few decades ago and short video:

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy…. Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.” – Carroll Quigley, from Tragedy and Hope

From the not-yet-100%-official results from the state elections board, 15,241 votes were cast in favor of freedom in the district yesterday, for about 8% of the total. I suppose the bad news (and sorry to be blunt) is this means 92% of the votes were cast for more debt, war, taxes and reckless government spending.

The volunteers have all my thanks, for without them, there would simply be no campaign. Close to 70 volunteers staffed many of the major polling stations for the day, and at most reported the GOP or Dem workers were not present – or got cold or left after several hours. Also, many thanks to the owner of Pies On Pizzeria in Catasauqua for holding the Victory Party, the place was packed! I am very humbled by all the support from voters, volunteers, and the 1,019+ donors who backed the campaign. You are all my heroes/heroines.

In regards to my own personal plans, I am going to take a short rest and am not making any commitment at this time. It has been a huge personal sacrifice to place a halt on my personal and professional life and spend 18 months campaigning full-time, though I am well aware it pales in comparison to the sacrifices others have made to defend liberty. At this point I’ll just say please keep your yard signs for now. If you pick up any from the roads, I’ll collect them to recycle as the stakes save some money for the next liberty candidate to run, whether it is myself or someone else.

My email and Facebook accounts have been swamped with notes from supporters, but this one was perhaps the highest compliment received for the campaign from a voter in the district:

“Reviewing the election results…, I came to the truth that the only vote I cast that really mattered was for you.“

That Freedom Shall Not Perish.

Jake

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

“Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

“And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost