A NEW BLOG

Welcome to a new blog, Rooting for Dr. Hans. For those who arrive via my old blog, The Rohrabacher Letters, a special welcome. I appreciate your readership!

I am starting this new blog because I have found my candidate. For a few weeks now I have been observing the Democratic candidates for the OC 48 congressional seat from a distance, unsure which would be the best to vote for. One thing I know: the current Republican incumbent, to whom I have been addressing my letters, has to go. Anyone who reads this first entry might know that I have written now over 250 of them since the Trump inauguration. They have all been hand-signed, hand-addressed, and sent via the US mail to his Huntington Beach office. They have been, for the most part, respectful, every one of them reflecting individual thought and concern. I have received not a single response--except, at the start, for a handful of boilerplate position papers.

Entries in The Rohrabacher Letters have been publicized via Facebook and other social media. Brought up with a social conscience and a sense of political responsibility, I have thought of my letter campaign as a civic duty. Particularly in the dire circumstance in which we find ourselves in America today, I could not sit around and do nothing. And the thing I know how to do best is write. So I have written.

To be clear: I never flattered myself with the belief that Rohrabacher would actually read, let alone be influenced by my letters. This was not my primary purpose. Nor did I imagine that my words would reach huge numbers of people and change the minds of voters. I'm aware, sometimes painfully so, that I preach mostly to the already-converted. No, my main intention has been to remind myself of the need to remain conscious, to remain vigilant, to not allow things with which I vehemently disagree to pass unnoticed.

But... Or rather, and... for several weeks now I have been contemplating the end of The Rohrabacher Letters. More and more I have realized that the important thing right now is not to keep harping on the (glaring!) faults at the other end of the political spectrum, but rather to affirm the better alternative we Democrats have to offer. (I think it will be a big mistake, in this coming November election, to run a purely anti-Trump or, worse, an "impeach Trump" campaign. Much though I'd like to see that happen, for the emotional satisfaction, I believe that the time has come, as the old song says, to "accentuate the positive."

Which is what I heard from Dr. Hans Keirstead at the "Meet & Greet" I attended yesterday. My impression: Dr. Hans, as he's fondly referred to, is extraordinarily well-educated, extremely well-informed on a number of issues that I care about, embraces opinions and positions that I share, and is persuasive in his articulation of them. We need a man of his qualities to represent us. I will support him in every way that I know how.