Dave Jarvis for Senate

Tag: life

  • Dave Jarvis’s Strategy for Winning

    Dave Jarvis’s Strategy for Winning

    I am not stupid.

    I recognize that not having raised money, not putting up signs, not having a huge group of organized followers, and not having official campaign staff can look a lot like I am not actually running a real campaign for Senate.

    But what it looks like and what it actually is are two different things.

    I am running a campaign designed to give me the best chance to win the general election and become the next senator from New Hampshire.

    Being 100% genuine about who I am, my ideals, and what I feel comfortable with as a person serves three purposes.

    First, and most important, I am being true to myself.

    That is how we are supposed to live life anyway.

    I don’t believe anyone can or should serve others if their first task is to become a different person.

    Begging for money is not something I feel comfortable with. Nor is prostituting my ideals for political purposes.

    Second, it is one of the primary tenets of leadership.

    We can’t lead anyone or build any meaningful level of trust when we negotiate with our inner compass.

    To lead, to be a good statesman, and to build trust and hope in others, we need to provide complete and unadulterated transparency.

    Doing so functions like an invitation, a mandate, and a statement of principles to others. People respond to it. And when we are genuine with one another, our interpersonal relationships become much stronger.

    We begin to rebuild trust in society.

    At no cost, I have worked very hard to provide you with the best actionable ideas I can, along with my general outlook on the future, our challenges, and our opportunities. I have been open and honest. I don’t believe I have overpromised.

    And most importantly, I have repeatedly assured you that the future depends on you much more than it will depend on any politician, including me.

    If we can trust each other and promote good ideas, and if we can work together to implement them with the Almighty as our guide, we will unleash the real power of America.

    The American unity and drive that has appeared at difficult moments in history, our powerful Union, recreates the world, turns nightmares into dreams, and gives direction to everyone.

    It’s what we do.

    Third, not having raised money and just being me is a great tactical position.

    Twenty million dollars. Forty million dollars. Whatever the sum, there is not enough money in the world to break a person who hasn’t compromised themselves.

    Currently, I am a fifty-seven-year-old, divorced and single rideshare driver. My sense of humor and love of adventure would love nothing more than John Sununu and the entire Republican establishment using their tens of millions of dollars on trying to destroy my life.

    It’s the life equivalent of a swan dive off a high ocean cliff. I’ll be scared, but I will love every minute of it.

    Either way, for no charge at all, I will continue to say what I think, and I’ll trust in something I believe is primordial in the world of ideas:

    Honesty. Passion. Transparency. They create miracles.

    They resemble nature in that they can take good ideas and multiply them throughout society.

    So yes, I am changing the world right now. I don’t doubt it for a second.

    I am already leading this election.

    I am already changing hearts and minds.

    I am leading you.

    In this difficult moment for our country, I am leading you.

    And I am challenging you to remember who you are.

    I am challenging you to drop the cynicism about the future.

    I am calling you out.

    Be yourself.

    Trust your own judgment.

    Attack the future passionately, with hope and faith in God and yourself.

    And burn the damn bridge behind you.

    There is nothing to go back to.

    Only forward.

  • Just Vote Dammit

    Just Vote Dammit

    America has lost confidence over the years.

    You have lost confidence.

    That is something I have learned over the past few months of trying to run a campaign for Senate while remaining true to myself and to my soul. I have learned that Americans are much slower to trust their own judgment than they used to be. And if they had that confidence in themselves, they wouldn’t be looking to politicians to resolve all of their problems.

    Americans invented off-grid living. Americans invented the tiny house. But somehow we lack the confidence in ourselves to take these ideas and turn them into what they could become: a true social revolution that could bring extremely affordable options and the promise of a better life to so many of us who have been broken over the years.

    We lack confidence in our votes. We become cynical at the idea that the hopes we express through our votes will have any real effect at the polls.

    And we do this while a tiny fraction of our population run roughshod over the American people and their dreams.

    I don’t mind that Karishma Manzur considers herself a Socialist. I become concerned when I hear words that suggest she may not fully understand economics or the moment our nation is in.

    I don’t mind Chris Pappas’s openly gay relationship at all. I mind him sitting by and watching silently while his political donors attempt to exterminate another population.

    I believe I am the best qualified candidate for this particular moment, not because I am generally the most qualified person in New Hampshire, but because I put my name on the ballot.

    I have a good mind. I have good judgment. I understand history, economics, and technology. I believe those things matter enormously right now. Most importantly, I am willing to like and dialogue with anyone, anywhere, any time.

    I am not rich. I don’t particularly want to be rich.

    I am not a very good campaigner. I admit that.

    I don’t want to beg for money. It makes me feel sick. And watching others turn the democratic process in New Hampshire into a game of high-stakes poker enrages me.

    I believe in ideas.

    My website is filling up with good ideas. I am doing my job.

    If the democratic process in New Hampshire were a little more pure, and if the habit of reading hadn’t fallen out of favor, I believe that would be obvious.

    If you think allowing abortion until birth is a good idea, and you are willing to set our country on a collision course with the religious right, don’t vote for me.

    But if you believe we can put reasonable restrictions on late-term abortion, value human life, and take abortion away from political opportunists like Donald Trump, please consider this:

    It is not that difficult.

    Just vote.

    A truly beautiful future awaits us. But it only belongs to those who believe in themselves and who believe in democracy itself.

    If you have given up on democracy, if you have given up on your own vote, if you have given up on the belief that you have the ability to dictate your own future, the conversation ends.

    And we go primal.

    We have always had violence as a second option. And there are many people chomping at the bit for that moment to return.

    You can feel it in the air.

    Either way, I have already won this election. I learned to believe in myself again, after a long hiatus. I lost weight. I got all those worries about our country out of my subconscious and into the public eye. And my soul feels lighter, much happier.

    But I worry about you. And I pray for you.

    America, you have become far too cynical.

    And make no mistake: Cynicism is death, one way or another.

    So just vote your heart.

    Vote your mind.

    Vote, dammit.

    Be the dream our country was founded on.

  • Our Beautiful Future: Tiny Houses

    The first automobile was created in the mid-1880s. For two and a half decades, human beings were aware of them. We thought they were quaint, interesting, a curiosity. But we preferred horses. We spent a quarter century walking through horseshit before the idea of the automobile finally started to take hold.

    It was the leadership of Henry Ford that took the world somewhere new. The automobile revolutionized life itself and dramatically transformed the economy. Speed and range of movement became principles of modern society, driving our world to new heights.

    For the last twenty-five years, the ingenuity of everyday Americans dissatisfied with the cost of housing has driven Tiny House design to amazing levels. We all scroll through pictures of them when we feel hopeless, allowing ourselves moments of inspiration and dreams of something different. We see and feel their potential, but we wait at the gates for the idea to manure. Excuse me, I meant to say “for the idea to mature.”

    My opponents in the Senate primary are suggesting breaking ground on millions of new homes to resolve the current housing affordability problem. They show little concern for the environmental consequences. They don’t dive very deeply into the cost of construction and, therefore, the cost of that new housing. And they never touch on the real potential size of the problem.

    It could reach into the tens of millions.

    They want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

    Tiny Houses are the kind of technology that, if they were readily available today, if financing were available, and if government simply got out of the way by changing zoning laws to support them, could explode faster than traditional construction ever could. Thus, reducing housing costs much faster.

    And if Tiny Houses were within reach of the average person, the way the Model T eventually became, they could immediately provide hope, inspiration, and the possibility of a different life to an expanding part of our population, people who currently see very little hope and act accordingly.

    Thoughts of Tiny Houses elicit dreams of the ocean, the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, the desert, the heartland. Open skies. Gazing at the stars. Freedom of movement. Travel. Financial manageability.

    And then all the other dreams that people stuff down inside themselves when they spend their whole lives trying to pay a rent bill. The music, the art, the hobbies, the passions.

    Tiny Houses change the way the mind works.

    They very quickly and effectively put a new American Dream back into our heads. They give direction to the soul: exploration, adventure, and fun.

    It’s my dream, whether I win this race or not. Whether I win a billion dollars in the Powerball or not.

    I want the open sky.

    I want the beach.

    I want all of America.

    I want the potential of anywhere, at any time.

    And I want to look at the stars again, knowing I am free.

    If today’s Tiny House is the Model T, I can’t wait for the future.

    I am excited about where the designs will go. And I dream about my sons, and their children, and their children, living lives of adventure and discovery in this world.

    The fruit is ripe.

    It’s easy to pick.

    The moment is now.