Dave Jarvis for Senate

Tag: new-hampshire-senate-race

  • Be Depressed, for a Minute…

    Be Depressed, for a Minute…

    It’s over.

    Go home.

    The winner of the Democratic Primary, an intelligent man, a sweet man, the kind you want in front of you in the supermarket, the kind you introduce to Mama, the pure-heart who yawned indifferently at genocide, the campaign-finance reformer who spent eleven million dollars to knock New Hampshire voters into Bidenesque submission, is your Democratic candidate.

    The winner of the Republican Primary, a nepotistic, weird-grinning bobble-head, sat quietly during the genocide as well. He then watched his country get dragged into war with Iran while sipping Earl Grey and murmuring about inflation while his party’s leaders had done everything possible to manufacture that very same inflation.

    While having his face massaged with cucumbers and honey to the sound Jessica Fletcher on TV solving a crime from the ’80s (those years when his political ideology was dripped into his ear by his dad’s friends over at MKUltra), he watched his party’s leader attempting to bribe New Hampshire voters with five thousand dollars each if his party wins. And the Republican champion said nothing. With democracy suffocating, he said nothing.

    There are no more political leaders. They have been drummed out of the business by bucket-loads of cash that you can’t even look at without buying a ticket.

    There is a worse candidate here. I am a Democrat and there is a reason. But I won’t tell anyone who to vote for. When the least worse candidate for United States Senate is covered in blood and oil money, I shut the hell up.

    Just clowns.

    The game is over.

    Go home.

    Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

    If you are depressed, that is the appropriate response. Not feeling that way is a sign of either ignorance or apathy. Both of which will send you to the psyche ward when AI kicks in.

    Be depressed for a minute, then start again.

  • America is a Verb

    America is a Verb

    I would like to thank everyone who has either read or shared anything I have said during this campaign. You are the strength of democracy. I hope I have provided some food for thought or changed something for the positive somewhere.

    I would also like to reiterate some of the more important points that I hoped would create some dialogue about our very important future.

    First, about twenty million people in the United States currently live in mobile or manufactured housing. If that share of the market were to shift over time toward off-grid tiny houses, with people renting space for those homes from other landowners, it could provide stability to the real estate market and stimulus to critical industries.

    Hospitals, farms, supermarkets, and even residential landowners could benefit from hundreds of billions of dollars in rent, helping much of our economy survive in a future low-employment environment.

    Next, I believe healthcare is a right. But it’s not number one by any stretch.

    FOOD. Food is the most important issue facing Americans. The farms that produce the food, the practices they use, the farming techniques, the logistics systems, the marketing, and the dangers of the food industry preying on the American people, all of these are part of our number one priority.

    Quality food is the first priority of a healthy people.

    We can use the power of SNAP to affect real change. We can use financial stimulus by shifting our existing farm subsidies toward regenerative farming initiatives. And we can use a symbiotic relationship between tiny homes and small farms to give regenerative farming a fighting chance.

    Evidence of this already working can be found on Harvest Hosts, but it is nowhere near as powerful as it could be if we were to give this kind of initiative public support.

    This image shows all the farms currently hosting tiny houses for short stays. Many of them are restricted from renting for longer stays due to zoning restrictions. They are represented by the purple bubbles:

    Finally, LIFE.

    We need to end the wars. We can become a peaceful people. We can stop letting the powerful prey on the weak. And we can ask ourselves if free and unfettered abortion until the moment of birth is really the hallmark of a free and peaceful people, or if it is the height of cynicism. There are other ways of protecting pregnant women in crisis pregnancies. That is, if we pull away from extremes.

    We can use ideas. We can stop using red and blue to define us. We can get into the mix and hash out our collective mindset without attempting to curbstomp our supposed political enemies.

    Some conservatives have supported LGBTQ rights along the way. Some liberals have supported lower taxes or responsible gun ownership.

    When we stop throwing stones and when we stop predicting Armageddon if the “other side” wins, we get back to the practice of being American.

    America is less a noun than a verb. It’s an action. It’s a way of dealing with fear, with change, and with differences of opinion.

    We aren’t using that verb very much these days.

    These last few months have been fun.

    America is fun when we give it a chance.

    If you want to change the world, hit me up at:

    davejarvisnh@gmail.com

    +1 603 842-3426

  • 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.

  • The cost of living is not the problem. It’s a symptom of something bigger.

    The cost of living is not the problem. It’s a symptom of something bigger.

    Today, America is in the early stages of a land grab. The pressures driving it are likely to intensify. There’s no villain behind it. It’s simply the natural consequence of powerful economic and technological forces colliding with institutions that were built for a different era. To adapt, we need more opportunity at a time when money is tight, expenses are high, and hope is low. For that, we need to remember our origins and the way mobility became upward mobility.

    Our story began with desperation and movement, from point A to point B, on boats from Europe. Once they arrived, by any means available, they scattered in different directions to pursue opportunities. Later, industrial jobs moved to the cities, and people moved with them as if sucked in by gravity. After centuries of migration, roughly 80 percent of Americans (about 270 million people) now live in urban regions. In time, technological innovation made much of life available online. Ironically, that same innovation has weakened the careers that drew us into cities, making urban life increasingly redundant. If the force pulling people to urban areas switches polarity, it’s a problem.

    We caught a glimpse of the dangers of that when a very small percentage of people left large cities for quieter communities during COVID. Some moved to New Hampshire and did well investing in real estate, and the cost of living in our state rose dramatically. It still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. If only ten percent of today’s urban population eventually decided to relocate in the event of a future tech related jobs crisis, that would represent roughly 27 million people, and the consequences are difficult to imagine.

    So, I believe the financial stress you are feeling today is not the real problem. I think it’s a symptom and a warning of a much, much bigger emerging issue. And that’s a big reason why I am running for the Senate, to help protect you from it.

    We call it housing costs here in New Hampshire, and most politicians are advocating for more development. They advocate more traditional housing, or perhaps manufactured homes as a response. First, more conventional housing is expensive and doesn’t approach the scale of the problem. It can only reduce costs if migration stops, and it isn’t stopping. Manufactured homes and mobile home parks might help a bit if they weren’t becoming traps. Investors are increasingly preying on mobile-home owners, jacking up prices, and confiscating the homes of those who can’t pay. Evidence of this is emerging across the country.

    The answer is not about changing everything. It’s about creating a diversity of housing options, especially embracing those that offer greater mobility. If America is about to become a giant snow globe, we can influence how the snow settles.

    I believe homes on wheels are the newest chapter in American mobility. They are affordable. They move in any direction. They seek opportunity more freely and create balance more quickly.

    For the right people, a surf-bum Airstream parked near the beach becomes a startlingly intelligent lifestyle choice, fitting for a society about to surf a giant wave. We need fun. We need freedom. And mobility distributes economic activity equitably. That enriches our society for little added financial investment.

    I envision homes inspired by mobile living, tiny houses, and travel trailers. I imagine them engineered for four-season living, solar-powered, with high-tech power systems, high-speed internet, and a national plot-rental infrastructure as ubiquitous as today’s rideshare apps. I see a world where landowners, farmers, business owners, and homeowners with extra space and a need for additional income rent to off-grid tenants. I see lower costs, new kinds of financing, government participation and leadership, and our society, at all levels, being supportive of and cognizant of both its benefits and the stakes of failure.

    In responding to the danger of widespread demographic shifts and a potential technology-fueled recession, housing is the most obvious issue. But I can’t let the moment pass without mentioning a concern that could affect our health, our ability to adapt, and even create political and economic extremes very quickly: challenges to our food system.

    We produce only a small percentage of our food locally and are completely dependent on logistics networks, corporate interests, oil prices, and a host of other factors to provide the rest. With the danger of economic shock, we shouldn’t be satisfied until we are prepared to provide every American with healthy food, even in times of instability. Our people, knowing they will eat, will have the confidence they need to create solutions.

    Current agricultural subsidies (big checks handed out primarily to our nation’s wealthiest corporate farms) should be applied to our food program as added demand-side food subsidies, thereby reaching all farmers, regardless of size. The food program should become a reinvented mission that values more than just daily calorie intake. The dignity of the human person, our soil, our environmental infrastructure, and the quality of our food are far too important. We can no longer subsidize Type 2 diabetes and obesity. The program should provide only healthy foods, staples, and fresh produce.

    So, food and shelter. These are our most critical issues looking to the future. Some would call them “poor people problems.” So let’s take a second and be honest. Until they are resolved, are we poor people? Not as individuals but as a nation? Forget about our individual finances, our powerful military, our vast streaming content, our education levels, our incredible life stories, our brand-new shoes, or our new golf clubs. Until we strengthen housing and food with enough resilience to address our coming instability, are we vulnerable to real poverty?

    The beauty of the question is that we can start doing what poverty eventually teaches us. We can mind our own business. We can judge less, forgive more, and turn to God with honesty and humility. We can care less about what some narcissistic politician says or thinks and focus completely on resolving our important problems. Most significantly, we can recognize that our future depends on us working together.

    As the next Senator from New Hampshire, I will fight to reduce housing costs and to ensure that any economic or demographic challenge will end up cushioned by a system ready to absorb shocks and convert them to opportunities.

    I will work to strengthen our food system to prepare our society for any future instability.

    I will fight for farmers in New Hampshire and throughout the country to give them every possible advantage.

    I will work with anyone to tone down the rhetoric, build friendships at all levels and in all ideologies, and allow the egoism in our national politics the isolation it deserves. I have vast experience working on projects across the globe where interpersonal problems have arisen among people of different languages, cultures, and personality types. I won’t let my ego or my personal beliefs affect my ability to find commonality. I will win that battle. I always have.

    I can visualize success. I can see our younger generation, currently overwhelmed with stress about their future, finally relaxing and following their passions without concern over finances. I can see them in a new America, feeling free to live as they choose and providing immeasurable benefit to their society in doing so.

    But I see another reality. I see our leaders unable to change, blaming it all on one group or another, never paying due attention to freedom on the emergency room table, bleeding out.

    We can’t live without feeling free. Without it, we shrink. We revert to extremes. We start to hate. Creativity dies. Confidence dies. We join cultish factions and call them freedom. Then we fight over resources and call them finite when they are anything but.

    We give up the dream of those who came before us. We lose the fight. We fail ourselves, our children, God, and history.

    We die when all we needed was to live free.

    Let’s work together, choose wisely, and start dreaming again.

  • To the Twenty Percent of Democratic Party Voters for Senate Who Still Remain Undecided…

    To the Twenty Percent of Democratic Party Voters for Senate Who Still Remain Undecided…

    We need humor these days. Don’t judge me.

    To you, the twenty percent of Democratic voters who are not only undecided but whose numbers are growing…

    You are a Democratic Party voter. You have been barraged with ads, news, lawn signs, and political drama. Your “front-runner” in the Senate race, who has spent the last twenty years in politics and is currently a member of the United States Congress, has made less than fifty percent of Democratic voters excited about his Senate campaign. All of that while spending a mint to convince you, and begging you for more money, a lot more money.

    Gaza burned, his donors pulled us into a global war, and with that, his star began its descent. It’s karma. He’ll be out of the penalty box next election.

    His “close second” is an intelligent and passionate person whose lack of awareness of economics concerns you. It concerns me too.

    Socialism is rising, and it’s scaring the kids.

    A vote for me is not wasted. If I win you over, and maybe five percent of undeclared voters, I win.

    Can I win the general election? I don’t know. Can you? Take responsibility for yourselves. You are the ones who win or lose. I am just a guy applying for a job.

    I am sensible. I will make sure that, through the coming storm, you will all eat, are safe, and that you remain free. Most importantly, I will help break down the walls that divide our country. I will help us avoid a slow drift into partisan violence.

    My common sense, friendliness, and my sense of humor will help me, and you, a great deal.

    Think about it.

  • 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.

  • Salem Chamber of Commerce Forum

  • Reestablishing Trust

    Trust in government seems to be at a dangerously low level. That’s important since the thing that separates democracy from civil war is trust. At some point, we need to return toward balance on the topics that are the most important and which give our people concern for the future. And we must turn away from extreme political and financial ambition.

    The only ambition that truly makes sense is ambition for a better society. I have met billionaires in mansions surrounded by slums. I have seen princes rule over societies built on exploitation while living in constant fear of revolt. I have met the children of the global wealthy who wanted nothing more than to live the ordinary middle-class life I grew up with here in New Hampshire. Personal wealth without social unity is just another form of slavery. Trust and unity in society are the least expensive ways of generating real societal wealth.

    Our politicians destroy our trust constantly.

    Chris Pappas, technically, may not have accepted hush money to lubricate the destruction of the people of Gaza. However, he did receive approximately $820,000 in pro-Israel funds. Then, when we cancel out Netanyahu’s talking points from Pappas’s public statements about Gaza, what remains sounds a lot like silence.

    It doesn’t build much trust.

    Being an “alpha male” is not leadership. Those who aspire to dominate through intimidation, including the man currently occupying the highest office in the country, seem better suited to the social hierarchy of lower primates than to a modern democracy. Our president’s daily behavior and tone force the people who elected him to decide, over and over again, whether they trust him. He seems unconcerned with the fact that 65% don’t.

    Meanwhile, John Sununu has deemed that the people of New Hampshire don’t deserve to know whether he accepts or rejects the president’s endorsement. Perhaps being a Sununu means that transparency doesn’t apply to him. But, considering the mood in the country, it should.

    Here are some ways I will work to rebuild trust in our political system.

    Abortion

    I do not support restrictions during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. But I believe the current liberal de facto position supporting legal abortion through the third trimester is politically damaging, morally troubling, and ultimately unsustainable.

    Some restrictions and compassion across the board will help rebuild some trust across our society. It may not feel good for those on the extremes, but that’s how compromise feels.

    Food and Farming

    As artificial intelligence continues to reduce the amount of work available, we need a stronger agricultural system and reliable access to healthy food for those who need it. SNAP should be reformed so that it covers staple foods and fresh produce instead of unhealthy products. We should not make people sick with taxpayer dollars, especially if they are on Medicaid.

    Farm subsidies should be integrated more directly into a healthy food system, encouraging regenerative farming practices that improve both the quality of our food and the health of our environment.

    Health Care

    One of the greatest strengths of a free-market economy is that consumers influence both price and quality at the point of purchase. Unfortunately, the high cost of medical care has largely eliminated that influence. Most Americans cannot shop for major medical procedures. Instead, we gamble through an insurance system that inflates prices.

    We need to restore consumer purchasing power in health care while preparing for the economic disruption AI is likely to bring.

    The Environment

    We have to turn back to a concern for our environment. In the heat of the political contention of the last few years we have dropped the ball. We don’t need fear, panic, obsession, or denial. We just need to think clearly, find low cost solutions, and at least have concern for the environment as a national initiative again.

    God

    We need a higher power even if our level of belief is at empty. We need to try to believe in meaning to our lives and to our mission as a country. It doesn’t have to be a Project 2025 kind of God. We don’t need to return to some puritanical ideal. But forgiveness matters, and so does hope. God helps with both.

    Leadership

    We depend on open communication, trust, humility, compassion, and maybe even some friendliness. Once we rebuild those foundations, everything else becomes possible.