This morning, in grazing through my news feeds, I came across an AJC story about three people running for Cynthia McKinney’s seat in the House. We all know how I feel about McKinney and how much I care about this race, but it surprised me to read about a third candidate. (Well, in all honesty, I’d not been paying much attention to the race since McKinney lost because I figured it was a done deal for the Democrats as always.) I read the third candidate’s name and age and something started tickling the back of my brain. I scrolled down to his picture and likely would have spit coffee all over the laptop if I hadn’t already chugged it.
A bit of background. Many, many years ago I took art lessons for a summer from a sweet Japanese lady in the basement of her house. She attended the same church as my grandparents and was quite the artist herself. I learned about charcoal and pastels and still lifes. Taking those lessons with me was a kid named Loren Collins. We played together once or twice I think, but otherwise didn’t interact too much outside of those lessons (in large part because back then I was only ever here in Atlanta during the summer). His family also attended that church and so a couple of years ago I ran into him again at that church’s 50th anniversary gathering.
Well, turns out that kid became a lawyer and is now running for Congress. Not only is he running, but running as a Bull Moose and self-described “Libertarian-leaning conservative”, a description I’ve used for myself at times. In reading over the issues page on his website, sure enough, I’m right there with him on every issue. Of course as a third party candidate and a write-in one at that he will likely still be here in town come January. However, being the idealist I am (i.e. you should vote for who you want to win, not just who you think has a chance), I’ll be writing his name in come November 7th.
If, after reading the positions laid out on his site and hopefully seeing him speak (refer to the AJC article linked above for the dates on upcoming debates as his events page appears to incorrect right now), you find you agree with his stance as well, then go ahead and cast a vote to which you’ll be proud to admit, especially when we find out that the other candidates are only marginally better than McKinney.