Find Your Passion. Find Your Candidate.
A note: While the sentiment is the same, my candidate in the 2020 primary did, eventually, change.
As we barrel towards the 2020 election, I’m so excited that the candidate I’ve been most looking forward to supporting has finally announced his candidacy — Beto O’Rourke. His experience in Texas politics, the passion with which he ran his 2018 Senate campaign, and his ideas for our nation’s future are all incredibly exciting to me, and I can’t wait to knock on doors and get out the vote for the person I believe is best suited to hold the nation’s highest office.
That being said, I’m not writing today to ask you to do the same.
Beto has entered a very crowded primary, and there was a period where no one was even sure (I think even Beto himself) whether he would ever announce his candidacy. The truth is, if Beto hadn’t entered the race, I don’t know which candidate I would have supported. Not because no other candidate was exciting to me, but because there are so many candidates I love and would happily support.
The Democratic primary is an embarrassment of riches.
However, I am trying to build a moment with a nonprofit that requires you to remember that politics is a movement of passion. The urgency of the moment means that we must reignite the belief that the leaders of our nation matter.
Today I am not asking you to vote for Beto. Instead, I am asking you to support the candidate that you love. Don’t support the candidate that you think will be elected, but go out to find and support the candidate that you want to help get elected. I am asking you to dig deep and awaken the part of you that knows our nation has been, and will once again be, better than it is today.
Find that candidate because the future of our democracy will always depend on you caring so deeply about its future, and about the leaders that will take us back to where we need to go, that you are fired up in ways that you may have never been fired up before. You’re going to need to knock on doors. You’re going to need to have difficult conversations with friends and family. And you better believe you’re going to need to make sure that every single person you know is registered to vote and will turn out in the next election.
Fixing our country will require work from every single American and what stops the work from feeling like work, and turns it into something that you genuinely cannot wait to do, is finding a candidate you care deeply about.
I will work like crazy for whoever takes the Democratic primary ticket — but we’re not there yet.
Now is the time to go all in on a candidate we care about. To remember how fun it is to support a candidate of your choice. To fight for something bigger than our individual needs. It is no longer okay for us to stand back and like a candidate enough because you think they can get elected. What we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, especially after the 2018 election, is that our next president is going to be chosen by a passionate electorate.
Our political landscape has changed. The way we run campaigns has changed. We have a crowded primary, but we shouldn’t be afraid of that. Candidates can debate grand ideas. They can come together for policies that they believe are going to benefit all Americans. This primary can do as much good as the eventual nominee.
There is no longer any time to play it safe. We need to care about our candidates and work like we never have before.
Do I want you to support Beto? Yes, of course. But what I am also okay with is you having a fully formed belief in a different candidate. Let’s have the respectful and great debates that the primary candidates should also be having.
What I don’t want is for you to not care about who you’re voting for.
It is my belief that Donald Trump’s presidency is the single greatest threat to our country. However, the single greatest threat to our democracy has always been, and always will be, an electorate that does not care.
Beto is my candidate. Who is yours?