This might sound simplistic but it happens to be entirely true.
The purpose of the candidate contract strategy is to get the good guys elected and throw the bad guys out of office.
Period!
A ‘good guy’ is an elected official who is honest, transparent, and wholly responsible for representing the needs and priorities of those constituents who by majority vote have chosen him or her as their congressman or president.
A ‘bad guy’ is an elected official who does not consistently and unwaveringly represent the needs and priorities of his or her constituents, is likely beholden to, if not entirely controlled, by campaign donors, corporate lobbyists, well-funded special interest groups — in a phrase, ‘the ruling class’ of this country.
But here’s what we’re up against. After the excitement and enormous groundswell created by Bernie Sanders in his presidential bid, the populist uprising he created hasn’t escaped the notice of the establishment candidates. These hypocrites know a good thing when they see it and are already massaging their campaign speeches, twisting the language, tailoring their rhetoric, inserting the necessary lip-service to these popular ideas, confident that if they can “sound” like they’re saying the right things, it’ll mean enough votes they can win the election.
You and I know it’s all image and no substance.
But . . .
It’s way too easy for the average voter to get confused, to get sucked in by smooth talk and slick advertising, hypnotic TV ads, clever memes, heartwarming photo ops, snappy sound bites. One major problem with our current political environment is the sheer amount of nonsense, propaganda, grandstanding, showboating, the tsunami of empty campaign rhetoric, carefully-crafted disinformation and mindless television ads — the overwhelming amount of pure bullsh*t the voting public is subjected to!
So . . .
How does a voter know if a candidate is truly on board? How does a voter distinguish between a slick dissembler who is just blowing smoke, and a genuinely populist-progressive candidate who will fight for making the initiatives in the CFAR the law of the land? How do we know a true populist-progressive candidate when we see one?
Simple! We put the genuinely “people’s” candidate UNDER CONTRACT. That’s right. We have that individual sign a legally-binding contract — called the Contract For American Renewal (CFAR) — committing them to do the right thing and faithfully serve the people who elected him or her into office. When the candidate signs the contract, the voting public will know for certain that individual is on their side, and thus THAT PERSON DESERVES THEIR VOTES!
At the same time . . .
If a candidate refuses to sign, we now know that regardless of what is said — campaign promises, pleasant rhetoric, beautiful television ads — that person does not deserve our vote.
It’s that simple!
The CFAR takes the guesswork out of voting.
But this is CRITICAL . . .
The only way the CFAR can work is if voters know and understand what it means.
It is therefore the paramount task of activists to get the word out, to let the voting public know why CFAR candidates are the only real choice for real democratic representation.
Using social media, word-of-mouth, demonstrations, petition drives — whatever it takes — we must get voters behind electing a “people’s Congress”.
And that means getting them to pledge — using the CFAR Voter Pledge Form — to only vote for candidates who have signed the CFAR.
THAT is how we elect populist-progressives and create a Congress that works for all citizens, not just the rich and well-connected!