How my fight for election integrity led me to my own candidacy and ultimately to the RFK Campaign
I come from the conservative side of the political spectrum. I don’t just “lean” conservative. I am solidly rooted there. When I was invited to submit an article to “The Falconer,” I was nervous about choosing a topic to address. Where does the voice of a former Republican, die-hard conservative, homeschool mom in rural America belong in the campaign of a man who (as many Republicans like to remind me), was not that long ago still a member of the Democratic Party? If I speak up, will I be heard—or will I be ridiculed and then silenced, as I have often been in the past, by those on BOTH sides of the aisle?
First, let me share with you a bit of my own history. Prior to the November 2020 election, I wasn’t actively involved in politics. I voted, but that was the extent of it. Concerns I had about the integrity of our elections led me to begin to speak up and seek out ways to get involved. That led to only more frustration as repeated calls from so many who no longer had faith that our election process was functioning as it should continued to fall on deaf ears. When verifiable evidence of negligence in how elections in my own “red” state were being conducted was presented to elected officials, it was ignored. The frustration of feeling as if I was not being heard by our elected representatives led me to run for office myself. I did so very naively, believing that stepping up as a grassroots candidate would grant me more opportunities to have my concerns represented in our government. What I learned from my time spent in political circles as a Republican candidate is that true grassroots candidates are not welcome by the two major political parties.
As I have observed how our two-party system has treated Mr. Kennedy, I am reminded very much of my own experiences as a candidate. Despite what they say, the two major parties do not want “we the people” to decide who is worthy of competing for votes. They want to decide that for us. There is no such thing as a true grassroots candidate in politics, for any candidate who throws his or her hat into the ring will learn very quickly that you either submit to the control of the political party to which you belong—or you quickly find yourself silenced and shut out of the process altogether. Posing a challenge to the two-party system is expressly forbidden, and Mr. Kennedy is indeed perceived as a threat to the establishment for having thrown down the gauntlet.
Election integrity is the issue that spurred me to become politically active, and while the focus on concerns about election integrity over the last few years has largely been on Trump, I have always tried to make it clear, even as I was attending protests every Saturday for weeks on end following the November 2020 election, that it wasn’t Trump himself who was the focus of my concerns. When our election process is not one that the people can trust to be free and fair, EVERY eligible American voter suffers the injury, regardless of which candidate received their vote. Our vote is our voice in government, and our election process has become one which every American—if they are honest—must acknowledge is being manipulated from within by the political parties themselves.
Supporting Kennedy’s right to present himself as an option to the voters–so that the voters themselves can decide if he is worthy–is the most strategic way for us to stand up for election integrity. I read recently that the greatest obstacle to Kennedy’s candidacy will be lawsuits from “nervous” Republicans and Democrats who fear that if Kennedy’s name is on the ballot, Americans may very well prefer him.
The Republican and Democratic Parties don’t want YOU to have that choice. They want to decide for you who is worthy of ballot access. So even if “we the people” collect all of the signatures required for Kennedy to qualify to be on the ballot, it is expected (and almost certain) that both major parties will look into every nook and cranny to try to find a legal avenue to suppress the voices of “we the people” and to prevent Kennedy from being presented to the voters as an option. Please keep in mind that when a Kennedy for President volunteer asks you for your signature to help to get him on the ballot, the ONLY thing you are being asked to support is Mr. Kennedy’s right to have his name on the ballot as an option for the voters to choose for themselves to either accept or reject.
Election integrity isn’t just about fraud that might occur at the ballot box. It is a corruption of our election process when political parties seek to choose our candidates for us and to silence our voices with legal challenges that run counter to the expressed will of the people. Supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an Independent candidate offers us an opportunity to depart from the dysfunctional two-party system that seems more focused on preserving the power of politicians than it does on protecting and defending the rights of the people.
Returning to the questions I posed at the beginning of this article about whether or not someone like me fits into the Kennedy campaign, I can tell you that my experience so far in connecting with the family of Kennedy volunteers is that it is the HEALTHIEST political environment I have ever experienced. Please know that, regardless of your political background, the Kennedy campaign is a welcoming and diverse community of people who are united in the belief that Mr. Kennedy deserves the opportunity to be heard and to compete for and earn the support of the American people. In uniting around this, we unite with each other, and in doing so we begin to “heal the divide.”
