Someone recently asked me what it was like campaigning as a Democrat in a “red state like Indiana”. To be honest, I have no other reference point. I’ve only ever been a candidate in Indiana. And you know what? It’s pretty amazing.
When I see statistics like “Indiana has the worst polluted waterways in the nation” or “Indiana has the 3rd worst maternal mortality rate”, it is easy to feel powerless. We did not get to those statistics in one election cycle, and I know it will take more than one election cycle to reverse those trends. However, I have learned the greatest antidote to powerlessness is HOPE. Not the hope that is anemic or whimsical in its wistful desire for change, but the hope that is gritty, determined, bruised, bandaged, and often goes limping through the finish line. We know it when we see it. We rejoice when we feel it in our bodies.
So what would it mean to bring that hope, that audacity to hope, into this election cycle? I believe it would look an awful lot like the Democratic Party right now. I will be honest with you. I didn’t feel that way at the beginning of the summer. Campaigning felt sluggish, like walking up a steep hill alone with just an internal commitment to move forward, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. It would be easy to say that the shift came when Biden stepped back, and Kamala Harris won the nomination to move forward as our Presidential nominee. And it would absolutely be accurate to say, especially for rural Hoosiers, that adding Tim Walz to the ticket was the adrenaline rush we didn’t realize we needed. But for me, the shift actually happened behind the scenes. It was a scrappy group of House candidates, united in their effort to change the politics of rural elections, that would birth in me an indescribable joy and tenacious hope. Yes, we are determined to build voter turnout. Yes, we are determined to energize our volunteer bases within our local parties. And yes, we are determined to shine a bright light on government overreach, short-sighted strategies, harmful legislation, and unaccountable leadership. But in that determination, we have discovered we are also having incredible FUN building people power along the way.
If you were unable to attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in person, why not come to one of our Indiana Rural Summits? And bring a friend, neighbor, “Dem Curious” or newly registered young voter with you. The crowd may not be quite as large, but I guarantee you, the hope is as genuine and real as any you’d find along the Harris/Walz campaign trail, with great conversations to match. If we want a new governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and up-and-down-ballot Democrats to represent us at the local, state, and federal levels, it will require the audacity of hope from everyone. And hope, embodied during an election cycle, looks an awful lot like voting.
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