Citizens Alliance for Better Candidates

Citizens Alliance for Better Candidates * 703-338-0200

There is no shortage of reasons why we need you to run for office! But the two illustrated above say it loudly.

No train traveling on 19th century rail technology in the US goes faster than 100 mph. Quite embarrassing for a country that prided itself on innovation and technological prowess. Modern magnetic levitation rail systems (Maglev) around the globe are approaching 400 mph.

This impediment is caused by the stalemate in our electoral system which produces nothing but tribal friction disguised as political differentiation. The resulting outcome: a very dysfunctional governing system.

The only way to innovate governing is to upend the current political tyranny, and release those inspired to serve to do so in a free and innovative manner.

Legislating will only improve when we can seriously diminish the outsized influence of money, and the extremist control of election outcomes most visibly noticed in the primary election process where only 10% of voters decide over 80% of the general election outcomes.

Other reasons to run:

1) You have better policy positions that need to be advocated than those who are bought and paid for by the lobby community.

2) Even with the semblance of a two-party system, nearly 50% of the elected positions have no challengers and the current electoral systems are unfairly skewed against outside participants. After a very carefully crafted gerrymandered redistricting process in South Carolina, the majority party ensured their continued dominance by reducing the number of challengers. For the 2022 South Carolina State House of Representatives, 72 out of 140 seats will have NO major party opposition. That is embarrassing and something that only V. Putin should be proud of.

3) The primary system is wrecking our democracy. The 10% extremists in each party have an outsized influence on the outcome of the general elections.

Act now to prepare to get on the ballot in 2024 and beyond.

It requires planning and carefully designing a strategy to run or even stand* for public office.

Our team stands ready to help you prepare - whether it is honing your personal skills, developing a fundraising operation, gathering supporters or conducting a field operation.

Contact Independent Green Party of Virginia Co-Founder and Former Chairman Joseph Oddo, now at (703) 338-0200

*Running for office is more involved, but standing for office is still a great value to our country.

You don't protest, so you think the Public Order Bill - the most repressive legislation of the modern era - doesn't affect you?
If so, I'm sorry to say that you couldn't be more wrong.
*Please* watch this. You need to know. pic.twitter.com/xYmAUwOzZK
— George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) November 18, 2022

Link coming soon. To contribute to Oddo for Congress, send check to PO Box 916, Goose Creek, SC 29445
Please include your name, address and occupation for FEC reporting.

Joe Oddo for Congress 2022.

Tweets by @writeconsult

Join our team of Citizen Advisers...

Contact Christian LeBlanc at 703-338-0200.

About Joe Oddo

Mergers & Acquisition Advisor, Writer, Political Campaign Director

Three time ballot certified candidate for congress.

After 20 years in retail management and launching sales transitions to e-Commerce, Joe Oddo switched back to his college studies to create a writing and political/sales consulting practice in 2002. He is a three-time ballot certified candidate for congress from Virginia (2004-08), and founder of a number of political advocacy organizations. A Public Policy major from Penn State Oddo volunteers as DJ at public radio WTJU, was volunteer host on GreenTV public television, and a Friend of the Library. In SC, he teamed up with Better Ballot SC to advocate for Instant Runoff/Ranked Choice Voting. Currently he is the South Carolina Managing Director for Neumann Associates M&A Advisors.

"I have blessed to being able to conduct three distinctive careers over the course of the last 45 years: Writing / Business Management / Political Campaign Management.
"Having run for office on numerous occasions, I coordinated statewide ballot access drives, and directed campaign operations for at least ten candidates running for federal, state and local office. Have served as founder, director, organizer, fund-raiser, policy writer, media relations and press coordinator, as well as candidate surrogate.
"If you even remotely consider running for office, please reach out to me. Let’s have a conversation!"

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November 9, 2013

Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?

By Reid Wilson, Updated: November 8 at 1:36 pm

Red states and blue states? Flyover country and the coasts? How simplistic. Colin Woodard, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and author of several books, says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.

“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.”

Take a look at his map:

Woodard lays out his map in the new book “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” Here’s how he breaks down the continent:

Yankeedom: Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions.

New Netherland: The Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world when New York was founded, Woodard writes, so it’s no wonder that the region has been a hub of global commerce. It’s also the region most accepting of historically persecuted populations.

The Midlands: Stretching from Quaker territory west through Iowa and into more populated areas of the Midwest, the Midlands are “pluralistic and organized around the middle class.” Government intrusion is unwelcome, and ethnic and ideological purity isn’t a priority.

Tidewater: The coastal regions in the English colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware tend to respect authority and value tradition. Once the most powerful American nation, it began to decline during Westward expansion.

Greater Appalachia: Extending from West Virginia through the Great Smoky Mountains and into Northwest Texas, the descendants of Irish, English and Scottish settlers value individual liberty. Residents are “intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers.”

Deep South: Dixie still traces its roots to the caste system established by masters who tried to duplicate West Indies-style slave society, Woodard writes. The Old South values states’ rights and local control and fights the expansion of federal powers.

El Norte: Southwest Texas and the border region is the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas. Hard work and self-sufficiency are prized values.

The Left Coast: A hybrid, Woodard says, of Appalachian independence and Yankee utopianism loosely defined by the Pacific Ocean on one side and coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas on the other. The independence and innovation required of early explorers continues to manifest in places like Silicon Valley and the tech companies around Seattle.

The Far West: The Great Plains and the Mountain West were built by industry, made necessary by harsh, sometimes inhospitable climates. Far Westerners are intensely libertarian and deeply distrustful of big institutions, whether they are railroads and monopolies or the federal government.

New France: Former French colonies in and around New Orleans and Quebec tend toward consensus and egalitarian, “among the most liberal on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in the economy,” Woodard writes.

First Nation: The few First Nation peoples left — Native Americans who never gave up their land to white settlers — are mainly in the harshly Arctic north of Canada and Alaska. They have sovereignty over their lands, but their population is only around 300,000.

The clashes between the 11 nations play out in every way, from politics to social values. Woodard notes that states with the highest rates of violent deaths are in the Deep South, Tidewater and Greater Appalachia, regions that value independence and self-sufficiency. States with lower rates of violent deaths are in Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Midlands, where government intervention is viewed with less skepticism.

States in the Deep South are much more likely to have stand-your-ground laws than states in the northern “nations.” And more than 95 percent of executions in the United States since 1976 happened in the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater and the Far West. States in Yankeedom and New Netherland have executed a collective total of just one person.

That doesn’t bode well for gun control advocates, Woodard concludes: “With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable that some new alliance could form to tip the balance.”

Link to WaPo Blog Post

9 nov 13 @ 5:41 pm Comments

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Oddo has at various times had an association with the following organizations:

Independent Greens of Virginia

Green TV

Americans for Fair Taxation

Diane Blais for Congress 2014

Gerard Blais for Congress 2014

Elaine Hildbrandt for Congress 2014

Col. Jim Leslie for Delegate 2009 & 2013 (VA)

Terry Modglin for Delegate 2013 (VA)

Jeannemarie Davis for Lt. Governor 2013 (VA)

Ken Hildebrandt for Congress (VA 2012 & 14)

Floyd Bayne for Congress (VA 10 & 12)

Karen Kwiatkowski for Congress 2012 (VA)

Imperato for President 2008 / for Florida Governor 2010

Hagler for Council (DC)

Joseph Oddo for Congress (VA 04, 06 & 08)

Gail "for Rail" Parker for US Senate (VA 06 & 08)

Gail for Rail for Congress (VA 2010, 12 & 14)

Parker for Delegate 2013

Committee to Draft Michael Bloomberg 2006 - 2020

Nader for President (04 & 08)

Kent Mesplay for President 2004

Virginia Bill of Rights Coalition

Joseph Oddo delivering speech during the 2006 campaign.

Transcript of five minute News8TV taping.

Joe Oddo, Independent Candidate, US House of Representatives

Oct 6, 2006

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country from his government.

I’m Joe Oddo, Independent Green candidate running for Congress and I encourage you to get involved. To run for office. To insist we be allowed in the debates. To fix our democracy. And stop the mudslingin

I believe in expanding civic participation by fixing election rules and instituting universal registration. Anyone that shows up at the right polling place with their official ID should be able to register and vote on the spot.

Plus we should expand the hours of Election Day, or make it a holiday so everyone can take off work to cast their vote.

Our team of Independents have spent weeks out in all weather extremes to qualify to make the ballot. We talked to over 150,000 Virginians who understand the need for Independent voices. And by listening to your concerns, we have formulated a sound platform that addresses diverse issues like lobby reform and term limits.

Together with our statewide candidate for the US Senate Gail “for Rail” Parker, we propose Rail Now solutions. More Trains Less Traffic. We need hi-speed Rail from Danville to Charlottesville, from Charlottesville to Richmond, and on to Washington. Modern high-speed rail utilizes existing right-of-ways. We can run elevated rail right along I-64 and Rt. 29 with minimal disturbance. It is the time to develop alternative energy solutions, and end our dependence on oil.

We must pay closer attention to how government spends OUR money, and to ensure that it is on realistic, long-term solutions. So one of our initiatives is to solve the fiscal crises in our federal budget. We need a balanced budget now. We can to pay off the federal debt in five years. And we can fix the tax code for real tax cuts, not credit card advances.

We are more conservative than our opponents. There is nothing compassionate or conservative in military adventurism. This administration promotes addiction to a new drug called fear. We no longer face facts. We prefer to fabricate them. We lost over 3,000 young American soldiers since Nine Eleven.

Why? For war industry profits. Everyone knows it. One of every four tax dollars are being spent at the Defense Department. From their own report, billions are being mismanaged through "improper payments". And this Congress has been complicit and needs replaced.

We can fix Pentagon waste with an auditable accounting system so we know where our money is going. We can save $2 Billion a week by withdrawing from Iraq. We can save Billions more by closing bases in Germany and Japan. And Billions more by scrapping useless weapons programs.

Now I ask you, what real liberal or conservative would ever sanction the Patriot Act, or NSA domestic spying? Why should we give away rights guaranteed by the Constitution now? They served us well for the multitude of threats we defeated during the last 230 years.

Now it’s: be afraid. Be very afraid. Don’t worry about your tax dollars going to campaign contributors through no-bid contracts. Don’t pay attention while they strip away our rights, or rob our Treasury blind.

We won’t hear them say: War as a foreign policy of the United States is wrong. Peace is the answer. Nonviolence is the answer.

We can protest all we want. We can editorialize, we can lobby, we can strike, we can boycott, we can hold endless numbers of meetings. This only gets us so far. If we are going to accomplish real change in government, then we have to resort to action. The only real action against apathy is to get on the ballot and run for office.

Now is our chance to restore the optimism and promise of a world for all to live in peace. Join us as an independent - not bought and paid for by corporate rulers.

We run on positive issues. We listen. We do not sling mud.

Because I am an optimist, I offer solutions that the two parties will not address. Please Join us. Our Web site is www.VoteJoinRun.us. Please Vote Oddo on November 7th.

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Post by Independent Voter.