Citizens Alliance for Better Candidates * 703-338-0200
More Trains - Less Traffic!
There is no shortage of reasons why we need you to run for office! These illustrations 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.
Here is an excerpt from a 2019 interview
with Dr. Jill
Stein.
10/19/19Dr. Jill Stein answers HRC’s charge … “And that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which
she might not because she is also a Russian agent.Jill answers, “This is a completely unhinged conspiracy
theory for which there is no basis in fact.It’s really outrageous that Hillary Clinton is trying
to promote this crazy idea.You can’t just slander people, you have to present some basis in fact.I am not running for office, so it is preposterous to say “if I would give it up.”It’s
a wild and insulting theory and I think it speaks to Hillary’s need to try to explain, perhaps to herself, why her campaign
was not successful.People really wanted change and unfortunately believed Donald Trump’s lies that
he was going to bring change.We need a voting system in which people can actually vote for what they want
and if people are concerned that independent candidates and campaigns are Russian plots, there is a very simple solution:
Rank Choice Voting prevents any evil, foreign asset or anyone from splitting the vote.It lets you rank
your choices.You never have to worry about your vote being (quote) thrown away or your vote not counting
or spoiling the election.It doesn’t happen under rank choice voting.If your
first choice loses, your vote is automatically reassigned to your second choice.It’s a win-win.And that’s the solution here.The solution is not to silence political dissent.You know the basis of our democracy is supposed to be political dialogue and competition.We shouldn’t
be in the business of throwing terrible accusations and calling tyranny and traitor for people who are standing up for very
important values that the American people badly need to hear about.You know 70% in a recent Wall Street
Journal poll, 70% of Americans said they are not just fed up, they are fighting angry with a political establishment that’s
thrown them under the bus.So we shouldn’t be in the business of silencing diverse political choices.We need Rank Choice Voting to make that okay and bring our values back into our vote.
(Stein, CNN): “We need
to get the 42% that didn’t participate into the game, instead of concentrating on those who earnestly get into the arena.”
View 2023 Jill Stein interview below as she seeks the Green party nomination
for the third time.
(Also hear from
Dr. Cornell West in 2023 below...)
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 124 seats had 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
Paying tribute to one of the all-time great civic leaders: Capt Ron Fisher (USN) d. 10/31/23
Join
our team of Citizen Advisers...
Contact
us at 703-338-0200.
Rail Now Coalition Members!
Dr. Jill Stein
Tex Wood
Terry Modglin
Gail for
Rail Parker
Dianne Blais
Albert
Burckard
Captain Ron Fisher (USN-retired)
Carey Campbell
Joseph Oddo
Pricillia Burnett
Corazon Foley
Erica Lawler
Brooklyn Kinlay
David Lambert
Elaine Hildebrandt
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt
Col. Jim Leslie, USMC
Marisa Wissar
Dianne
Blais
Peter Marchetti
Dr.
Katherine Pettigrew, Phd
Janet Murphy
Tareq Salahi
Honorary:
Petra Kelly
---
Independent Green Party Co-Founder. Statesman. Professor George R. "Tex"
Wood, Independent Green Party Co-Founder
Virginia and America has lost an
Independent Green Party patriot
Dedication by Carey Campbell
Professor George R. “Tex” Wood (73) Independent Green Party (IG) co-founder, IG 9th Congressional
District Chairman, state central committee member has passed.
Tex Wood was burned in a January (2020) accident and died from complications.
Tex
was a true southern gentleman, and lifelong civil rights, and ballot access advocate. Tex was a U.S. Marine Corps, Vietnam
Veteran. Tex ran as a Reform Party candidate for US House of Representatives.
Tex joined the Green Party and co-founded the Independent Green Party of Virginia. According
to Ballot Access News, Tex Wood’s Independent Green Party became the most active on ballot third party in Virginia in
100 years.
Tex Wood was one the nation’s,
and Virginia’s foremost fighter in the courts, and on the streets for Ballot Access.
Every American, especially Virginian benefits from Tex Wood’s success at lowering
signature petition requirements for Independent and Green Party candidates.
Tex Wood passing leaves a great void in our body politic for Independent Green Party
reformers.
Tex Wood was irreplaceable:
fun, funny, witty, insightful, wise, quick with a charming quip. Tex could win every debate while bringing waves of laughter.
The Independent Green Party of Virginia
was built on Tex Wood’s knowledge, experience, and wisdom. Along with his great good humor, Tex’s humility endeared
him to us all.
Professor Tex Wood
taught English and Literature. Tex liked Shakespeare. The bards words describe our dear Tex Wood.
“...Some are born great, some have greatness thrust upon
them...”
For us, who knew and
loved him, our Independent Green Party leader Tex Wood was truly a great person. We knew Tex Woods greatness in so many ways
and times.
Sleep well, and in peace
our dear Green Prince.
Tex, You live
on in our state and nations improved civil life you bequeathed to generations to come.
Mergers & Acquisition Advisor, Writer, Political Campaign
Director
Four-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 four-time ballot certified candidate for congress (Virginia
2004-08, South Carolina 2022), 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!"
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.”
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.”
Oddo has at various times had an association with the
following organizations:
J.A.
Moore for State House / Senate (Special Election 2023)
Alliance
Party of SC
Better Ballot South Carolina
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) bett 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.
