I have been asked to run for Congress - YOUR opinion?

Do I dare ask for your feedback on a BIG decision?  I would like some input because no one should make a huge decision “willy-nilly.” Right? 

Oops, judging from the usual comments I see on articles, maybe this is NOT such a good idea? LOL  

I have been asked to run for Congress in Texas in 2014. Wait for it…

As a Democrat.  Which would be a FIRST. 

But it also makes sense IF I do it. I’ve tried everything else (three GOP primaries to running as an Independent). None of it worked!  LOL.

But I am not sure America is ready for me! You guys want the politicians to tell you what you want to hear. RIGHT? Not what you NEED to hear.  That’s reality.

You never want to hear that you actually have to work harder or learn anything, right? 

See! That counts me out right there. 

But you do need to hear it because China and others are kicking our butts. We are also losing our space race edge—China is due to have brand new space station operational when ours is due for retirement and scheduled to be dumped into the ocean. That would leave only China in space. How does that help us? Watch “GRAVITY” and you’ll see what I mean. If that happens, I hope you know how to speak Chinese. I found it extremely difficult.

America ranks 17^th and lower in education now. Our goal should be returning to No. 1.

I have zero tolerance for talking points. We are losing the global economy. If I decide to run it will only be because people will support it.  I am not interested in painting fantasy pictures of the world that we hear emanating from the extreme politicians produced by the tea party.  These people have not been anywhere in the world. My world is the real world that I was lucky to work in – nearly 50 countries so far – since the 1970’s. From the big to the small.

My experience tells me this: Ideology won’t win the global economy. Only a real plan can do that. I have one. It’s in the final chapter of my book^* entitled Agenda for American Greatness.  Compare it to theirs--if they have one.

Perhaps it was my “50’s crisis.” Some people have a midlife crisis and get a girlfriend. My midlife crisis in 2000 was running for Congress! But I had an important goal: to see that Tom DeLay lost that seat. Why? I believed that I had more expertise to lead us in the 21^st century, that he had been in office too long and had been corrupting the process – even denying Houston over $100 million in rail transit money. That was money that Houston taxpayers had paid for at the gas pump (part of the federal tax on gas goes to a rail-only fund, so it was our money.)  We would be getting it back and improving our clogged transportation at the same time. Once he resigned, my goal was achieved, and I stopped running in 2006. 

Ironically, I made my point. After my first run for Congress, which ended with the March 2000 GOP primary, I was called in to be a Houston TV terrorism analyst (on the local Fox channel) on September 11, 2001. On the evening of 9/11, I was the first one interviewed, followed by Mr. DeLay. I later heard that he was rather unhappy about that.)

After the campaigns against Mr. DeLay, honestly, I was pretty much flat broke. I had hoped I would meet a lot of people and get the policy debate where it belonged – on global issues that impact our future instead of petty politics.

But things change and we have one real choice--pick ourselves up and re-invent ourselves to get things working again. Crying and complaining won’t fix it. Doing nothing won’t fix it. Only action--and focus--pays. 

After losing congressional races against America's most powerful politician at the time, I cranked up my law practice.  But I am not suited for sitting in the same office all day, every day.  I didn’t like litigation versus negotiating global deals and zipping through time zones, trying to figure out foreign signs in other languages. I’d rather be back helping a Texas lady get her girl out of Lebanon than doing domestic legal divorce work and litigation.  

Then I discovered something vastly more fascinating--a security technology that would do far more good for people than I was doing as an attorney. That’s when I retired from thirty plus years of law and established my company, Armor Glass International, Inc., which is doing great things protecting people right here in the USA.

True story--just weeks ago my CPA’s wife was home alone when someone tried to break into the back bedroom glass. The only thing that prevented him from getting in was our security film on their windows. That’s just one of many similar successes we can document (to be illustrated in a new ebook in process.)

Do I want to give that up to go to Washington? Ummmm….

Do I want to go to Washington to listen to Congress reps “blow verbal gas” with their “vast knowledge” of the world despite never having been out of their state until being elected? 

Do I want to listen to voodoo theories of economies when I KNOW how our economies work? I was trained as an accountant at UT Austin. Don’t tell me that “default doesn’t matter” when it kills the credit of a 200- plus- year-old United States that has NEVER defaulted! These tea party guys are now economic and business experts when yesterday they were pulling teeth in Nashville? They think denying health insurance to people is “pro life”?  I don’t think they have a clue.

I was trained in global business by the Fortune 500 – and then was an entrepreneur helping small companies. I have been fortunate. Yes, I grew up. But I was lucky enough to be sent around the world as a global negotiator for those Fortune 500 companies. That required researching an incredible array of U.S. and international laws as well as the cultures of those countries.

When I first went to China 30 years ago, they had nothing; when I went back in 2012, I rode the fastest train in the world, the “MagLev” at 264 miles per hour. China now leads us in seven key technologies. Does Congress have a clue about how to fix this? How many of them discuss training the Americans who don’t have the skills needed for 2 million of our own high-tech. high-paying jobs that are available TODAY, while Chinese and Indians do? How is that helping America win the 21^st century when this same Congress guts our education and technology investment?

Running for any office is a lot of hard work, frankly. Raising money and meeting people at all hours of the day and night, for days and nights on end. The election is a little over a year from right now.  You REALLY have to want to do it. Do I want to do that? I won’t do it alone, for sure.

We have a big problem in Washington. Gerrymandered districts make the election happen in the primaries where radicals dominate. The November voters are cheated out of a real choice today. I have seen it. 

My book ends with the Proverb “Where there is no vision the people perish.” We need congressional representatives who do have a vision. Our success depends on making the right choice in those representatives who have a lot of work to do to put us on the road to success.

I have such a roadmap for America to follow in my book if Americans want to succeed in this new, inescapable, global high-tech space-age economy we now live in. It’s in the last chapter entitled  Agenda for American Greatness. It shows how we got into this mess and, even more importantly, how we get OUT.

But I would like to hear from you. 

If you are interested, my story is in Better Times Ahead April Fool^*. It is also the vision for America to win the 21^st century…it's YOUR choice.  

What do YOU want? 

If you want someone battling for the ALL people in what has become the U.S. Congress--which now resembles a bar fight with broken bottles while the bar burns down--let me know!

LOL.

But hear this. I am NOT doing it unless people really want it and support a Viking like me because I have a great life and don’t need to be battling idiots in Congress simply for an ego trip!

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^* www.bettertimesaheadaprilfool.com 

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