here is one West Michigan Value our campaign has sought to embody, it’s that of fiscal responsibility.
We can’t hold Lansing to fiscal accountability if we don’t exercise it ourselves. We have run this campaign on a shoe string.
We have not paid for big-name, out-of-town consultants. You will not find a line item for hired staff. Instead, we built this campaign with volunteers. What we can do for ourselves, we do. We lick our stamps, we handle our yard signs, we wear out our shoes. And we talk to voters in every part of our district.
Now we’ve raised and invested a respectable amount to accomplish this: $45,000. Other campaigns this year have raised far more: over $60,000 for one, and nearly $80,000 for the other. Why do they need so much more (Glen Steil Jr. in 2002 only raised $52,000)? It’s a matter of experience. There’s nothing like running your business for twenty years, or serving on a school board to teach you that every dollar counts, that if you want to do good, you had better be smart.
Lansing is not about raising money (aka taxes), it’s about what you do with it. If we are not careful with our finances, how can the public expect us to be careful with their finances? Fiscal responsibility is a matter of integrity and it starts at home, with our campaigns.
