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We deserve a working democracy
Running for office is not an easy thing. For me, however, it was not the hours, or the insults, or the fundraising that was the most challenging.
It was the constant refrain of "you can't win, what are you running for?" and the constant concern as I made promises to voters while facing the personal frustration of not expecting to be on Beacon Hill in January to fight for those promises.
However, success comes in many forms, especially in a state like Massachusetts where so many of those who are elected by default do so little to make their tenure in public office what I would consider a success.
Unfortunately, my respectable 18 percent was not nearly enough to win at the ballot box.
In keeping with my promises of democracy, accountability, and action on behalf of the hundreds of Cambridge residents with whom I spoke, I will consider my campaign a success if the organizing and action pursued over the past eight months continues past this fall.
My campaign was concerned with pursuing a real, contested and accountable democracy in Massachusetts, in order to fight better on many critical issues, including low/moderate-income housing, alternative modes of transportation, and sexual violence and safer communities, in Cambridge.
One thing that came clear to me in all my conversations with voters, in their homes and on the streets, is that we deserve better, on all these counts. Most importantly, we deserve a working democracy, where I will never again need to look into the desperate eyes of another citizen who sees no hope, no responsibility, and no representation for them in this democratic state.
Such changes are not impossibilities, and I will consider my campaign a success if we can continue to build a party and a movement for such real social changes in Cambridge and the Commonwealth on the whole.
I would like to enthusiastically thank all of the excellent volunteers who helped my campaign go as far as it did, and then I would like to call on all of you to pick up a friend or a fellow activist and continue this campaign, working with the Green-Rainbow Party and all others who share our view and our hope for a better world.