Tim’s Blog | Tim John for Governor 2010 | Wisconsin, a Beacon of Hope

Past Emails from Tim John

February 2010

2.28.10 — By Tim John

Cheers Friends,

Please watch our most entertaining video to date, The March on Madison, at our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/timjohnforgovernor. It has a smile guarantee attached. Even our competition will smile.

Remember to spread our videos to your family and friends because they help us to get the word out. Please help us attain our goal of 10,000 viewings of my YouTube channel by my birthday on March 22. Be part of the challenge by personally forwarding our message to 100 friends and relatives by this Friday.

Also, check out our recently unveiled new website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com that was months in the making, which is loaded with videos, photos, and great information.

Black Men and White Milk

Black men and white milk, what a combination! Our campaign has enlarged our platform by one plank, as we endorse state bill (LRB 3242/3) that would allow our dairy farmers to sell unpasteurized milk, known as raw milk, directly to consumers. Since 1957, it has been prohibited for farmers to sell raw milk directly to consumers. We believe that farmers should have the legal right to sell their milk directly to us. Both the farmers and we win.

Raw milk and associated dairy products provide a larger return to the farmer, which in the long run, has the potential to reduce prices for us. It also has been shown to produce significant health benefits (such as the relief of asthma and digestive disorders) that cannot be derived from pasteurized/homogenized milk.

This past week I visited with a college organization and then, the next day, a high school class. Both groups had members who expressed the importance of bringing unemployed black men to our financial “table”. This issue resonates with young people, who see removing barriers to unemployment, as a great way to improve our society. Our hats off to the next generation!

Please contribute to our campaign with a direct deposit link on our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com or by sending us a check. Help us send Wisconsin rocketing towards greatness.

We will stay the course.

Tim John

2.22.10 — By Tim John

Cheers,

This Wednesday February 24th, from 5:30-7:00 p.m., we will have a meet and greet the candidate at Coffee Makes You Black at 2803 North Teutonia Avenue in Milwaukee. Please join us while we listen and learn.

This week we have a new video on our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/timjohnforgovernor, showing me dragging a kayak in the snow. I don't want to explain the entire plot, so watch it and then send it on to others. We will enjoy this campaign, despite the difficult economy.

As our campaign covers the state, I become more convinced that we should improve the way we treat our black brothers. Over the decades, it is unconscionable how Wisconsin has excluded, isolated, impoverished, ignored, and imprisoned our black men. Just ask them. Take a moment and listen. You'll be shocked.

This week I heard of many, many young black professionals leaving Wisconsin for better opportunities elsewhere. Also, a mother told me of a heart wrenching talk she had with her teenage son, explaining how, as a black man, his opportunities would forever be limited despite his ample talent and tenacity. Later, I listened to stories of black men simply giving up their search for small business loans or jobs after so much rejection. These difficulties occur in all economic cycles.

Wisconsin is coughing up clots of crimson blood and the “doctors” are just watching. Where are our elected and appointed officials on this issue? Where do our business leaders stand? Make no mistake. Wisconsin will improve our treatment of our state's black men, at least by this September's election. Our state will provide seats at the table for everybody; yes, everybody. Then together we will begin to create jobs, lower taxes, and improve education. Until we bring black men to the table, we will continue to flounder in the ocean in a wind-tossed dinghy on a moonless night.

Progress often comes when one foolhardy person stands against a tidal wave. Join our campaign, as we fight against this unacceptable situation. Excluding black men from our economy hurts us all in ways we barely understand. We lose out on their personality, depth, imagination, intelligence and many other traits that would improve all of our lives.

Let's pull up our sleeves and get to work on this issue. We'll close the gates, locking out fear and hatred. Our campaign asks that each of us, in this Great State, reach out to our unemployed black brothers saying, “Hello. How can I help?” Sometimes patiently waiting for the answers is necessary, but they come.

We will send out signals to the rest of the Union that inclusiveness is a prime Wisconsin value. Our success at bringing black men to the table will demonstrate to everyone else that we can handle difficult issues. Courage will be our badge.

Please review our website for ways to donate and volunteer.

Enjoy a couple of campaign tall tales.

Our campaign refuses to pay for "poles", as the political season progresses. The other candidates can spend their donations on them. Most aren't perfectly straight anyway. The only good pole I know of, holds up a decorated streetlight on my boulevard.

Somewhere in the North Woods last month, someone spotted our former Senator “Fighting Bob” La Follette, Sr. politicking. After realizing that the real La Follette had been dead for almost a century, our spotter unmasked the masquerader. Later Wisconsin's own Ed Garvey was seen returning to Madison with messed up hair. (Fighting Bob, I mean Mr. Garvey's, thoughts are at FightingBob.com.)

I hope that you enjoyed the two political frivolities.

Please contribute to our campaign with a direct deposit link on our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com or by sending us a check. Help us send Wisconsin rocketing towards greatness.

We will stay the course.

Tim John

2.17.10 — By Tim John

Happy February Friends,

At the mid point of Black History Month, our campaign grows daily with more enthusiastic volunteers. Sssshhhhh. We are the best kept secret in Wisconsin. Please send us a financial contribution to help us expand our message. We need your help!

Close your eyes for a moment. Then imagine a state where everyone has a hand in governing. We aren't asked by our state's political leaders to go home and wait because the experts are handling everything.

When I am governor, everyone will have a say in setting our goals and then accomplishing them. In other words, our administration will demand that we all participate in this great democratic ideal called Wisconsin. Our administration will never say, “Don't worry because we have everything taken care of.”

Friends, prepare for a democratic adventure of the highest sort! The rest of the United States had better watch out, because here comes Wisconsin, cheese and all!

To become a true democracy, we need to have everyone at the table, so those who have been excluded will be invited, nay, expected to participate. Help me bring black men to the financial table because their exclusion has caused our state untold difficulties. By allowing long-term unemployment rates of black men of 50% or more in our cities, we all suffer from the results, though especially them. Their inclusion will create more sustainable jobs, lower our taxes, and improve education for us all.

We will never achieve our highest potential without deciding, as a state, to stop marginalizing our black citizens. Help our campaign stop the un-American behavior of excluding some of our citizens. Let's reach for our highest values and bring everyone to the table. Won't that be a great day? I can hardy wait!

Please support me as I run for governor of Wisconsin, as we will stride through one difficult political issue after another. Republicans, Independents, and Democrats will help us win. Our slow beginning regarding donations will be so much sweeter when we beat the front runners with their boat loads of cash.

Please send us some money so we can put another wheel on our campaign train.

We have a new campaign video on YouTube about Wisconsin being lost in the woods. This video sits with others on my YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/timjohnforgovernor. Please watch it and then send it on to others, lots of others. You are our best chance of spreading the word. Let's beat their big dollars with our big hearts and high energy! We can do it together.

In the name of political fun, please enjoy the following far fetched stories.

Yesterday I was thrilled to learn that I was leading in the polls among the Democratic candidates, only eventually to notice that I was holding the Green Bay Press-Gazette upside down. Oh darn.

What luck! Last week, I found a grocery bag stuffed with $100 bills, totaling $1,000,000, and doubled our campaign contributions by donating $2,500 to it.

I hope that you enjoyed the preceding snippets.

Please contribute to our campaign with a direct deposit link on our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com or by sending us a check. Help us send Wisconsin skyrocketing towards greatness.

Please send us a financial contribution of $20, $200, or $2,000 to reduce the unacceptable joblessness rate among black men in Wisconsin. Don't hesitate because this problem is costing us much more than we realize.

We will stay the course.

Tim John

2.9.10 — By Tim John

Friends,

February is Black History Month, so let's attend an event or two, celebrating the monumental contribution that Black Wisconsinites have made to our great state.

Allow me a bit of storytelling.

While marching along a sidewalk in Downtown Racine last week, I came upon an unemployed black man in his late fifties. He wore a short, gray jacket, plain brown pants, blue knit hat, and in his left hand he carried a silver lunch bucket, with a turkey sandwich, a thermos of hot coffee, and a Twinkie.

Looking at his exhausted eyes, I understood that he was pounding the pavement for a job. He was determined that day to find success where before he'd only encountered failure. His wife had encouraged him to go into the cold air, despite his near complete frustration, to once again search for work. In a burst of optimism, he told her that he wouldn't return home unless he found a job.

Unfortunately, this day was the wrong one for me to engage this unemployed gentleman, since I was so busy. His problem would have to remain his problem, not become mine. To make him disappear, I closed my eyes, instead choosing to think about my daily routine instead of his job search.

Every morning of my work week, I push the snooze button for more restful minutes before preparing to drive my daughter to school and then myself to work. After eating a breakfast of cereal, cheese, yogurt, and apple at my work desk, I review my emails and listen to my voice messages. Lunch at Gilles Frozen Custard is common, before an afternoon of meetings, letters, and phone calls.

Often my wife calls me in the afternoon, requesting that, on the way home, I buy dinner items at the grocery store. The traffic often moves slowly on the highway in late afternoon as I, along with the multitude of other drivers, head westward. While driving I think of my wife and children, comfortable that I have a job that pays me enough to provide for them.

A burst of icy wind suddenly separates me from my thoughts and returns me to the sidewalk in wintry Racine, hoping against hope that the unemployed black man is gone. On this day, I really don't want to deal with his problems. I had closed my eyes, presuming that he would walk away and let me go on with my own life. As I open my eyes, I need a few moments to clear my vision. Darn, he is still there! He still needs a job! He won't go away! Maybe we'll all have to begin dealing with him because he won't go away.

Let's all decide to help the unemployed, especially the numerous black men who have been without an appropriate way to support their family for years and years. Commonly, these men slowly lose their confidence, finally nearly disappearing from our view, except for problematic appearances on the evening news and morning newspapers.

Let's forge a new path for Wisconsin, leaving the old ways behind, that includes everyone! We have the means for success within all of us. We only need to begin reaching out to one another. “Hello, my name is Tim. How can I help?”

Please enjoy our newest campaign video on YouTube called “My First Job with friends of Tim John for Governor” and see the importance that people place on their first jobs. (Please let us know about your first job. Email your story to us at info@timjohnforgovernor.com.) This new video sits with others on my YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/timjohnforgovernor. Please remember that these videos are our campaign's best way to spread the word about our campaign, so please send them to many of your family and friends.

We have given you a new way to contribute to the campaign, by installing a direct deposit link on our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com. Help us send Wisconsin skyrocketing towards greatness.

Please send us a financial contribution of $20, $200, or $2,000 to finally solve the problem of an unacceptable joblessness rate among black men in Wisconsin. Don't hesitate because this problem is costing us much more than we realize.

We will stay the course.

Tim John

2.1.10 — By Tim John

Greetings Friends,

As we enter February, with its emphasis on black history, let's continue to hold the Haitians in our hearts and minds. We willingly join with our island neighbors to create a sustainable system that will allow them to flourish.

Depending on one's perspective, the September primary is a long time away or too darn close. Despite accomplishing a lot, we have a ways to go to achieve success. Our vision for Wisconsin includes a state where we are listened to, our needs addressed, our dreams understood, and our successful future ensured. Our state needs more good jobs that can be won by creating an environment where small businesses can begin and flourish. I have over 25 years of experience managing a small business that provides good jobs for many people. I will bring this expertise to Madison.

Our Wednesday campaign event was at Coffee Makes You Black, where owner Eugene Thurman and I listened to participants describe their vision of an improved Wisconsin. I will keep these worthy comments in my forethought while campaigning. Listening to fellow Wisconsinites often serves me better than talking.

Thursday saw me in a Restorative Justice Circle with victims of crime, police and parole officers, recently released felony offenders, and community residents. Restorative Justice Circles are an age-old method of resolving injuries to the individual and community. This method of handling conflict is spreading throughout the state, from prisons to primary schools, helping us better to meet the needs of victims, reducing crime, and improving the rate of offenders successfully re-entering our communities.

In the Justice Circle, we explained how crime has affected us individually. I heard a spectacular array of stories of pain, sadness, frustration, and then loads of hope for a better future. We all held out positive expectations that the attending ex-offenders, on extended supervision with the Department of Corrections, would seek a constructive path, remaining in the community. Many ex-offenders, with appropriate support, have a successful life, substantially giving back to society. They have an important role to fill in our state.

On Friday my wife Karri and I met with a Republican State Senator, discussing many issues, especially how to govern Wisconsin effectively, using the best aspects of both major parties.

We have given you a new way to contribute to the campaign, by installing a direct deposit link on our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com. This addition will make it easier to fund our campaign that is sweeping across Wisconsin, creating a fair system for us all.

On Saturday February 6, from 9:30-11:00 a.m. at Coffee Makes You Black at 2803 N. Teutonia Avenue, in Milwaukee, we will host a forum on black male joblessness. Come and show our elected officials, both Democratic and Republican, that we won't stand for more years of human neglect, costing fewer jobs, higher taxes, weaker education, polluted environments, and a depressed outlook for the future.

Our unique campaign will forge new connections among all state residents, especially by bringing black men into the mainstream economy. These newly invigorated men will bring our state numerous new jobs, lower taxes, better education for our children, cleaner streams, and assurance that our future will be a beacon of hope for all. Re-inspired black men will in turn reach out to others, maybe you and me, bringing them into the fold. What a glorious future I see for us all!

Please review our latest video on YouTube, called Tim John for Governor at Birdie's, shot at Birdie's Cafe in Milwaukee, where you will see our campaign's great excitement. Kindly send our videos to your family and friends, as it is an inexpensive way to spread the message of our worthwhile campaign.

Help us send Wisconsin skyrocketing towards greatness.

Visit our website at www.timjohnforgovernor.com to learn more. Please send us a financial contribution of $20, $200, or $2,000 to finally solve the problem of an unacceptable joblessness rate among black men in Wisconsin. Don't hesitate because this problem is costing us much more than we realize.

We will stay the course.

Tim John