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Watch here for news articles and press releases regarding David Armstrong's campaign, the Constitution Party of Utah, and important events related to our state and local government.

Centerville, Utah: 29 March 2008
Constitution Party Convention, Davis County

David Armstrong, along with other Constitution Party candidates for office from Davis County, was invited to address the delegates at the county convention. The substance of his speech follows:

I have no interest in public office. I am not a campaigner. I consider myself relatively uninformed. I have many neighbors and friends and acqaintances who know more about the critical issues than I do. They are better informed, more articulate, and have a greater depth of passion about the problems facing our communities, our state, and our nation. They have been fighting the fight a long time. But no one else stepped forward in House District 17 to stand for office on the Constitution Party ticket and publicly take up the cause. Rather than leave the legislative seat in my district uncontested by someone who does not represent my feelings and sentiments and beliefs regarding the many issues that face us, I offered my services as a candidate. I figured that, on the off chance that I actually got elected, there would be at least one person in District 17 who was happy with his representation in the Utah House of Representatives.

I am not a public person. I do not like speaking to people. Actually, I do not mind speaking to groups. I just am not comfortable speaking to individuals on sensitive subjects that can cause conflict and sharp feelings. I have great misgivings about being able to mount any sort of viable campaign. Nevertheless, despite my personal shortcomings, someone who will support the principles of Constitutional government and personal liberty must speak up in this election. There are those in Kaysville, Fruit Heights, and North Farmington, which comprises House District 17, whose voice needs to be heard, who need a viable choice, and for whom they can cast their sacred vote in good conscience. I am honored, if a little overwhelmed, to ask you good people to cast your vote for me. I would be honored to serve you and to speak for you in our state legislature.

Like many others, I am largely uninformed about the crying issues of our day for two reasons. I am busy with my personal life and pursuits, and I do not like hearing bad news. I spend many hours every week trying to earn as much worthless paper money as I can to pay the very real debt on my over inflated house and to buy overpriced gasoline so I can drive to the store and buy increasingly expensive food and so I can pay my taxes to support services I do not get and a war in which I do not believe.

When I have time where I do not have to focus on work or maintaining my property or doing the daily chores of living or taking care of a family responsibility or trying to actively participate in my Church and keep my spiritual life in order, the last thing I want to do is read something distressing or watch a video that is alarming or listen to a radio program that is depressing. I have been raised, like most in my generation – and to an even greater extent in the rising generation – to be entertained. I want to feel good; I do not want to feel bad. Hearing about death and destruction, famines, contentions, angry mobs, collapsing economies, and endless debates over immigration reform, gun laws, first amendment rights, abortion, and so forth is simply not entertaining to me.

I have lived much of my life with the attitude that what I do not know won’t hurt me. I am now coming to realize that what I do not know is allowing those who do know to destroy my country, my society, my freedom, and my way of life and my children’s and grandchildren’s future. I can no longer enjoy the luxury of blissful ignorance. In my busy life, I do not need one more thing to do. But if I am to have a life at all, I must do one more thing. For now, that one more thing is to become sufficiently informed that I can adequately represent the constituents in House District 17 who are as alarmed as I am about what is taken place around us. I can no longer simply watch the fabric of our Republic and the Constitution that formed it being torn asunder by designing people who want to change our government and our way of life. There is perhaps little that can be done by a single member of the Utah House of Representatives to stem the tide of change and corruption that threaten to overwhelm us. But what little that can be done should be done.

In the early days of our Republic, candidates for office did not stump their territory and pound their chests and plead or demand that the voters vote for them. There was some measure of decorum that required others to speak for a candidate. Those who believed in a candidate would campaign for their candidate by speaking to others on his behalf. Abraham Lincoln, for example, made few campaign speeches on his own behalf. It was considered bad form and highly egotistical for a candidate to talk about himself in public. If supporters wanted to get their man into office, they would inform others publicly and privately about their candidate’s views and beliefs. Intelligent, strong, vocal supporters made or broke a political campaign in those days. Thus, Lincoln was elected while spending most of his time tending to his law practice in Springfield, Illinois.

Today, of course, political campaigns are much different. Besides the obvious fact that politics is no longer the purview solely of men, which is a welcome change, campaigns are now filled with great media clamor and personal egos, which is not so welcome. Candidates must be seen everywhere shaking hands, smiling, waving, and leaving trails of sound-bytes in their wake for the media to broadcast. The issues are lost in the illusion of activity. Candidates can no longer stand for something because they must stand for everything.

I do now know how to run such a campaign. Besides the fact that it is not in my nature, it is degrading and demeaning to the people involved and to the office they hope to represent. In today’s political world, money talks. The candidate with the most money wins, regardless of his or her qualifications, views, or stands on the issues. Once in office, the money that put them there now controls them. They must return to the trough to keep feeding the machine and to stay in office.

So how does one run a campaign without a lot of money and without stooping to the antics of the common politician? I believe we win people’s hearts and votes not by billboards and full-color posters and flyers and media blitzes, but by individuals talking to each other and sharing what they know and believe.

The reason I left the Republican Party over four years ago and joined the Constitution Party is because of a friend who shared an idea with me. No fanfare, no hoopla, no mass meetings or marketing campaigns. Just one individual talking to another and planting a seed. I liked what I heard from my friend. It resonated with me. It struck a chord in my mind and in my heart. He opened my eyes and helped me to look around at what was really happening. And I became a Constitutionalist. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to do. He just talked to someone he already knew about some things he felt strongly about. I had seen the bumper stickers and the banners and heard the sound-bytes on CNN and Fox. But none of it touched me until a friend spoke to me one-on-one. That is what made all the difference.

So what can you do for my campaign? First, you can become informed, as I am becoming informed. Just spend ten minutes a day to read one article or watch one U-Tube video or listen to one news commentator or read one editorial. The amount of information thrown at us daily is overwhelming. You do not have to read it all. Just read something. Do one thing for ten minutes that will make you better informed. Surely there are ten minutes that you can devote to learning how to save your life and the lives of your children and grandchildren.

Second, hold just one conversation a day with someone you already know about what you have read or heard. For some of us, conversations are more common on e-mail or IM than face to face. That is okay. A conversation is a conversation. Just share something about what you believe with one other person. You do not have to blast out an e-mail thread to everyone on your contact list or call a mass meeting in your office. Just talk to one person. Just say one thing. If that person is likeminded and thoughtful, he or she will respond and ask a question. You might have to share two or three thoughts over the course of time until you hit upon a topic that strikes a chord in your friend’s heart, as happened to me with my friend. As you share a simple idea with one person after another, you will begin to collect people in your circle of influence who believe in liberty and the Constitution and the Republic as you do. It should be the easiest, most natural thing in the world to do. If you are forcing it, it is not right. But if you will just be active in learning and in sharing, it will happen.

That is, I believe, how to run a campaign that is honest, honorable, effective and high-class. It is the only way I believe we can beat the money and the media of the established parties and candidates. It is the only way we can fight the crushing weight of public opinion and masterful manipulation that surrounds us and makes us feel hopelessly helpless. We do not have to be helpless or hopeless. One principle at a time, one person at a time.

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