Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

April 28, 2008

The challenge has begun to get on the ballot in nearly every state. I say nearly because Texas requires 74,108 signatures and the deadline is May 12, too small a window to get it done, so I will work toward write-in status in Texas. All states advise getting an additional 20 percent signatures to allow for those that are disqualified.

Thus far I have petitions getting signed in Illinois, Ohio, and South Carolina. I need volunteers in every other state to collect signatures, and if you agree that having a viable third choice this November is a good thing, please send me an e-mail to donkenall@peoplepc.com. Two states are easy, in that they just require an affidavit and a check for $500 (Colorado and Louisiana). Arkansas, Rhode Island, Utah, Mississippi, Vermont, and Washington require only 1,000 signatures to be on the ballot, and the rest vary, but a total of 28 states ask for 5,000 or less. It can be done. If I don’t qualify with signatures, I’ll apply for write-in.

Leadership — To Serve

Why would anyone want this job? You will have the worries of the world upon your shoulders, must make decisions that affect the very lives of many Americans, and are often blamed for things over which you have no control. A thankless job even for someone who does well. It’s a position of enormous responsibility that should only be approached with the greatest reservation, as Abraham Lincoln did. Lincoln felt a huge burden upon his shoulders when elected, knowing that civil war was almost inevitable. He entered the White House with apprehension, and believed he would not survive the job.

About 300 years before Christ Plato wrote, “Whereas the truth is that the state in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern, is always the best and most quietly governed. The state in which they are most eager to govern are always the worst.” Twenty-two hundred years later Aiden W. Tozer, an American Protestant pastor, wrote, “The man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader.” These are truths, and they apply to the candidates that are raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convince you that they should be president.

I have no affinity for the unbridled ambitions that feed the egos of professional politicians. The decision that I made in January 2007 required a lot of soul-searching. I have to be willing to give up, forever, the profession that I dearly love, to serve as a good shepherd, to lead this great Nation. I seek this office to serve, to preserve America’s sovereignty and ensure a secure future for the many generations to come, and am compelled to do so for each and every American. I will not fail to change the course of this great ship and sail into better waters for us all. God Bless America and God Bless Americans everywhere.