New Broom Coalition

I want to thank everyone on the Alesch for Congress team and everyone who voted for me. Though we only received 2.8% of the vote (9280 votes), I consider the campaign a tremendous success!

This is the first time a Green Party candidate has ever run for Illinois' 13th congressional district, and we were definitely starting from scratch. And while our opponents had well-established political machines and raked in over 2 million dollars between them, mostly in the form of corporate or other special interest PAC money, we were an all volunteer campaign and we refused to accept any corporate or special interest PAC money. I am proud of what we were able to do, and the way we stuck to our values so that we can continue to keep our pledge to represent all the people, and I know we can continue to build the Green Party in the future.

While the country voted clearly to make Barack Obama our next president and he has inspired a great deal of optimism, we as citizens must not lose site of what our government is doing. We must renew our call for an end to the Iraq occupation, single-payer universal health care, an alternative energy economy, clean elections with paper ballots, a renewal of civil liberties, equal marriage, and that those who committed crimes against our democracy over the past eight years be held accountable. I will continue to work with the Green Party to ensure that the people who hold this vision for the United States of America always have a voice in our elections.

Thank you to all of those who voted for me and for the Greens I shared the ballot with. Thanks also to those who gave us a fair opportunity to state our case, including those who sponsored candidate forums, members of the media who included us in their coverage, even those who took our fliers or signed our petitions.

Finally, thank you to the volunteers and donors who contributed to the campaign. I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish, and I look forward to an even stronger Green Party in 2010!

Steve Alesch

You can also see this thank you note on www.votesteve.org