“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and philosopher who lived from 121 to 180 A.D.

I think the quote says it all. Just briefly, so you have some idea who is asking you to get involved. I can honestly say I was exposed to Republican ideas and beliefs beginning when I was four years old. I know it sounds crazy and I didn’t know it or have any understanding of it but it was happening. My father was running for County Commission in what was then Dade County and which probably had about 2% of the population registered as a Republican. Needless to say he lost. My exposure included being dragged to Republican meetings and working on my father’s campaign licking stamps and stuffing envelopes. The point is my parents were very active in the Republican Party. My father was a delegate to the 1964 Republican Convention and both my mother and father attended the convention. There’s a great photo of my mother wearing a dress intended to look like a Florida orange. I would publish it but even at 96 years old she would hunt me down and kill me.

My father passed away when I was seven, but it was ingrained in me to be involved. Although I wasn’t actively involved after my father’s death, I was always paying attention. Political discussions at the dinner table were a regular part of dinner and my mother remarried my stepfather who she met at a Party event.

Between getting my undergraduate degree at University of Florida and starting Law School at University of Miami I worked for the House Minority Office in Tallahassee. Believe it or not, the Republicans were the minority in the Florida Legislature at that time. I came on as a glorified gopher but began working with the staffers and ultimately the leadership. I learned a lot during that brief time and was very involved in the politics of the office. The House Minority Leader was terming out and there was a lot of maneuvering to become the next House Minority Leader. In the end I had a long conversation with the leaving Minority Leader and he told me he had made commitments that he wasn’t able to keep and it clearly bothered him a lot. The man he had promised to support to become Minority Leader did not get it because of conflicts the sitting Minority Leader didn’t or couldn’t overcome to put the new Leader in the position. This experience at least gave me an idea of how the internal actions influence and control the day to day workings and ultimately the leadership of a party.

I ultimately became an Assistant State Attorney and then went into private practice and finally became the national manager for State Government Affairs for a Fortune 500 Company. In that role I direct lobbied and testified in thirty-two states and managed government affairs efforts in most of the remaining states. In addition, I worked directly for my boss, the Vice President of Government Affairs, who primarily worked in Washington handling Federal Government Affairs.

In none of these roles did I really engage in what I am undertaking with this site. I have worked very closely on the periphery of the political world but there is a big difference between exposure and active participation. I will be learning hopefully with you and from you and I hope to be learning enough with my fellow Real Republicans to accomplish the revival and revitalization of the Republican Party.