Jim Evans
Candidate for US Congress MO 7th
This is the fourth time I’ve put my name on the ballot as a candidate for US House of Representatives in Missouri’s 7th district. I am running again on the Republican ticket. That brings balance to my Party affiliation, with two campaigns on each Party’s ballot. My candidacy has never been about winning the election. As an educated statistician and student of political history, I fully understand my chances of winning are about the same as my winning at Powerball without buying a ticket.
I ran in 2012 because the local democratic Party chose not to waste resources on a campaign with impossible odds. I hired a gay black college student as my campaign manager and built my platform to resemble the 1956 Eisenhower platform with a progressive callout on diversity and inclusion. Progressive populism had not become mainstream in 2012 and I wanted to give it a go. I shunned traditional campaigning and focused on a social media “word-of-mouth” campaign. Surprisingly enough, my no-budget campaign received the largest percentage of votes for any Democrat in the 7th in over 30 years.
After my “success” in 2012, I decided to make a bigger splash by running again in 2014 with an online fundraising effort so I could invest in traditional campaign marketing like radio ads, signs, robocalls, and social media ad buys. I assembled an office staff, did phone banking, and some door-to-door canvasing. We even did polling. I only did minor tweaks to my campaign message and platform from my 2012 campaign. I spent over $85,000 in 2014, about $25,000 out of my pocket, hundreds of hours, and too much emotional investment. With all that effort and expense, we did worse in 2014 than I had one in 2012.
In 2016 I focused my efforts on Bernie Sander’s campaign for president in 2016, rather than enter any races myself. Bernie’s heartbreaking loss to Hillary in the 2016 primary made me keenly aware of the great importance of primary elections. And the escalation of divisive and deceptive rhetoric in politics together with a media that seemed more interested in the ratings generated by conflict motivated me to reenter the fray in 2018.
I decided to run on the Republican ticked in 2018, to highlight the significance of primaries in a climate of partisan politics. This time I switched my message from “Eisenhower Democrat” to “Eisenhower Republican.” I used most of my old website platform statements and just reworked the wording to sound more to the right than on the left. It was amusing to heard people blast me for changing sides, being a traitor, and giving up my principles, when in fact most of my message was unchanged from my 2012 campaign. Tribal affiliation and labels taint everything. The Republican State Party filed a lawsuit against me, and the Local Democratic Party made a big show of exorcising me from their groups.
There were eight candidates in the 2018 7th district primaries, four Democrats, and four Republicans including myself and incumbent Billy Long. I focused my campaign on civility and trying to get the media to pay attention to the race. I managed to organize six joint town hall forums with three Republican and three Democratic candidates attending each forum. Attendance was excellent and our candidates were well-received, and everyone remained civil.
When all the primary votes were counted, I was second of the eight candidates, with only the incumbent scoring more primary votes.
In 2020 I Again focused my energy and funds on campaigning to Bernie Sanders, and again I was disappointed with the outcome. I’ve never liked Trump and was glad to see him loose the election in 2020. I am a strong advocate for Democracy (rule by the common people) and as such, see our two-party monopoly, primary rigging, and Congressional difference to the Courts and the President as contrary to our founding principles. I fear we are moving ever too close to authoritarianism where the people become an annoyance to be delt with rather than a will to be represented.
This brings me to the tenth anniversary of my 2012 run for Congress. I was planning to never run again. Then I started studying “Pursuit of Happiness,” and decided that ‘happiness’ is a fundamental American ideal that is being trashed by the ugly politics of today. So here I go again in 2022.
I am the same candidate I have always been. In my fourth run, I am using essentially the same website content and the same platform. The only changes are clarity and focus.
2012 – Eisenhower progressive, focused on Inclusion
2014 – Progressive Populist, focused on Common Ground
2018 - Freelance Progressive , Focused on Media and Civility
2022 - Evolved Candidate, Focused on Pursuit of Happiness
No, I will not win this time. I am unconventional in that I reject common wisdom, partisan rhetoric, and tribal conformity and instead chose to think independently and set myself apart from the norm. As in the past, I will focus on winning hearts rather than winning an election.
In this campaign, I want to help myself and others find happiness.