Last night I dreamt about running for President.  It wasn’t in this current race but one in the future. In my dream, I won, but that is not one of the moments I saw in my dream.  I saw early stump speeches, I saw the Presidential debate, I was speaking at the inaugural, and I had my sleeves rolled up with advisers in the Oval Office.  This was not about ego or victory; this was about a willingness to step forward to reform my country for the sake of us all.

I’ve been praying about the issues I “campaigned on” so much that I guess my subconscious has hit overdrive.  In my dream, frustration over not being able to buy non-GMO corn oil tipped me over the edge from complacency to action.

My platform was largely based on food, environment, taxation and educational issues.  I’m explicitly not a professional politician, just a mother, a homeschooler, someone who has made a lot of mistakes and has worked for reform in herself, someone who doesn’t have all the answers but has learned how to learn, a humble whole-Souled woman.

I am moderate, listening to both sides, willing to change my stance based on better information. I am pro-choice, anti-GMO, against the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling making corporations equal with people, pro-clean energy, pro-organic, pro heavier taxation on multimillionaires and multinationals, pro pervasive educational reform, pro clean available water for everyone, anti-waste, pro buying local, pro campaign contribution reform, pro helping under-served minorities from dyslexics to the poor and elderly.

There is all this talk about the economy and healthcare.  But maybe we’ve got the cart before the horse.  If we addressed my agenda above, we’d see both the economy and health vastly improve. And it’s not about big or small government, but about just the right size.

I’m usually guilty of trying to get too much done in any period of time.  Just ask the other ladies in my pottery studio or my homeschooled kids.  How much of my agenda can actually get done? I’ll need everyone’s help, and I’m not just talking about congress, but every citizen as well. (…I was saying this in my inaugural address…)

I am completely out of my depth attempting this type of reform, but I know good help when I see it. I know how to organize an endeavor, how to assess advice, and how to inspire, nurture and appreciate those that work with me. I have managed big engineering projects, finishing them under budget, on time, and far exceeding the quality expected.  I have shepherded teens through puberty and kept my sanity. But I’m not so much an administrator as a nurturer and a reformer. My style is grassroots, bottom up, not top down. And I owe my allegiance to no one but to All.

The media can have a heyday with the skeletons in my closet.  But America has made even more mistakes than I have.  I’ve pulled myself up from my bootstraps and it is time America does it as well.  It’s time to start being an example to the world again, instead of a spoiled, over-consumptive, in-fighting, bullying, superpower past its prime.  We need to regain our national conscience. That is the only way to pursue happiness, which is what we are manifestly about. To remain the land of freedom and opportunity, we must incorporate sustainability as a hallmark as well.  I want to be proud to be an American.