If there's one thing we've learned in the 5 years we've been fighting to keep our freeways toll-free, it's that elections don't matter near as much as the people themselves staying engaged in the ongoing battles against our own government. We've passed the era where citizens could get by with complacency, we're in a new ballgame now. After years of neglect and trusting our elected representatives to do the right thing when no one's looking, it's obvious to even the casual observer that those days are long gone, and we now face the Goliath of entrenched special interests and lobbyists who really run the show. As one of our supporters likes to put it, we need a permanent, grassroots lobbying class for "we the people."

One thing about elections remains the same...the same recycled candidates show-up in office year after year. Though on rare occasions the good guys and bad guys trade places, by and large, for a litany of reasons I won't go into here, it's those who have been corrupted and who have no qualms about ignoring and exploiting the taxpayers that remain the powerbrokers. The kingmakers simply won't tolerate the incorruptible being in charge. So we've learned to work hard for the good guys, but to expect the bad guys to still be there when the dust settles.

Issue-based activism works

The grassroots have shown that we can mount an offensive and successfully defeat toll-related issues one at a time, year after year, by constant vigilance. The bad guys only have to win once to get their pay-dirt, but the taxpayers have to win time after time, year after year to defeat the litany of bad legislation and policies that hit the pipeline at breathtaking speed.