I’m Running for Congress …

Adriel Hampton DotCom
P.O. Box 4851
Walnut Creek, CA 94596

To: Friends and Concerned Press

Inspired by the community-focused revolution of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, today I am officially launching my campaign for California’s 10th Congressional District.

Many of you know me, but for those who don’t, I want to share a little of my background:

I was born in Modesto in 1978 and am a lifetime NorCal boy. I moved to El Cerrito in 1999, after graduating from Delta College, to attend Cal Berkeley. Around the time of my graduation in 2001, I moved to Walnut Creek, where I lived near downtown. Two years ago, I moved to our current home in Dublin.

My wife and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary next month, and have two children, 4 and 2. I’ve been a regular BART rider since moving to the Bay Area, and jump on each day to make it to my job as a municipal investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. I remember using BART to get from El Cerrito to Cal, and from Cal to my job as news editor of the Hayward Daily Review at the ANG News Center, sometimes barely catching the midnight line back home.

I am just a guy, but I am a guy with a dream. I want to take aspirations of everyone like me to Congress. It is time for “just folks” to take back the reins of government.

As our country has grown in population, it has grown more and more difficult to stay connected to our elected leadership. The founders intended the members of the House of Representatives — the People’s House — to represent no more than thirty thousand people, yet CA-10 has more than twenty times that number. While the gulf between The Hill and the Bay Area is wide, our tech revolution can bridge that gulf.

Each major media revolution has allowed a new generation of leaders and politics — from FDR and radio to JFK and television to President Obama and the Internet.

President Obama showed us what loose networks of concerned citizens can do, becoming the first “social media” candidate. I want to use these new tools to join him in Washington DC to transform a government that has become strangely disconnected from the everyday realities of people in District 10. We have much work to do, starting with building a 21st century economy. But in this time of great challenge, I have great hope.

My campaign will be communicating in revolutionary new ways, and in the traditional. You’ll be seeing me in Livermore and Fairfield, and back in my old haunts in Walnut Creek and El Cerrito.

I will be running a progressive campaign and asking for small donations from thousands of my friends and neighbors. You will be able to follow my campaign through an open calendar and participate through a new social network and a call-in radio show for district residents.

You’ll hear my plans for turning the economy around for people like me and my family – people like you and your family – and for changing the American health care system and fully funding our public schools.

I’ll be telling the story of my environmental and neighborhood activism, and working to bridge the gap between working class voters, technologists and public servants. We are all in this together, and we get the government we are willing to fight for.

I remember being behind the lines as political editor of the San Francisco Examiner, hamming it up with my Bay Area print media colleagues and making sure the TV folks knew what was actually going on. This time, I’m on the other side, but I look forward to talking with you again.

Thank you.

-Adriel

P.S. Incumbent Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher has been nominated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve as undersecretary of state for arms control. Following senate confirmation, there will be a sprint of a special election in the tenth congressional district. This is a race I can win — with your help. Not just the election, but the fight to connect citizens to government and bring people together to progress our country.