First District of Georgia congressional candidate, David Schwarz, released the following open letter to friends and supporters today:
Dear Friends and Supporters,
After much contemplation and prayer, I have decided to suspend my congressional campaign. This was a very hard decision for me, because I truly feel that given my background and perspective, I could make a real difference and be a strong voice fighting for the citizens of the First District of Georgia in Congress at this critical time in our national history.
I knew that as a first time candidate at 38, the race would be challenging, and since entering the race months ago in an official exploratory committee phase, and then as a candidate, I could not have worked harder to win this election. We had a tremendous outpouring of support across the board in our efforts — an ideas oriented campaign which matched, or beat, our opponents fundraising dollar for dollar, without “self-funding” and no loans and no debt, and a growing grassroots infrastructure we are very proud of.
However, our campaign’s support is in so many ways rooted in deep relationships with other young families. For these young families, and for people of all ages, the economy is still far from recovered in South Georgia, and we saw this firsthand as we travelled the district and visited with constituents and small business owners.
This is a very unique election cycle in Georgia history with so many races competing statewide and otherwise down ballot. I am not “self-funding” my campaign, so the immense cost of this congressional election would require me to continue to go back to families, who are being hit in every direction, asking them to gather more and more contributions. This is not something that my wife, Berkley, nor I feel comfortable with at this time in South Georgia.
As such, this process of a modern congressional race, which began over one year away from the election date, has put a tremendous strain on me and my family as the parents of a new Kindergartner and a 3 year old. For all of these reasons, I feel it is best to follow my own advice at this time and put my family first.
I do strongly believe our platform throughout this campaign – Next Generation Conservative Leadership — is the right message, and that the federal government needs to operate in a completely different way in order to advance the country.
What our government has been doing clearly is not working, and we must change course in every way imaginable. Now more than ever, our country needs fresh perspectives amidst this very complex and different interconnected global economy with which we are dealing.
By this, I mean that we must use innovative and creative strategies and more public-private partnerships in order to adapt to the 21st Century economy and reign in the out of control spending which is leveraging our kids’ future; and we need to meaningfully address the “kitchen table” issues of the rising basic fixed costs that Georgians are dealing with every single day.
Therefore, I have decided that at no cost to our donors, our campaign’s existing database and social media network will be transformed into regular public policy updates for those in Georgia and beyond to help you stay informed and allow you to make your voices heard through various means.
Berkley and I will also be turning our political focus to other important races this election cycle around Georgia, including the First District race of course, and trying to impact these in the most positive and productive way we know how. All of our campaign’s upcoming events for this quarter, including the five planned fundraisers across Chatham County and the district, have been cancelled effective immediately in order to save any additional campaign costs, and the remaining funds of David Schwarz For Congress will be returned to donors efficiently at no campaign postage cost.
My time in government service as an adviser to Congressman Jack Kingston and Berkley’s time on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Justice were some of the most rewarding days in our lives. While this might not be “my time” right now to reenter the public arena, I certainly hope to serve at some point in the future if it is meant to be.
For now, I will continue working to better the community in which I live and to advocate for innovative public policy positions and economic development initiatives through a multifaceted effort of grassroots and public policy work and other initiatives focusing on new ideas and growing jobs and the economy.
From the bottom of our hearts, Berkley and I want to thank all of you who have come out and supported us! It’s hard to explain to others I realize, but outside of getting married and having children, interacting with our citizenry in the raw democratic form of this campaign with so much at stake has truly been one of the most amazing experiences in my life to date.
Onward.
Sincerely,
David
