Thank you for your support
I just came home from hitting a few golf balls. Some went
straight, some didn't. That’s the way it is with most things in life.
Our shot at sending Ron Wyden into retirement was on
target, but came up short. We gave it a good effort, against big odds, thanks to
you and many others who supported the campaign in so many ways. It looks like
we’ve also fallen short in the other Congressional races, but things are looking
brighter for the Oregon Legislature, and Chris Dudley is in the jump ball he
often said he looked forward to.
Notwithstanding the determination of a majority of Oregon
voters to stay the course on big spending, national health care and the culture
of wealth redistribution, Oregon will benefit from the fresh air coming to
Washington thanks to conservative victories across much of the country. The
tidal wave of common sense may have stopped at the Cascades and Sierras, but
that only means that we must renew our efforts going forward.
In speaking to the big crowd at Victoria Taft's Rock the
Republic event last night, I quoted two American patriots. Benjamin Franklin
warned in 1759 that: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." And to avoid giving up
those essential liberties, as Wendell Phillips told the Massachusetts
Antislavery Society in 1852: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Our campaign was one of vigilance. I ran for the U.S.
Senate not to be a Senator or advance my career, but to do what I could for
freedom, the rule of law and constitutional government. Working together in that
effort, we were simply doing our part to pay the "price of liberty."
We will never finish securing liberty. As Phillips said,
the payments must go on forever. So I hope you will stick with me, and I will
stick with you, in the struggle we have pursued together over the past many
months. To paraphrase another American patriot, John Paul Jones, we have only
begun to fight.
Respectfully yours,

Jim Huffman
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