A modern version of the Little Engine That Could

Many years ago, I remember viewing a video of a preacher who had Cerebral Palsy and most people either made fun of him or sold him short of what he could accomplish. His parents would say things like "He will never marry or have children". "He would never be able to work independently or earn an income for himself" and so on and so forth. His name, Rev. David Ring.

I thought, wow, this guy overcame Cerebral Palsy to become a minister, put himself through several years of college, he did marry a woman and had 5 children with her.

Ha! I say to the naysayers!

You can do anything you put your mind to it. This story doesn't necessarily reflect a religious theme, but one of empowerment.

The next story, I remember fondly an acquaintance of mine who was speaking about a precinct captain who had Cancer. He was going through chemotherapy and sometimes felt really tired after the treatments and sometimes felt energetic a day or two afterward. He would walk his precinct a little at a time as he could until it was completed. Then he would ask the volunteer coordinator or committeeman, what is my next assignment to walk? What is my next task to perform? These people are actual people that I know who walked precincts up in New Trier Township in Illinois.

There was once a man who had a zeal to change the world, although his limitation was Asthma. He did office work for the IL GOP for three years prior to grass roots involvement. After hearing the story about Rev. David Ring and the New Trier Township Captain with Cancer, he didn't want to settle for just walking his one precinct or be content with just office work.

The man with Asthma walked high rises in downtown Chicago, often times with 66 floors and anywhere from one other volunteer to 5 other volunteers and never gave up on a mission despite lack of participation or no shows. The work had to get done. This involved literature distribution and leapfrogging of floors. If he worked the even floors his partner worked odd floors, often involving 12 or 13 apartments for each floor. By the time he hit the 6th, 4th and 2nd floors, he was out of breath and rubber kneed from using the stairwells, after all it was good exercise and quicker than the elevators. It felt as though he needed to go to the Hospital, but saw the mission through to its completion. This for a presidential year election.

It was now time for dinner with him and his companions. Since the man with Asthma led many successful missions like this and doubled the volunteer force of the downtown Ward, he was promoted to Assistant Volunteer Coordinator.

About this time he had heard that his church had funding cut from the synod by 15% and more indigent people in a soup kitchen were relying on the church to stretch food and services thin. The annual budget was in the neighborhood of $120,000 and had been reduced to approximately $103,000. The challenge was to find $17,000 worth of funding, at least to keep the doors open to the church and the soup kitchen the same amount of days the previous year, not adjusted for inflation.

The man with Asthma set out among his membership and found a former legislator who had a large contact database of people. Asked him to hold a press conference to raise money and make up the deficit. We raised over $70,000 at that fundraiser. The man with Asthma had also asked active contributors (on a form) to name up to 10 friends (or more) who she/he could see having heart enough to contribute to feed the hungry. The list doubled in size in no time.

The man with Asthma had an offer to volunteer in an office for the Cook County Republican Party for a few years and then grass roots was calling his name, this time out in the suburbs. He met a Committeeman out there that took an interest to him right away. He was immediately assigned two precincts. A few months passed and a few volunteers/captains left the organization and the man with Asthma was promoted to Area Chairman, supervising several Captains and picking up one more regular precinct and walking several unmanned precincts in the Gubernatorial election year past.

Another volunteer skill that he picked up was webmaster as one of the former Captains did that. The man with Asthma took a class 10 years prior and didn't use the skills learned him. The man with Asthma was introduced to several elected officials in the region who had the same webmaster leave and needed to have the websites maintained.

He also picked up a valuable skill as Treasurer because another Captain had left the organization.

He expressed his interest in fundraising and since the Committeeman had a few fundraisers going on, he gave his smallest fundraiser to the man with Asthma. The first year out for this fundraiser he made 1.5 times the money that the fundraiser made the prior year. The second year he more than doubled what last years totals were as Chairman of the Fundraising Committee. It wasn't that he was doing all the work himself; however, he successfully recruited last years list minus a few people and brought in new people.

He used a successful strategy in finding the most outgoing people in the organization who could promote the fundraiser by using their own lists. The fundraiser was a raffle/calendar, conducted as one raffle with up to 365 winners (1 per day). 200 calendars were printed. The most outgoing people and with large social circles were given 5 calendars to sell. As soon as those 5 calendars would come in, he would give that person a call and ask if she/he would be interested in selling 5 more calendars. By the way, with a few helpers, he sold the majority of sponsorships from the previous years and new sponsorships for this year. These sponsorships were sold for $125. Calendars were sold for $20 a piece and could return $10, $20, $50, $100 and $500 winners (only up to two a year).

In his former vocation he was a Sales Manager, Sponsorships, for a Webinar Company. All the work is done over the telephone, no face to face appointments were necessary. Sponsorships were sold in the amounts from $5,000 to $50,000 per event and $250,000 being the largest contract negotiated and $100,000 being the largest contract he closed.

Great leaders aren't all great with all skills, but they sure know how to delegate and multi-task well. Great leaders don't need to toot their horn all the time to show how they are great, they can show results.

Who is the man with Asthma you might ask? I heard he's a Fundraising Chairman for Mike Psak who is running for the US Senate. The man with Asthma is Gary Karlin, and incidentally, I just got out of the hospital today with a severe Asthma attack (1/2 the day in the Emergency Room) and wrote this on my blog today. I'm also running for Republican Committeeman Ward 47, Chicago.

Now, look at all the accomplishments on this record. I'm not too busy to do all this (most of it is done on the weekends, some in the evenings). I don't make excuses as to why I don't help good candidates on the Republican ticket like Mike Psak, Phil Collins, Elroy Leach, running as a Republican Committeeman in Ward 7, Chicago, and my friend Ken Herringshaw that is running for his Condo Board of Directors in Lisle, DuPage County, IL.

Seeing all this, What is your excuse for not being involved in the Republican Party with the right candidate? Seeing all the above it can't be Cancer, Cerebral Palsy or Asthma, so what is your excuse?

Its amazing how things are blown out of proportion. Before Jeffrey Leving, the Men's rights attorney lobbied for a law for fathers, Marie Karlin withheld visitation from Gary Karlin for several weekends in a row. The police told him that it was a private matter to sue Marie Karlin in the courts. Marie Karlin called several of Gary Karlin’s employers, harassing him and got him fired from several jobs. If Marie Karlin wants to get Gary Karlin fired from every job he's ever had, how can he pay child support, perhaps she doesn't really want the Child Support after all and wants to run for Congress or the US Senate or President some day. Then people will see the real communist, liar and hateful person that she is (oh, yes, it has come out on these boards). She complains she's tired of holding the bag, she doesn't have the skills and she's not making it.

Gary Karlin is not did file an order of protection in 1991 after Marie Karlin’s bought with domestic violence. She was charged, plead guilty and jailed twice in DuPage County.

Gary Karlin is trying to protect himself from someone who has anger management issues. On that order of protection, Gary Karlin was asked by the judge if he wanted custody of the child (in criminal court) and he answered no.

On the order of protection, Marie Karlin was barred from the marital residence and couldn't call Gary at work or at home. Marie came to pick up all her belongings with a police officer present with no incident. At this point in time the condo they owned was several month behind in arrears since Marie took 50% of his paycheck in child support and daycare fees, and wasn't paying for the condo several months before the divorce paperwork was filed. If Marie didn't empty his checking account with $10,000 and paid the bills this divorce wouldn't have happened. Its always about Marie and she enjoyed the media attention.

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