We regularly have "forums" where I and the other seven candidates who attend discuss campaign issues. All of the others have from time to time expressed the opinion that they expect things to get worse and worse. My gut reply to that would be unprintable.

Franklin Delano Rosevelt said, in times much worse than these, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", and he was right! Ronald Reagan said, when everyone else was crying gloom and doom, 'It is morning in America", and he was right!

Just last year President Obama was spreading the happy message of "Hope and Change" and we Americans elected him on the strength of that! We really do know it's not the end of the world.

So let's be done with the negativity and get to work!

By work I do not mean cutting budgets, I mean finding the money to fund the budgets we need.

By work I do not mean laying people off, I mean calling people back and hiring people.

A man yesterday told me we should have Sarasota declared a bank, then the federal government would fund our city directly. If the federal government can fund banks directly, the federal government can fund Sarasota directly and for better reason. I am willing to travel to Washington with the other commissioners to press this point of view.

Sarasota, too, is "too big to fail"

Reverend Robert H. Schuller wrote a best selling book in 1967, Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking. We need possibility thinking now.