Hi. I’m Sam Smith, and I’d like your vote.

In January I launched Dr. Slammy in 2008, my doomed campaign for president. Then a few months later, forgetting that there are only 24 hours in a day, I got myself embroiled in this Scholars & Rogues project. Something had to give, and as a result I let the DS08 initiative slide.

As the presidential campaign has hotted up, though, it’s become clearer and clearer that America needs a candidate who’s willing to approach our problems with some genuinely fresh perspective. Candidates from both major parties are having a hard time differentiating themselves, and for good reason: there’s just not much difference between them.

So, since I think the ideas represented by DS08 are important, and since I don’t have time to sustain two separate blog efforts, I’m hereby making S&R home base for all future DS08 activities. (This doesn’t mean that my fellow Scrogues necessarily endorse this silliness – merely that they haven’t so far found any way of putting a stop to it.)

For those of you new to DS08, let me summarize my philosophy: we have no problems that we cannot solve through education. Later today I’ll be posting the campaign’s guiding Statement of Principle, and in the coming days and weeks I’ll be posting the platform a section at a time. I invite your feedback and ideas, as I see this campaign as a collaborative process. The platform will be fluid and subject to revision as new wisdom emerges, and I encourage you to spread the word, inviting others you know into the conversation.

We won’t agree on every plank – that’s perhaps the only guarantee we have in this initiative. But if we pledge to work together in good faith, I feel certain that we will evolve a campaign that we can all commit to, because the sum of our shared interests will far outweigh our differences on tactical details.

Join with me as we work to shape the American agenda in ways that place the benefits to our culture, our nation and our children ahead of the self-serving, cynical interests that have ushered us to our current sad (and worsening) state.