By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Following the announcement of his congressional campaign in March, Attorney Nathaniel Woodward has decided to suspend his campaign and instead focus on community-based initiatives and bridging the partisan divide in the Castle Country.
“When I made the decision over the last winter and spring to run, I did so coming off the high of Ashley’s Law, of being able to pass that and get that through and secure that legacy for the Vigil family and the Dixon family. And so it was a good motivation to do that,” said Woodward. “And then this summer happened, and as we see, the national political stage hasn’t gotten better. In light of the most recent events with political violence that’s been occurring, both back in June with the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker, her husband and their dog, to the countless threats that are received by people of all political affiliations. And now, leading up to the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, and taking a good, hard look at the situation, I see that I was able to affect change in my community by rallying us for Ashley Vigil and getting that law passed while not being an elected person at all.
He continued,” And so mixing all that together, I looked at it and said, I don’t need to run for office. ‘ In fact, I think running for office at this time is going to distract me from the momentum that we’ve built. And so the decision is I’m stepping down. I’m not going to be running for Congress here against Dr. (Mike) Kennedy, and I’m going to be instead refocusing my efforts totally on Ashley Vigil’s legacy; and that is passing more community-based initiatives to help people who are disenfranchised, hurt or otherwise in need.”
“My philosophy going into the last campaign was to show not just other people, but mostly my daughter – who was raising questions about federal candidates and whether they’re good people or have good policies. I wanted to show that you could run a good, clean campaign where I didn’t have to attack my opponent, who was Celeste Malloy, who is a genuinely remarkable person,” said Woodward. “Democrats are not the problem. Republicans are not the problem. They’re both the problem. The party system right now is the problem, and I saw last at least in my last campaign, that if I went out and I mowed your lawn, or I walked in the parade and threw candy to you, and shook your hand and then said come talk to me in the park afterward, they did. The D or that R didn’t matter anymore.”
As for how he plans to help unite the community, the attorney shared,” It’s gonna be what we did over the last year, almost unintentionally. We’re going to find community issues, we’re going to gather the people that are affected by it directly and ask them, ‘How do you think we should solve this?’
He added,” We’re going to gather these people who these issues affect directly and go from the bottom up. That’s how Ashley’s law happened. We started with the victim and her family. We said, ‘How can we help make you feel that justice may be served here? And then we went from there.”
Looking at the bigger picture, Woodward shared what his ideal outcome for this movement would be: “One to sleep at night,” he joked. “I have a job where I take clients who meet with me, and they sometimes tell me the most horrific things you’ll ever hear. And so at night, I go to bed and I go, ‘Hey, how am I actually going to sleep and live with this?’ And the answer is I’m going to get out there, and I’m going to try to fix the problem.”
Continuing, he stated,” The ultimate goal is that we develop a community system down here where we see an issue happen, and we automatically know how to rally around that person. We get our representatives together and we pass these dang bills that change things for us instead of it popping up on Facebook … We want to set up an informal network. I don’t want a Facebook page for this. I don’t want a social media account. I want people to have my cellphone number and me to have yours, and then 10 other people, because I want laws to get passed that I have nothing to do with … I came to the realization that I’m stepping back from my political aspirations, which are none; I don’t want to ever be elected to anything, and I just want to help.”
Closing our conversation, Woodward put a call to action to connect, regardless of party affiliation.” In light of this recent tragedy, I would ask those who happen to have the letter D next to their name, like I do, to have the empathy you wanted people to have for you when you felt this way. Show that kind of love to the people with the R next to their name right now who are hurting, who feel attacked and singled out. Let them know that I will not attack you or single you out. In fact, I will defend you, stand up for you, and I am here if you need someone when you’re feeling this way. And I think that’s the only way we’re going to come back full circle to who we are as a people, is saying “I disagree with you, but I know you’re hurting.”