A good man finishes what he starts. That is who John Larson is.
I’ve watched my father, John Larson, demonstrate his dedication to the First District day in and day out, and I would defy any of his opponents to match his work ethic and commitment to public service.
My dad learned from his father, for whom I’m named, who worked three jobs to support his family: fireman, auto mechanic, and butcher at the local grocery store. Every family gathering involves a retelling of stories about growing up in Mayberry Village, and the treasure of having two loving parents who taught their children to treat everyone with respect and dignity and to always reach out to someone in need, even a stranger.
Both of my parents instilled those same values in me and my two sisters, and our father’s commitment to those values has never wavered.
I’ve watched my dad sacrifice family time, holidays, and outings to make that flight back to Washington and use his voice for the people he represents. Doing that job effectively takes someone with a strong inner constitution and a clear sense of responsibility. My father is stubborn in his conviction of service above self, and today, now more than ever, we need that kind of fighter taking on Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump.
The irony of his opponents’ call for CT-1 not to re-elect someone who will never give up the fight for this district, is that his stubborn persistence has always driven John Larson’s greatest successes. When the news cycle’s attention drifted after Sandy Hook, he sat down on the House floor beside John Lewis and stayed through the night, because somebody had to refuse to move on from those 20 children and six educators. When developers and decades of neglect had all but written off the old Colt factory, he waged a fifteen-year fight that made Coltsville Connecticut’s first national park.
His persistence is what makes him an effective change agent. In 2008, when the party establishment had lined up behind the safe frontrunner, my father became one of the first members of House leadership to step forward to endorse a young first-term senator named Barack Obama. He backed him because he made a real argument for a different and better America.
The measure of a good man is what he continuously stands for. While the news cycle moves on, my dad follows through.
No human is perfect, even dads. But as long as I’ve been alive, my father has stood in the same place: for the dignity of work, the dignity of retirement, and a country that stops looking for reasons to divide us.
He has stood against senseless wars, equally as fervently when that stand was popular, as it is on Iran today, and when it was lonely, as it was when he opposed the war in Iraq in 2002. There is still work on his plate: working families like his own to protect, and a riverfront to bring home to Hartford.
I’m asking you to vote in August for the man who finishes what he starts. His name is John Larson.
Raymond Larson lives in East Hartford