An Inspiring Message from Ed Fire

Chagrin Falls resident Ed Fire is the recently retired president of the International Union of Electricians-Communication Workers of America (IUE-CWA) and past member of the Executive Council of the national AFL-CIO. His biography is here -- among other things, he presided over the historic merger of the IUE and CWA in 2000. Ohio is lucky to have a leader of his national stature in residence here.

The following is a message from Ed about the elections in Ohio this year:

Friends:

This report from MSNBC points out what we are up against as we head into the homestretch of this critically-important election campaign.

Bush/Cheney/Rove/DeWine are desperate. They know Sherrod is winning, and they will spend however many millions of dollars they think it takes, and they will say and do ANYTHING to stop him.

From here on in, I strongly believe its got to be one-on-one campaigning. We've all got to communicate personally to all of our family members, and to our friends, and urge them to vote for Sherrod, Ted Strickland, and all of the other candidates we are supporting.

I have about 50 first and second cousins living in Ohio. I mailed each of them a personal note on the election. Through our Chagrin Falls-based volunteer group, Patriots for Change, we are making phone calls in our area.

I'm grateful that the President of our union, Jim Clark, asked me to write a letter to our 35,000 retired members throughout Ohio. I expect the letter will be in the mail in the next week or so.

As Sherrod often points out, if each of us can talk with five people, and convince them to vote for our candidates, what a powerful force that would be in terms of winning votes!

Please allow me to pass on to you something a former President of the AFL-CIO once said about fighting for what's right. In a great speech, Lane Kirkland said:

"I believe that soon we shall be able to say to those who scoffed and stood aside what an old King of France said to a faint-hearted absent warrior, after a victorious struggle for liberty--'Go and hang yourself, brave Crillon -- we fought and won at Arc, and you were not there!'

"The size of the challenge is matched by the scale of the opportunity, and we have in our hands one of those rare opportunities to make a very big difference in the shape of things to come.

"Let us pledge to each other, here and now, that this will be one of those great times in our history -- at which our children and our successors will one day look back and say:

"No matter what the odds or the setbacks, they fought for what they believed.

"They did not hide.

"They did not quit.

"They did their duty.

"And, together, they forced open the door to a better world, for all God's children."

Ed