Why did I come here from Seattle to work for Peg without pay? Because I'm a masochist? Hardly. I enjoy life, and my family. Because I miss the hundred-hour weeks of surgical internship? They were hell twenty years ago, and now I'm that much older. Because I enjoy talking on the phone? Or the frustration of motivating volunteers to greater effort? Guess again. Because I like Peg and want to see her win? Sure, but that in itself would not drag me (and in a couple of months, my family) 3000 miles to spend weeks in the car and on the phone, let alone justify the inevitable precious moments of abuse from friend and foe alike. In my experience, the pain that goes into a campaign greatly exceeds the pleasure of winning. I am two-for-two in political campaigns; both victories were sweet, but both were almost anticlimactic compared to what they cost.

I came here because I believe there is an enormous amount at stake in this election, that this election matters almost as much to the people of Washington state as it does to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There are many things at stake. This may not be our last chance to accomplish them, but this is the one on our plate, this is a good one, and who knows but that it might not be the last? To paraphrase Hillel: if not Peg, who? If not now, when? If not Pennsylvania, where? If not us, then who will do what has to be done?

What is at stake? The most basic thing is the future of the pro-life cause in this country. Abortion has been a litmus test for Democrats since the early 80s. It is relentlessly becoming one for Republicans, as well, even though there are still more people who vote pro-life than pro-abortion. (Never mind the electoral math; this is not a political issue, it is a spiritual one.) Increasingly, politicians like Rick Santorum are forced to acquire exceptions and toe the party line ("campaign for Whitman, and hold your nose"). The big money driving the Republican party is there for backers of domestic and third-world abortion, NAFTA and GATT, but is not there for those who agree with us. When commentators like Rush Limbaugh say "stay in the GOP, work for change from within" we reply "that's neither possible nor funny."

We have great responsibility on this point alone, for if we lose, and Ridge wins big, it will dissolve many of the pro-life backbones which remain inside the GOP. For a pro-abort "Catholic" to defeat someone as dynamic as Peg in pro-life Catholic Pennsylvania spells disaster. This is not just an aesthetic thing, a distaste for seeing Ridge on a national ticket. It strikes deep at the heart of the political viability of the pro-life cause.

If that were not enough, there are further implications. Legal abortion, by definition, destroys the legal category of inalienable right Ä the concept upon which all our rights are based. If we, as a nation, for practical purposes agree that the government can legitimately decide who has the right to live and who does not, then we have given it the power also to decide who has the privilege to vote, work, eat or move about freely. Abortion reduces all rights to privileges, to be granted or denied by those in power. Abortion is not a right; in the long run it contains the destruction of all human rights.

This is why John Paul II talks about the tendency towards totalitarianism creeping into "value-free" democracies Ä especially our own. We see the first tentacles of that beginning to appear in education and health "reform," and perhaps in business and politics. In education, government explicitly denies the natural right of parents to control their children's education; instead, parental involvement is extended as a privilege. Privileges can be taken away as easily as they can be granted. Goals 2000 transforms many rights into privileges: work, for example, becomes a privilege requiring a work permit, which will in turn require a Certificate of Mastery (a further privilege based more on demonstration of politically-correct attitudes than on earned academic achievement). Choice of career will be a privilege to be granted or denied by the Regional Manpower Board under School-to-Work, based on whatever criteria suits the Board's convenience. In SCANS, workers are not people created in the image of God, they are "human resource capital" units to be deployed for the convenience of the government-corporate "partnership."

These Mussolini-style measures have been US law since 1994, and go into effect during the next biennium. Enabling legislation has not been passed in Pennsylvania; GOALS 2000 is unpopular in the Assembly. Despite his rhetoric about "ending OBE," GOALS 2000 has been brought in by Ridge's executive orders. If Peg is elected, Goals 2000 and its related laws will be stopped in Pennsylvania. There is no popular support for these measures outside the Governor's office and his circle of financial mega-supporters.

In medicine, government-inspired health "reform" has concentrated all decision-making power in the hands of a few `HMO" or "managed care" insurance companies. The right of patients and their families to choose suitable health care has been reduced to a privilege seldom granted by HMOs. Rationing is done through neglect, inaction or declaration of `futility" and will continue as long as patients and their families are denied the right to control their health care destinies. Ridge and Clinton's "patient's bill of rights" is nothing more than a fig leaf to hide continued rationing.

In business, economic power continues to centralize in fewer and fewer hands. Working people and unions live in fear that their jobs will be exported to sweat shops in Honduras or slave camps in China under NAFTA and GATT, while Republicans and Democrats pretend that this is the result of the free market in action. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the result of sheer economic muscle in connivance with both political parties, crushing all opposition, in the spirit of the 19~ century "robber barons" - corporations who use government favor to slash labor costs and enhance their market share.

In politics, the idea that government is central and people are its servants creates corruption. After all, if government "owns" the tax money, and if public services are "privileges" government extends to the people, why should government officials not sell public contracts to their highest campaign contributors? It only makes sense, and is the very essence of "public-private cooperation."

Yet, there is more. Peg has spelled out very clearly Ä more clearly than any other living politician Ä that we are in a battle between two completely hostile world views: one which places God, and His preferred institution, the family, at the center of society, and one which places government at the center of society. Peg has very explicitly shown how family-centered society honors truth and Judeo-Christian morality, while government centered society intentionally dishonors both. My friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin refers to these philosophies as "pro-God" and "anti-God" and argues that those labels apply both to their structure and to the specific policies they favor Ä all of which Peg has beautifully illuminated.

So we are, first and foremost, in a war for the soul of this country. What will it take to win that sort of war?

I mentioned in the first paragraph of this essay that campaigns of this sort are painful; little glory, and lots of suffering. We have to enter battle Ä for battle it is - with a spirit of sacrifice. We Christians call the necessary attitude "taking up your Cross" Ä although Ghandhi, Maimonides and others have expressed a similar attitude. We have to accept that victory in this campaign will be neither easy nor automatic. We will all have to suffer a lot if we are going to elect Peg Ä maybe something as simple as overcoming a fear of making telephone calls or of going door to door Ä staying up late to stuff envelopes or put up yard signs. Maybe major fears like loss of business or even employment. It is not going to be easy. Nothing worth while is ever had on the cheap. We are going up against an opponent who not only has a great deal of money at his disposal, but who also commands many of the heights of business and government that benefit most from the government-centered view of society.

This is David and Goliath. A dreadfully unequal struggle. But David won, because he was willing to put himself on the line, to pick up his little rocks and face his enormous foe. He was faithful to what God wanted him to do. If we want to win, we will have to overcome our complacency, our laziness and our fears, and get out there and do what needs to be done: telephoning volunteers, raising money, collecting petitions, canvassing neighborhoods, getting out the vote, and so on. Many of these things will be frightening for some, but we will do most of them in groups, which will help. But we have to do them, if we intend to win Ä and I, for one, didn't come here to lose gloriously. We have to discover, immediately, the sense of urgency that tells us that if we don't get going full blast, NOW, then we will have let Peg down. All her courage, intensity and sacrifice will have been for naught. We will have failed to stand for God's principles. And our failure will be entirely our fault.

I don't want to have to live with that realization. Nor with the realization, if the government becomes even more oppressive, that I did not do what was in my power to do. That is all any of us can do: our best. Victory is never guaranteed, but failure is, if we give less than our best. So as for me and mine, we are going to work 150% until 8 p.m., November 3. And I hope you will too, so together we can enjoy Peg's victory. This is up to every one of us. Peg cannot do it by herself. I cannot make it happen without your help.