My name is Fred Lundgren

I may run for Congress in 2010!

(D) 10th Congressional District of Texas

"I don't want your money, I just want your vote"

 

                   

               Fred Lundgren

My Fellow Texans

  For too long, we have sent people to Congress who pass laws and govern us in the best interests of their most powerful contributors, regardless of how this effects us.

Candidates for national office consistently collect large sums of money for their campaigns wherever they can get it.  They use a portion of these funds to employ a public relations firm in order to convince a gullible media that their electibility and suitability for public office equates directly to the amount of money they raise. 

The media is more than happy to sell this nonsense to voters because it gets paid by the candidate for airing their political ads.  Nothing makes media owners happier than receiving a big check from a candidate.  In the media business, it's called "found money". I can assure you, many undeserving positive stories get printed or aired for candidates, just because they make a political media buy.

The whole system promotes legalized bribery of the media by the candidate while forcing candidates to make promises to their biggest contributors to get enough money to be elected.  This must stop if we are ever to return to a Government of, by, and for the people.  

Consider the people who populate the House and Senate in Washington. Look at the money they raised and who contributed.  It becomes evident that the amount of legal bribery increases inversely to the quality of Government official it produces.  This system seems to get worse during each successive election cycle.

Regardless, we continue to allow big money interests to control the political debate.  More often than not, it matters little who wins, because the winner will always feed at the trough of their biggest contributors while pretending to work in the best interest of you and me.  The hypocrisy fostered by this system is rampant. 

When it comes to candidates for Congress, we know they will lie to us to get our vote.  We know they will tell us anything we want to hear and they will do nothing to offend their big contributors, but for some reason, we vote them into office anyway. 

From my point of of view, we have no one to blame but ourselves if we send our representatives to Washington with millions of dollars of IOU's to repay.  They repay their debt by sponsoring bills and voting as promised. As rank and file voters with limited resources, we can't buy this type of influence so, we get angry at our politicians and our anger grows into cynicism and a distrust of Government at all levels.

We can reduce the power of all the well-known special interests who buy members of Congress if we vote to replace their chosen candidates with people who can't be bought.  I can't be bought, period.

Therefore, if I choose to run for Congress, I will respectfully refuse all monetary  contributions. Instead, will ask you to contribute your organizational help and shoe leather support.

I will buy and pay for my political ads using my limited personal resources and I will do so within the strict limits of the law.

If I am so fortunate as to be elected, my doors will always be open to each of you, whether you voted for me or another candidate.  I will listen to you carefully and respectfully.

 

If we work together, this campaign can be the example for other campaigns and members of Congress to follow.   It can begin a change in the money driven political system.  It all starts with your vote!

Today, the future of our economy is a great concern.  The poor economy, increasing unemployment, tight money, Hurricane Ike and the two-year drought in Central and South Texas have taken their toll on all of us in one way or another but, I remain hopeful, optimistic and confident about the future.

My faith in the American people and my confidence in the future stems from my roots that run deep beneath the rolling blackland hills of the Lund community in Eastern Travis County where my family farms today and, where my Grandfather settled after the 1900 hurricane destroyed his farm in Eagle Lake.  My roots also run deep in the sandy soil of the Pleasant Grove community in Bastrop County where my mother was born.  

For over a decade, I have lived and worked in Katy and, I have experienced the positive and negative effects of a booming local economy and endless growth.  Frankly, I am concerned that a fast growing local economy can give a false sense of security to those of us who benefit from it.  

Generally speaking, we should be very concerned about the future of our country because the population is increasing while the national economy is shrinking.  This is a double-edge sword that places more demands on Government during a period of high unemployment, declining wages and lower profits across the private enterprise system.

 

In my opinion, the economy would recover faster if we would turn off network television and ignore their prophets of doom.  Most of these talking heads have lost touch with middle America. Last year, the business channel reporters and commentators were upbeat and positive about the economy. They thought everything was just dandy! They were oblivious to the economic down turn until they personally lost their money in the stock market.  Since then, they been overreacting with warnings of a second Great Depression.  Tune them out.  They know not of what they speak!

In my opinion, the American system remains dynamic and resilient.  I am convinced we can recover from this recession which was seeded long ago by the NAFTA agreement and brought to maturity by The WTO.  To do so, we must eliminate the symbiosis of global interests that destroyed America's manufacturing base while ignoring the protests of middle America.  We must elect people to Congress who will stand up against Wall Street and International bankers when they attempt to impose their doomed ideology of globalization on you and me. 

An example of globalism gone amuck is our automobile trade policy with South Korea.   South Korea exported more than 600,000 cars and light trucks into the United States in 2008 and they imported only 10,000 American vehicles. This happened while GM shut down production and several brands in order to get a bailout from the same Government that refused to protect their markets. 

This is not free trade.  This is insanity and, it has been been taught for decades at Harvard and other major colleges that were originally established to prepare each new generation for top leadership positions in Government and business. If this is what they teach, I'm glad I never learned it.      

It is my firm belief that to recover a prosperous American economy, we must rebuild our domestic manufacturing base.  We must maintain a strong agricultural base and we must stop exporting our service industries.  We must reverse the ridiculous Government policy of subsidizing American based multi-national companies to chase down and exploit the cheapest labor on earth and then allow them to hide their ill-gotten gains in off-shore banks.

I will make a decision on my candidacy within the next three months.  The decision will be based upon your reaction to this announcement.  If you think I deserve your support, please sign the guestbook with your comment or call (281) 599-9800. Your opinions and your reactions are pivotal to my decision. 

If this approach to elected office has an chance of success, I will need volunteer campaign workers in every town in the district. If you are interested, let me hear from you.  This campaign will need people who can help organize a grassroots campaign.

   I hope you will agree that my life-long knowledge of District 10, my experiences, my resilience, my tenacity and my success in the private sector, combines with my service to State and Federal Government to qualify me to be your Congressman from the 10th Congressional District of Texas.  

Warmly,

Fred Lundgren                                                    

                  

                                                         

                                                         

              

The words of Bill Bradley reflect Lundgren's commitment to "those who have been less fortunate"                                                                                  

"I'm also talking about a politics that listens more closely to the voices that are not usually heard, a politics that has a special responsibility to leave no one behind. . . Listen more closely because the voices of those who have been less fortunate are not as loud and insistent as those who have been  more fortunate."      

                                 Bill Bradley,

                                 March 9, 2000

______________________________________________________                                                 ABOUT ME                                                                          

   Fred Lundgren a broadcast licensee, who has founded several radio stations during his career including KELG 1440 AM in Elgin and KCAA 1050 AM in Loma Linda California.

Lundgren is also the CEO of the company that operates KTAE 1330 AM in Cameron, Texas which is well known across Central and South Central Texas as the radio station that plays Polka music.  Lundgren also owns and operates TMI VISION, a small independent TV production company. 

Until last September, Fred and Linda operated a Galveston rental business called Texas Beach Front Vacations which included three modest beachfront cottages.  Hurricane Ike destroyed two of these properties and the remaining property is being rebuilt.       

  Mr. Lundgren is 60 years old.  His wife Linda is a native of Houston and has been a real estate agent since 1979.  They have lived and owned a home in Katy since 1999.

   Lundgren's formal education is in the field of broadcasting.  In 1968 and 1969, Lundgren attended and was graduated from "The Career Academy Of Broadcasters" in Houston, Texas; a school owned and operated by the late John Cameron Swayze and Robert St John, two nationally prominent broadcast pioneers.  Lundgren continued his education with an engineering course at the Columbia School of Broadcasting which earned him an FCC Radio and Telephone License and qualified him to perform engineering duties at most commercial radio stations.

   Thereafter, Mr. Lundgren was employed at several Central Texas radio stations where he gained practical knowledge of programming, sales, management, and engineering.  This experience was essential when, in 1976, Lundgren founded "Bastrop County Communications", a corporation that applied for, and received a license for Radio Station KELG 1440 AM at Elgin, Texas, a full time station serving the Austin, Texas market.

   During the 1970s, Mr. Lundgren also developed and managed a sizable family farm and ranch operation and a small fleet of over the road trucks.  The challenges facing Lundgren during the 1970's led him to co-found four organizations including a member owned water supply Corporation, a member-owned rural cooperative, and a State Chartered Credit Union. 

   These efforts earned Lundgren the reputation of a man who gets things done.  He was soon elected to leadership positions in several rural advocacy organizations including the Texas Farmers Union, and later the American Agricultural Movement.

   Soon, Lundgren was appointed as local election Judge in Eastern Travis County and became active in Travis County politics.

   When government funding was announced for "Green Thumb," a federal employment program for older Americans, Fred was appointed as the field supervisor for the pilot program.  In this position, he identified, qualified and hired all the Green Thumb employees from Georgetown to LaGrange, and then prioritized, helped organize and manage their publicly funded projects including a renovation of a portion of the Zilker Park Playground in Austin, the construction of "The Sunken Rock Gardens" at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown, the renovation of "Memorial Park" in Elgin (which led to the towns annual "Western Days" celebration); and the construction of day care centers in Bastrop, LaGrange, and several other towns.

   In 1979, Lundgren was chosen by the Texas Synod of the Lutheran Church of America to serve on the "Interreligious Task Force On Food Policy".  The task force sponsored a multi-faith national conference in Washington D.C. which eventually produced a joint policy paper on food and hunger issues. 

   These activities drew Lundgren further into public life.  In 1981, he was hired by the late State Representative Dan Kubiak to serve as a part time administrative assistant.  In that capacity, Lundgren helped draft, and worked for the successful passage of a law which legalized the production of fuel ethanol in Texas.   Concurrently, Lundgren was appointed to the position of Committee Clerk for the "Select House Committee on Fire Ant Control."  In that capacity, Lundgren worked successfully with the Speaker Of The House and the Governor's Office to secure sufficient emergency funding to supply schools and parks with chemicals that were used to control the ants in public places where children were in danger.

   In 1983, Mr. Lundgren sold his business interests and turned his farming operation over to other members of his family in order to take a high profile position as Special Assistant to the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. Concurrently, Lundgren received an appointment as Staff Director of Governor White and Commissioner Hightower's joint statewide advisory committee and he continued in that capacity throughout White's term in office.

  For most of his tenure in State Government, which spanned eight years of service, Mr. Lundgren was a TDA spokesman and Department liaison to many farm and rural organizations. During his service, Lundgren represented TDA in dozens of Washington meetings with House and Senate Agriculture Committee members and served as the liaison to Federal regulators at the FDA, EPA and USDA, when "Section 18" authority was need for the limited or emergency use of certain crop pesticides.  Lundgren also attended conferences on food and trade issues in at least thirty states. 

Lundgren also worked closely with the "Little Texas White House', officially known as the "Office Of State/Federal Relations," the liaison between State and Federal Government.

    During several statewide rule making procedures, Lundgren served as a hearings examiner for new pesticide use and application rules.  Although these rules were very  controversial at the time, they have stood the test of time and remain in effect today.

    During election cycles, Lundgren took compensatory leave in order to manage congressional and state wide political campaigns.

   In 1985, Mr. Lundgren received an "Outstanding Service Award" from the Texas Farm and Ranch Advisory Committee.  During those years, Lundgren received numerous awards and recognitions from trade organizations, and non-profit groups.

   In 1988, the Department Of Agriculture recognized Lundgren for "Outstanding Service To The People Of Texas" an award presented to Mr. Lundgren by the Commissioner Of Agriculture.

   Mr. Lundgren left State Government in 1989 to pursue his business interests which included several media properties and a fifty percent partnership in a sizeable oil and gas production company which, by 1991, had grown to approximately 300 wells, 75 leases, and a natural gas gathering system covering over 10,000 leased acres in Milam, Burleson and Lee County.  Lundgren and his business partner sold the company in September of 1991 during the spike in crude oil prices caused by the first Gulf War.

   In 1992, Lundgren took a career pause.  For the next two years, he worked relentlessly to fulfill a thirty year commitment to himself by co-authoring the book, The Nature Of Wealth, a tome filled with Perot-type tables and graphs and original economic formulas, that together, offer the reader a one hundred year historical dissection of the American capitalist system. 

The Nature Of Wealth was sponsored and funded by "The National Organization For Raw Materials", a conservative think tank, and by Acres USA Magazine, a leading advocate for environmentally safe foods. In December of 1994, Lundgren and his co-author published the book and Lundgren resumed his business career full time.

Lundgren considers The Nature Of Wealth his most noteworthy achievement.

   During 1995, Lundgren became a 1/3 partner in the company that successfully moved a new radio station into the Houston, Texas market.  That station is KILE 1560 AM, Bellaire, Texas; formally licensed to Port Lavaca, Texas.  The station debuted in February of 1997 with ethnic programming serving immigrants from five continents.  

  In 1997, Lundgren traded his interest in KILE for the development rights to a small AM radio station KBBV 1050 AM located at Big Bear Lake, California.  With two new business partners and, with the infusion of about 1 million dollars from a private equity lender, KBBV was moved to the Riverside market and was returned to the air in 2003 as KCAA, News-Talk 1050 , "The Station That Leaves No Listener Behind".

  In 2008, The FCC granted a substantial power increase to KCAA. When the upgraded and more powerful facility is complete, the signal of KCAA, which began as a 20 watt station, will be powerful enough to cover the entire Los Angeles metro and a total population of over 13 million people.  

In 2006, Fred and Linda purchased 102 acres of farm land in Eastern Travis County and applied for organic certification in 2007.  The certification was granted and today, Kevin Wayne Lundgren leases the farm and produces white food grade milo and corn on the land.  

Lundgren admits, "The poor economy, tight money, Hurricane Ike and the two-year drought in Central and South Texas  have taken their toll but I remain hopeful, optimistic and even confident about the future.

Lundgren's roots are in the Texas Blacklands where according to him, "Sometimes faith is the only thing that keeps you going". 

He adds, "The American system is dynamic and we can easily recover from a recession caused by Wall Street and greedy bankers.

Lundgren concludes,  "Almost every farmer and rancher will tell you that

It will be better next year".

   Mr. Lundgren's knowledge, experience, resilience, tenacity and eventual success in the private sector and, in State and Federal Government qualifies him to be the next Congressman from District 10 Texas.