Unfortunately, my son experienced the worst part of democracy this afternoon. I took my son to the Damascus Community Center and wanted him to experience voter engagement. He was excited to see the voting process.

We had been there for less than 5 minutes when another Republican candidate, Spencer Rhoda became enraged, belligerent, and agitated toward me. I kept telling him, “I don’t want to speak with you” and “I don’t want to engage in conversation with you,” but he kept charging toward me. The second Republican candidate did not ask him to stop, nor did their volunteers. After I decided to leave this nonsense behind and looked for my son, I found him at the other side of the field.

I thought he might be a little scared. Then I asked him “are you scared?”. He was visibily very distressed and told me: “I am afraid he would do something very violent to you.”

After hearing this, I felt so bad and regretted bringing him with me. I did not know that the Republican candidate would be there, and I already knew about his terrible behavior from our Howard County League of Women Voters forum. I did not expect my son to experience this aggressive behavior directly.

Beyond politics, I believe our political candidates should at least have a good temperament. We have seen so many politicians with bad temperament already.

I want to document this moment and remind my son and myself as well: don’t be intimidated by bullies. I am proud I stood up, and hopefully he will remember the good and bad of this moment.

The fear of guns and gun violence is real. Frankly, I have never thought that our little kids live with that constant fear. I thought it was just a really unpleasant encounter with my political opponent, while he was thinking about they will do something violent to us.

I also want to highlight: for those candidates who don’t believe in elections unless they win, there is no way we should elect them at all.

I trust our voters and have been honored to serve you for the last four years. I am asking for your trust and vote to server you another term. Thank you.