John Muresianu: Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate
If you happen to be in the vicinity of Monument Road near the Old North Bridge, there is a good chance that you would have seen a sprightly, trim man wearing a hazard jacket, walking on the path greeting visitors. I happen to live in that area and my neighbors have reported coming across Mr. Muresianu and being greeted by a song in his booming voice. My mother recounted to me about meeting Mr. Muresianu one day as she walked to the center of town. He told her that he planning to run for the U.S. Senate. I was intrigued!
I sat down with Mr. Muresianu on a Friday afternoon in the Concord library to learn about his Senate aspirations. He confirmed that he was running for Senate. I wondered, why? Why now? His response was quite interesting: “ My 19-year-old son was the one that inspired me. One night he said, ‘Dad. You have something to say. If you don’t say it who’s going to say it. Don’t you have a conscience?’” Mr. Muresianu said that his son’s statement hurt.
A month later, he launched a new party, the Education First Party. He believes that education is the civil rights issue of our time. After hearing this, I was curious as to how he was going to make a change in the education system. He believes that he can reframe the education system. He feels that people are getting too bogged down in the types of schools i.e. home schools, charter schools and getting distracted from the big picture. The big picture is to focus on education first and not the type of school. Also, he feels that funding for the school should not determine the level of education a student receives. Many of the worst schools in America get more money than other schools. Mr. Muresianu voted for President Obama in 2008 because in a speech he made in Harlem in 2008, he promised to roll out the Harlem Children’s Zone model across the country. This did not happen.
Mr. Muresianu believes that there shouldn’t be any school in America that does not have a rigorous artistic, musical, sports program as well as math and science. He believes that there are specific ways of maximizing the use of wall space in schools. Every square foot of wall space in our grade schools or high schools is a teaching and learning opportunity squandered. Many of the walls are blank, that shouldn’t be the case. Mr. Muresianu highly recommended watching “Waiting for Superman”, about Geoffrey Canada, the founder of Harlem Children’s Zone and his philosophy on the American Public Education system.
Before I met Mr. Muresianu, I did some background research and I was unable to discover much in the way of his Senate campaign, apart from his website. I was curious. How was he going to get his name out to the people of Massachusetts? He says the biggest way that he was going to get his name out is by greeting tourists; “I greet tourists at the North Bridge from all over the world with the most beloved song from their native culture. Mr. Muresianu has an inventory of songs from over 30 languages from Arabic to Swahili to Swedish to Russian. I think these most beloved poems, songs and prayers should be the core humanities curriculum for every school in the world. On just 30 pages, you have the keys to the hearts minds and souls of 6 billion people.”
Mr. Muresianu is also currently putting together a campaign team to assist him with getting his message out through Social Media and other traditional methods.
In the course of my research on Mr. Muresianu, I came across an article on the Wall Street Journal, ‘Even When Stock Stars Get Caught’ published on February 10, 2010 where Mr. Muresianu says “I bit off more than I could chew to manage money is stressful. To manage money and to manage people is even more stressful. And if you are underwater for much of the time it’s also very stressful.” I know people take quotes out of context and use it against people, so I was curious to see what he thought if someone did that in his run for the Senate. His response took me by surprise, “I think in the vicious world of politics, you can always expect the worst. But I don’t think I will have any problem answering that.” He went on to say, “I think that should be seen in the context of my career. But that’s the problem with politics today, it’s picking on the random fair share. Random, meaningless or relatively meaningless comments on events and not looking at the big picture. Mr. Muresianu’s goal is to see the big education picture, the big health care picture and not get lost in details. It’s not twisting the truth.
A big thank you to Mr. John Muresianu for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with me! If you would like to get in touch with Mr. John Muresianu, his website are:
http://www.educationfirstparty.com/
http://www.muresianuforsenate.com/
