Hey, everyone! Not sure if you heard the news, but Jim Jenkins was recently endorsed by The New York Times! The most influential and widely read newspaper in the United States has decided that this rancher and businessman from Nebraska has a message for all Americans -- serve the people, not the party.

Wait a second, you might be saying, wasn’t it the… yes, alright, you caught me. It wasn’t The New York Times that endorsed dad, but the York News-Times, one of the twelve daily newspapers we have here in the state of Nebraska.

While it would have been awesome to be endorsed by The New York Times, I am just as excited to have the York News-Times endorse us, and I want to thank them for having the courage to stand up to the party system and to back a candidate “who will vote for the people, not the party.”

I also want to congratulate them on a very well-written article. Sometimes candidates and media get caught up in the unintelligible political jargon that can turn off any voter, but this article simply outlines why Jim Jenkins should be a candidate whom all Nebraskans can and should get behind.

If you haven’t read the article, you can find it here.

My favorite point that the York News-Times makes is this:

“… Jim has a problem. The problem is us. After decades of being funneled into two separate pools of voters, Republican or Democrat, we have been conditioned to believe these are our only two options. This is exactly what the two major parties want, evident by their very restrictive primary process, which nearly eliminates prospects for independent candidates to gain a seat at the election table.”

While I have been working on the campaign over the last couple of months, I have seen so much hope and so many sensible, good people in Nebraska. I have seen a population of people who are fed up with the system and are willing to try something new.

On the other hand, I have also become greatly frustrated because people expect change, demand it even, but they are not willing to go out and make the change happen. Citizens of America have the right to vote because it is also our right to have a say in how our country is run and who is running it.

What I have found most remarkable is the fact that all of us are willing to complain about the system and how it is ruining our lives and our country, but many have not even registered to vote. If people are so disgusted with the political system, then why is there such an apparent state of voter apathy?

It requires you to vote, and perhaps this is asking a little bit more, but it requires you to educate yourself on the candidate you are voting on. All it takes is your participation.

Until our country changes our apathetic view toward voting, we will continue to struggle under a stagnant Congress and we will slowly watch our country go down the drain. By then, it will be too late.

Luckily, it’s up to you. It’s not too late today. If you are a Nebraskan, you have the ability to be part of an exciting and innovative change in our country.

As Nebraskans, we could be part of a movement that strays away from the party-paid-for seat and votes for the man who sits in it instead. We could be a state that leads a revolutionary reform of how politics are done in this country and save our future from the destructive path it’s currently on.

In order to do this, though, you have to vote Jim Jenkins.

Editor’s note: This post originally published on the blog, Jenkins’ Girl, on Thursday, September 22, 2014, and has been edited for publication on IVN.