Commissioner candidate Heather Hamilton aims to cut through partisan divide

Submitted by the campaign to elect Heather Hamilton

Brookline Select Board Vice Chair and independent Norfolk County Commissioner candidate Heather Hamilton began her campaign for county office with a mission: cut through the partisan divide and engage Norfolk County voters of all stripes on how to make county government better.

Heather Hamilton

Six months into the race, she’s already achieved that goal. “Win or lose, I’m proud to say that we’ve held signs all over the district and had meaningful dialogue with both voters and elected officials regardless of party affiliation throughout the county,” Hamilton said. “We are truly the only countywide campaign in the race.”

She added that she designed her platform of sustainability, accountability, transparency, and representation from the feedback she’s heard from Norfolk County voters. Specifically, this means making improvements like publishing accurate revenue numbers for the Presidents Golf Course, fully staffing the county’s engineering department, and wielding her platform to advocate for issues such as fighting the Weymouth compressor station and the commissioners’ quiet effort to circumvent community concerns about a solar project in Walpole.

However, the campaign hasn’t just cultivated discussion on county policy. It’s brought people together. “My favorite story is from a few weeks ago,” Hamilton said. “I grouped two volunteers from different towns who had never met before to stand out in Millis. A week later, I found a photo in my inbox of the two of them in Medway doing a standout I hadn’t even planned! They became fast friends, and they’ll be visiting towns in the area every weekend until Election Day!”

Standing out hasn’t been Hamilton’s only way of engaging voters offline. She recently held what may be a first for a Norfolk County race — a socially distant concert at the Hamilton Bar in Brookline. Hamilton’s sister, a wedding singer, sang dozens of classics on a warm Saturday afternoon to raise money for and awareness of her sister’s campaign.

“I didn’t think we would have any in-person events at all, much less a concert,” she said. “We saw Democrats, independents, and Republicans turn out. Some had no prior familiarity with the office, but all came away able to say they had two rare experiences: attending a concert during the pandemic and participating politically without reinforcing the divide.”

Win or lose, Hamilton’s campaign harkens back to a style from another time, where someone who identifies as a public servant first and a politician second runs a campaign to listen to all voters and refrains from stoking the partisan divide.

For more on Hamilton’s biography and policy proposals, visit HeatherHamilton.org.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Oct 15 2020. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.