VoteLester.com

Technically, this is not really a campaign, but rather a demonstration, because what I really want the public to understand is that…

…This is what a person elected to public office should be saying, promising, and doing.

Lester Leavitt · Rural NW Illinois · Jo Daviess County
Start Here · 90 Seconds

Why does this exist?

Before the framework, before the six books and twenty-two requirements — this is the ninety-second case for why the work matters right now, in this region, in this election cycle.

From the Driftless Rivers Coalition · driftlessrivers.us
Watch the full 19-minute presentation →
The Emergent Narrative Community · Field Report

Why a Democrat helped a Republican Navy veteran challenge his own party's incumbent

Josh Atkinson and I came up with this idea together. His campaign for mayor of Freeport had exposed a fractured support network — a coalition of people who knew the city needed change but could never agree on the best narrative to define what Freeport actually needed. That fracture, by default, returned the incumbent and the entire old guard to power. The experience left Josh with a question, and it left me with a hypothesis.

In my memoir, I describe the kind of Democrat I am — and the kind of cross-partisan bridge I believe has to be built if rural NW Illinois is ever going to have competitive elections:

"I've got some traits of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but at the same time, there's more Adam Kinzinger and Elizabeth Cheney in me than there is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
— Forbidden Friends, Chapter 38: The Driftless Rivers Coalition

Josh didn't need my help because he was a Republican. He needed an ally who understood how the petition system, the objection process, and the selective enforcement of filing requirements work together to make competitive elections impossible — regardless of party. About a dozen dedicated volunteers gathered 1,028 signatures on two-lane county roads where the houses are a mile apart. When we made the four-hour drive to Springfield to argue before the State Board of Elections, we faced off against the attorney on the payroll of the Republican Party of Illinois.

— Forbidden Friends, Chapter 32: The Great Replacement of Democracy

What we learned became the evidence for State Board Cases 107 and 108. What it proved is that the system isn't broken. It's working exactly as designed — for incumbents.

Read the full story
Who Is Behind This

I am, first and foremost, a Scholar of Narrative Governance & AI Democratic Accountability. My flagship site explains the complete governance specification — twenty-two requirements across six functional layers — derived from first principles in public administration, social psychology, narrative theory, and network theory.

DriftlessRivers.us — The Scholarship

I am also a consultant that can help campaigns train their staff on how to generate new governing narratives capable of displacing the damaging narratives that we are all too familiar with.

DriftlessRiversCoalition.com — The Consulting

When I was a graduate student doing a doctoral program in public administration from 2011 to 2015, my research led me to create an information system that anticipated AI capabilities a decade before the technology would materialize.

MOCSIEsystems.com — The Technology
Three Domains · One Interplay

The work is already happening — across every district

Congressional Districts 16 and 17 are gerrymandered so badly that county central committees are split and their resources diluted. These three projects refuse to respect those artificial lines. They work everywhere because the problems are everywhere.

↗ Layer 1 · The Diagnostic Engine

Vote In Your Own Best Interest

viyobi.com

Podcasts and YouTube Shorts that identify the ideographs — the words and phrases that govern how you vote against your own interests. Every episode is a record in the MOCSIE Engine — tagged, archived, and waiting for the architecture that threads them into navigable narratives governed by democratic accountability.

MOCSIE Req. 1–5 · Diagnosing the narrative before it governs you
 ↗ Layer 2 · The Displacement Engine

Don't Take the Bait

dont-take-the-bait.com

Media literacy and anti-disinformation. How rage-bait captures attention, how disinformation exploits trust, and why "just don't engage" was never enough — because the gerrymandered map is the bait. It converts the slogan into a counter-narrative that meets the same emotional need without the harm.

MOCSIE Req. 6–8 · Producing alternative narratives that satisfy the needs the displaced ones served
 ↗ Layer 3 · The Contact Engine

Silence Is Betrayal

silence-is-betrayal.com

The podcast network that puts displaced narratives into action. An uncontested race is not a sign of consensus — it is the sound of a system working exactly as designed to ensure that no one shows up to ask the questions that matter.

MOCSIE Req. 9–10 · Engineering contact that satisfies Allport's conditions for prejudice reduction

VIYOBI identifies the ideograph — the word or phrase that governs how you vote against your own interests. Don't Take the Bait converts the slogan into a counter-narrative that meets the same emotional need without the harm. Silence Is Betrayal puts that counter-narrative into the public record where it can't be ignored.

Together, they form the first three layers of the MOCSIE Architecture — a six-layer, twenty-two-requirement governance specification for communities that produce media inside systems engineered to bury them. The specification was built from four years of doctoral research in public administration. The technology it governs arrived after the framework was already complete.

View the full specification at mocsie.ai
The Vision for Rural NW Illinois — In Three Books

My vision is so comprehensive that it was easier to write about it in three books. If you want to see what I see, start with Confluence, which picks up the troubles of a soybean farmer in October of last year. His family's problems were created by a government that was insensitive to their needs, and he got a few of his neighbors on board.

By 2032, NW Illinois is a very different place — but it is not a direct line from A to B. The path there is stranger, harder, and more human than any campaign brochure could contain.

Books are available on Amazon, but if you want a signed copy delivered to your town when I am traveling with candidates across the region to support their campaigns, buy directly from the Driftless Rivers store and save on shipping costs.

Get signed copies — hand-delivered on the trail →

We don't get there until everybody in NW Illinois
understands a VIYOBI [vye-OH-bee] and what it means to
"Vote In Your Own Best Interest."