The comedian George Carlin once complained about “bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths.” That observation was made way back in the 1990s, a time of relative prosperity and calm in America. And here we stand, only a scattered few years later, absorbing the costly consequences of our insatiable consumption, embroiled in a bloody, destabilizing war, churning out an estimated 25 percent of the planet’s greenhouse pollutants annually, and nursing a 20-million-barrel-a-day oil addiction that forces us into the most unseemly foreign neighborhoods. All of this squeezes our economic security ever tighter and threatens the future of our planet. Americans across the political spectrum are calling for increased investment in alternative energy sources and a reduction in dangerous emissions. It’s clear that there are plenty of things wrong with this country. One of them is there aren’t enough bicycle paths.

So what’s a concerned citizen to do? You might volunteer your time, donate to a good cause when you can, install low wattage bulbs in every room in the house perhaps … but if you’re a sensible, reasonably well-adjusted person, chances are you’ll want nothing to do with electoral politics. As much as some of us might harbor a desire to serve the greater good, we’d sooner wear a beard of bees than invite into our daily lives the kind of swarming public scrutiny that follows an elected official’s every move.

By his own admission, Rod Bryan is not the kind of person who wants to run for public office. But Rod Bryan—small business owner, husband, father of two, part-time bass player, community activist, one-time organizer of an attempt to gather 10,000 people for a simultaneous world record rendition of “Walk the Line” (it didn’t come off, but you have to admire the effort)—is running for public office nonetheless. And not just any office, not city alderman or state comptroller mind you, Bryan wants to be the next governor of Arkansas.

It takes more than a little ambition to make a run at the governorship with your first foray into public service. But say what you will about Bryan—and many people have—he does not lack ambition. He may not have managed to conjure up a 10,000-person sing-along for the Man in Black, but he did manage to gather 11,750 signatures and get his name on the ballot. He’s the first independent candidate for governor of Arkansas to do so in over 60 years.

If aiming straight for the biggest seat in state government right out of the box seems like an overly bold step for an unlikely candidate like Bryan, he doesn’t see any point in building up political credentials in a system where politics itself is the problem.

“We don’t have politicians anymore, we have brokers,” said Bryan. “Whoever gives them the most money tells them what to do. They have the yoke of their party around their necks and the yoke of the dollars spent on them… I think we need to paint in broad stokes as a society now. The time for small steps is long past. You know, Vaclav Havel—who was inexperienced in politics at the time—came in when they needed creativity and changed things in Czechoslovakia. When it was time to be tested, he stepped up. When you have a broken system, the first thing you need is someone with some creativity. And we have more than a broken system.”

You won’t hear many Arkansas political candidates name check Vaclav Havel, but then, you won’t see them riding 90 miles to a campaign event on a bicycle either. The bicycle has become a symbol of Bryan’s candidacy; he rides it everywhere he goes, passing out homemade business cards, putting up campaign signs made from torn up file folders and old cereal boxes. In fact, Bryan has put bicycle initiatives high on his platform, calling for tax credits to encourage businesses to be more bike-friendly, special statewide programs to educate people on bike use and maintenance, and increased infrastructure for cyclists. He wants to urge employers to allow their employees more time to get to work, and while they’re at it, how about installing some showers so they can cool off and freshen up when they get there?

If you consider yourself even a casual observer of red-state politics, by now you’ve concluded that—in his efforts to reach voters in this small, traditionally conservative state—Bryan is likely to spend the majority of his gubernatorial campaign pedaling uphill. No doubt he will. His opponents on the ballot this November, Democrat Mike Beebe and Republican Asa Hutchinson, are running what promises to be the most expensive governor’s race in Arkansas history. But nearly everywhere he goes these days, Bryan manages to convert a few more potential voters to his cause, and journalists in the mainstream state-wide press (who by-and-large have paid him little attention, considering his accomplishments) have come away disarmed by his intelligence, his candor and his fresh approach to the issues.

Perhaps it says something about the shifting nature of our national discourse that the issues Bryan is making a centerpiece of his campaign are topics you’ll find creeping conspicuously into the lexicon of prominent politicians on both sides of the two-party system. Corporate-backed candidates, who for years have carefully tip toed around such talk, are beginning to use words that grassroots outsiders have been emphasizing for years, terms like “sustainability” and “renewable resources.” Republican governors George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California are pushing policies that seek to reduce harmful greenhouse emissions. Christian Evangelicals are calling for environmental climate initiatives. Even the big U.S. automakers are slowly catching on to consumer demand for fuel efficiency and cleaner burning engines (if they hurry, they might catch up with the Japanese).

So what exactly is going on here? After decades of smearing and sneering by pro-business conservatives, is environmental politics finally emerging from the ghetto of a tired cultural stereotype? Are candidates with green initiatives being listened to, rather than lampooned as tree-hugging, owl-loving lefty loons? The short answer is probably no. But there are encouraging signs from some unexpected places. Wal-Mart recently committed to cutting greenhouse emissions from its truck fleet by 20 percent over the next seven years and to reducing solid waste from its more than 1,100 U.S. stores by 25 percent over the next three. Not everyone is ready to hang laurels around their neck, including Bryan, but remember, this is WAL-MART we’re talking about here.

“They’ve been talking a good game lately,” said Bryan. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Things like not letting any of their trucks idle anymore; it’s a step. They’ve created their own economy. I don’t believe in the model, but if a big company like that can make changes it would be substantial.”

Indeed, the model Bryan proposes for his state’s economy is dramatically different from the one epitomized by the goliath of consumerist culture that calls Bentonville, Ark. home. He envisions what he calls a “Closed Loop” system, wherein goods and services are developed, created, bought, sold and recycled mainly within the local economy. Finding a niche market and developing it, recruiting companies that promote sustainability to the area, and retaining those “bright young creatives” who often leave the state in pursuit of a more dynamic job market are some keys to the success of this ideal.

“You find a product that serves your people… something that serves ourselves better and make us less dependant,” said Bryan. “The key is developing things with as small an impact on the earth as possible. It closes the loop of how far something has to go to see a return on it.”

Local. It’s the buzzword for a new generation. It’s the title of the third album by Ho-Hum, the Little Rock band Bryan has played with for (yikes!) about 14 years now. It’s the central and unifying theme behind the movement to create sustainable, economically viable alternatives to the current system. The distance goods need to travel before they get to your doorstep. It impacts everything from the amount of preservatives and artificial additives in your food to the abundance of carbon dioxide in your atmosphere to the paucity of jobs in your zip code. And it’s becoming more clear everyday that the Wal-Mart way of doing things—i.e. mass producing great quantities, shipping across great distances, and undercutting local markets in the process—isn’t very beneficial in the long run for anybody but Wal-Mart. Even if we are saving a few bucks on light bulbs and bathroom tissue, what are the real costs?

Changing people’s habits, changing the way they live their lives, changing the way they do business… these are lofty goals indeed. Is a state like Arkansas ready for changes like the ones Bryan is proposing? Corporate interest groups and lobbyists notwithstanding, he believes that the people themselves are more ready for real change than the media and the politicians are giving them credit for. The biggest obstacle lies not with peoples’ attitudes, but with the out-moded system currently in place.

“Ignorance is rewarded in this country. The person that would say the system is running inefficiently is the guy that disappears first from the scene. You see it in the workplace. The person who speaks against budget padding or corruption is gone. When your government gives you a tax credit for buying SUVs, you’re subsidizing the wrong things. I think those things are changing because our system won’t stand up to it anymore.”

Whether or not an independent candidate with bold ideas, whose opponents are each spending hundreds of times more on their campaigns than he is, can make a difference is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. After all, elections are as much about debating the issues that matter most to voters as they are about the final outcome. If an ordinary citizen like Bryan, with solid grassroots support and a willingness to work hard for what he believes in, can have an impact on the public dialogue of a statewide election, he will have accomplished much. He recently closed Anthro-Pop, the record shop he opened in 2001, in order to focus more on his campaign. Support is growing, slowly but steadily from like-minded citizens that share his enthusiasm and admire his do-it-yourself approach. The two major party candidates will find themselves sharing the stage with him in a televised debate on the local PBS affiliate in late October. The biggest challenge ahead lies with capturing the attention of the broader public, whose interest has been difficult to gauge. The reality is that most Arkansans, and most Americans for that matter, pay only selective attention to state and local politics, and there are powerful interests at work to keep it that way.

“The corporations chose the candidates,” said Bryan. “They give money to both sides. The big corporations in Arkansas chose Mike Beebe and Asa Hutchinson. The first thing they do is ridicule a guy like me. These guys know that they are only dealing with 20 percent of the population who are paying attention. If a guy like me can motivate the other 80 percent, we can really do something.”

Peter Jones is a writer, web designer, and aspiring banjo enthusiast living in abject poverty in Brooklyn, NY. Send hate mail to mr.peej@gmail.com.