TONIGHT IN KINGMAN,
The public came out
to my first public campaign event of the new campaign season. At 5th
Street Books (216 N 5th Street, Kingman, AZ.), people gathered to hear this speech
and share the ideas they had to make Arizona better and bluer. With your help
it can be done.
Howdy ladies and gentleman, thanks for coming out today. My name
is Mikel Weisser and I want to be your democratically elected Democrat in the
US House of Representatives for Arizona’s Congressional District Four. I call
it the Left Coast of Arizona. 712,000 people scattered from Yuma to Utah,
Parker to Payson. Seven Counties, 9 LDs, Mohave-La Paz-Yuma-Yavapai- all the
parts of Maricopa where the people aren’t; and then throw in major portions of Gila and Pinal County just for the
sport of it. It’s about the size of Pennsylvania. I traveled 55,000 miles last
round and that hardly touched it. CD 4 is as beautiful as it is immense, as
varied in people and landscapes as any region of America and it is just about
as red a district as you could find.
After the Republican rout last round, currently the handicappers
have the district as an “R +19.” That basically means that even with generic candidates,
it didn’t matter who, say, John Wayne Gacy versus Santa Claus, if Santa was the
one with the D on his chest, Christmas might be in trouble. Of course, that is
actually the thrill of this chase. If it was easy anyone would be doing it. And
you know me I am not just worrying about how to win this election, I am trying
to change this world and that kind of strength makes you fearless. Now is the
time to change this world, now is the time to be fearless. THIS … is the
adventure of our lifetimes. I want you to know: this is absolutely, bar none,
the most thrilling experience of my life. I am so much better a person for
taking this challenge. I wish each of you could experience this for yourselves.
In fact, I hope you try it and get to enjoy even a fraction of the rewards and
blessings this path has brought to me.
I’ve been a life-long Democrat. I am so Democrat, I was a
Democrat in utero. I remember when I was 9 years old I was watching when my
hero Bobby Kennedy won that California primary. And then he walked into that
kitchen … and I was watching later that same year when the election came around
and even as a little kid, I could tell Nixon was a crook. I mean Richard Nixon?
The guy was a dick right?
I was so certain of it, the night before the election I got a
piece of chalk from the school, went out in the middle of the street in front
of my home in Raymondville. TX and I scrawled, “Humphrey/Muskie is our man,
Nixon in the Garbage Can!” I was sure it was going to make a difference, but
did America listen to me? No!
And look where we are today. Look at what they’ve done to us.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, look what they’ve done. Yeah, they’ve done
quite a bit of damage. But I think it is not too late for us to turn that tide
and bring America into the 21st Century.
America is a still great place for now. That a guy like me can find myself in
front of a crowd like this, this is proof Americans can still dream. I was
homeless, first as a teen runaway, later a homeless vet and even as a homeless widower
who lost his house when he lost his 1st wife. And now? Beautiful
wife, lovely life, college degrees, house and chickens and cats and dogs.
You know how I got those things? Yeah, because I’ve got some
skills and a huge mountain of good luck. Sure. But I have the American Dream,
because the America I grew up in wanted to make sure I had a chance to reach
for its dreams. They wanted to create a great society. They wanted all people
to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of our skin.
They wanted the old and sick to be cared for, they wanted the poor to be
comforted. They wanted all of us children to be educated, to be the best and
the brightest. We were supposed to reach for the stars!
Some folks say those days are gone forever. Can’t afford good
schools for kids, can’t afford decent wages for the workers, can’t afford
quality health care for anyone, can’t afford the American Dream. Now I know my
country has never been perfect, I am a history teacher, America has never been
perfect, but I always used to believe we at least as a people cared enough to
look out for the common good; but the America our kids are growing up in, the
country we are going to grow old in, is not the America I once knew. I know I
am preaching to the choir here, but I want you all, to seriously think about
this message.
This is the message I bring you, this is what I have learned as
a life-long Democrat: The Right are Wrong. It’s scary how easy it is to see
these days: the right are wrong. It’s not a simple choice between pick red or
blue. The people who tell you they can’t see a difference between the two
parties are at least half blind. Their policies have been destroying our
country and have to be stopped. Now I am not an extremist. I am a
confrontationalist. You don’t have to be an extremist to see the need to
confront the messes they’ve made.
Their so-called “conservative values” agenda that has been
driving our nation has been driving it into the ground. 28 of the last 40 years
they’ve had a president in the White House and wrecked havoc on our nation, but
no matter who is in the White House, we’re battling their poison to our nation.
As a school teacher in a state where the GOP have cut 1.6 billion out of
K-12 ed in just the past four years, I can assure you they want your children
be ignorant. They want to public to stay sick and poor and fearful, because if
you can keep a people ignorant and sick and poor and fearful then they are
easier to control!
See? Wrong! They’ve been wrong on social issues. Move mountain
and mole hill alike to save Terry Schiavo but vote 30 times to throw 30 million
Americans under the bus, because they have to repeal Obamacare. Abstinence only
sex-ed in the country that leads the world in unwed teen pregnancy. Make sure
the LBGT community is forever made sure to always feel Queer. Wrong. Cut arts
funding, cut ed funding, cut veterans benefits, decimate the social service
network in our country and brag about their morality? Wrong. Throwing 800,000
Americans a year in jail for cannabis possession and then installing the
world’s leading opium producers, the Karzai family, into office in Afghanistan.
Stark raving wrong.
They’ve been consistently incredibly wrong on fiscal issues. We’re
lucky Romney didn’t get a chance to run our country the same way he ran
Bain-Capitol. Who would he downsize this time? Wisconsin? Deregulation of Wall
Street, deregulations of banking, Chicago School type shock doctrine, quote
“Free Market Capitalism” cut your way to prosperity, while their corporate
donors export all the good paying jobs then whine because of our sluggish
consumer spending. Chuck Glass-Steagall and let banks gamble with grandma’s
pensions? What could possibly be a problem with that, huh? AND, how is it that
when they ran back in 2010 promising to save the economy, what they gave us
instead was 900 statehouse bills to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Yeah
that’s creating jobs: con jobs.
And when it comes to foreign relations, they have been dead
wrong. Don’t forget that these same guys who want to sell you Ryan Budget, and
the Norquist pledge once tried to sell you 900 lies about weapons of mass
destruction. I could go on and on, but, I know, I’m preaching to the choir.
What I don’t know, my fellow Democrats, is what you are going to do about it? The
Tammany Tiger is Loose, these elephants have gone amuck. I am going to work day
in night to stop them. I am leaving teaching after a dozen years to devote
myself fulltime to this battle.
And make no mistake about it people: This is a battle to the
death. The death of the American Dream. America is yearning to live in the 21st
Century. America is tired of prejudice, and influence and self righteousness
running the lives of the many according to the whims of the few. This battle is
the only battle I have ever been fighting for. This battle is one that we can
win if you can help me.
I know there are lots of campaigns and they’re always asking for
something, sometimes it seems all they want is your money (and don’t get me
wrong: if you try to chase me down with a fistful of hundred dollar bills I will let you catch me). But that is not
what I am asking for here. I am asking each of you to start your own campaign
about whatever you can campaign about and get out there save America, while we
still have a chance. NOW is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid
of their country. I can guarantee you every time anyone of us tries to save the
world, it does get that iota better and each time we do nothing, the other side
jus
t makes it worse. Like my hero Howard Zinn said, the people have the power.
This disaster is still ours to avert. Let’s make this difference. It may be our
last chance. Please and thank you.
Visit
the website:
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Donate:
Help Make Change Now:
Ask Julie how YOU can help
Contact me to set up an event in your area. We belong
anywhere YOU think a Democrat should be:
Mikel Weisser
918-234-5633
4490
Sundown Dr
So-Hi,
AZ 86413
this
message paid for by Mikel Weisser for US Congress
As I prepare for the six hour drive to Sierra Vista to give
a speech to the quarterly state wide convention of NORML (National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), I know so many of you wish I wasn’t
including cannabis reform in my platform. Educational travesties, immigration
outrages, reproductive rights, foreign policy inhumanities, there are SO many
other issues to choose from, so many crises needing triage.
Please
Donate:
