Posted on 02/14/2010 4:31:22 PM PST by Falcon28
I just notice J.D.’s announcement speech on his web site.
GREAT! (should have a post of it’s own????)
ANNOUNCEMENT SPEECH:
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens:
Thank you for coming out today to join me us on this, what is a very special, day. Today is…well, the day after Statehood Day here in Arizona and of course, the day after Valentine’s Day. And Contrary to some fevered imaginings, principally from those on the left — I’m still here – I survived, although this was a very different valentine’s day from what we usually celebrate. Miss Mary sacrificed flowers and a dinner out last night to help us get this marvelous campaign headquarters organized. Which I’m sure comes as a shock to some of you. It confounds many, but I will tell you what it really is — Mary’s willingness to stand behind me in what will soon be 21 years of holy matrimony is both a blessing and miracle!
Joining us today are our three children; Nicole, Hannah, and John Micah.
Today is also the day we call Presidents’ Day, as we honor two of our greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Mindful of Washington’s observation, “that actions not words are the true criterion of the attachment of friends”… And Lincoln’s admonition that he has a right to criticize who has a heart to help, today I announce my candidacy for the United States Senate from the great state of Arizona.
But Valentine’s Day is a breeze when you’re married to a wonderful woman like my wife, Mary, and I’m so proud to have her here with me.
Today I stand before you to officially announce my candidacy for the United States Senate from the great state of Arizona. You and I will be part of what will be a classic political match-up, with confrontation: John McCain and the Washington establishment on one side, and “WE THE PEOPLE” on the other. The other side has the establishment but will take you – and everyone else.
It’s the everyman and woman that knows these are very difficult times for our country. Unemployment remains stubbornly staggeringly high. Millions of Arizonans have seen their retirement savings dwindle. The small businesses that are the lifeblood of our economy won’t take on new workers because they’ are afraid of what Washington will do to them. The establishment bails out big business yet ignores the needs and requests of smaller ops.
The current Democratic leadership in the White House, House, and Senate are not up to the challenges we face. Their solution – more and bigger government, reckless bailouts, endless deficit spending, ignoring our Constitution, higher taxes, and a radical takeover of our health care system – cannot solve our problems. In fact, their so-called remedies agenda would only make a bad situation worse.
Arizona needs strong, reliable conservative leadership based on constitutional principles to stand up to the Democrats’ liberal leftist agenda and offer the conservative solutions we need to get our country moving again. With your help, I will provide that leadership.
My governing philosophy is no secret. It is based on limited government, free markets, a stable currency, and a strong national defense. My belief in God is also no secret. And that’s why I believe America’s best days can rise just beyond the horizon still in front of us.
Like Ronald Reagan, I believe that government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. And government isn’t just too big, it’s also too greedy. Washington always expects you to tighten your belt, but will never tighten its own. Case in point. Barack Obama’s new budget freezes spending on top of an 84 percent increase in discretionary spending that he signed into law. Now that’s bad enough, but the freeze also is delayed for one year.
This so-called “freeze” is an obvious election-year stunt designed to mask Obama’s reckless spending – and sadly, but perhaps predictably, and John McCain has endorsed it. Yet John is already out there, attacking me for fiscal irresponsibility, even though I have a better lifetime rating from Citizens Against Government Waste than he does. John is choosing to focus on the only area where he has a conservative reputation – but it is a reputation that is, to put it mildly, somewhat exaggerated.
After all, John McCain voted for the 850 billion dollar bailout – but then said, “It’s not enough.” So he proposed spending $300 billion dollars to buy up every bad mortgage in America. And did I mention his that bank bailout vote included $150 billion dollars in earmarks. The very spending he claims to oppose.
He has also supports a cap and trade plan that would impose a costly bureaucracy, and raise energy costs and in the process raise taxes on American families.
Speaking of taxes, John McCain voted against the landmark Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which I helped write, and to add insult to injury, he mimicked his leftist pals in the Senatethe liberals by calling them tax cuts for the rich.
But maybe the most alarming initiative that John McCain has proposed is his illegal alien amnesty plan. According to the Heritage Foundation, the McCain amnesty plan would cost taxpayers you, and me, and other American taxpayers $2.6 trillion dollars over the long-term. To be clear, that’s trillion, with a “t.”
You cannot call yourself a fiscal conservative and stubbornly push a $2.6 trillion dollar bailout for illegal aliens – and that’s what it is, a legal bailout – in defiance of the wishes of the people. What John McCain tried to do with his illegal alien bailout is precisely what Obama did with health care. Both failed because neither listened to the people.
We can do better, and when you send me to the United States Senate we will do better.
On the radio, it was my job to talk. As your Senator, it will be my job to listen. In countless conversations with Arizonians, you have made it clear that a seat in the United States Senate is something that has to be earned. I also believe that in America, a senate seat is something that has to be earned. This senate seat does not belong to any one party or any one personality – and it most certainly does not belong to the Washington establishment. It belongs to the people of Arizona, and they you will decide who occupies it for the next six years.
That’s why, if elected, I pledge that I will serve no more than two terms – provided the people will have me even that long. I’ve discovered since leaving Congress that Leaving Congress and being back home, and speaking at Tea Party events, and engaging the grassroots , is good for one’s head and heart. So after two terms, I’ll come home for good. This seat belongs to the people and there it shall be returned.
The cynics will say this is a hollow promise. To them I say this, record me now. Use this statement as an albatross around my neck 12 years hence. But you won’t have to. Because by then it will be time for another citizen, another Conservative, to take my place.
Let me make one other thing clear right up front. While John and I have, to put it mildly, out sized personalities, it is my intention to run this campaign on the issues. I have the utmost respect and admiration for what John McCain has given our country. But I do have serious and profound disagreements with John about the choices he’s made as Senator.
Many of you may not recall, but in 2000 John McCain asked me to campaign on his behalf for President, and I was honored to do so. Although John came up short, he fought hard for what he thought was right.
But the John McCain I supported for president in 2000 is not the same John McCain I’ve watched frustrate conservatives time and again as our senator. He still fights hard, all right, but too often for the wrong causes. In fact, John is best known for taking the leftists’ liberals’ side on some of the most important issues of the day. “Maverick” is just a code word for moderate. In fact, John is best known for taking the liberals’ side on some of the most important issues of the day.
And just like the moderates and liberals, John … opposes drilling in ANWR – he even gave the left a PR public relations coup by absurdly comparing it to drilling in the Grand Canyon…
Just like the liberals, John … opposes “waterboarding” captured terrorists like the Christmas bomber…
Just like the liberals, John … wants the prison at Guantanamo Gitmo shut down…
Just like the liberals, John … talks about global warming in apocalyptic terms, sounding for all the world just like Al Gore, and…
Just like the liberals, John … wrote the campaign finance law just struck down by the Supreme Court that denied free speech rights to groups like the National Rifle Association while carving out an exception for media corporations like the New York Times.
I could go on… and on… and on.
Of course, now that an election is on, John is trying to fudge his positions as part of his “election-year2010 conservative conversion”. I suppose you could say there are two John McCains – the one who campaigns like a conservative and the one who legislates like a liberal. In fact, when it comes time to debate I’m going to ask for a third chair in case both John McCains show up.
Sadly, hypocrisy characterizes the McCain campaign through this race. His whole career John McCain has fought against money in politics. Yet he now has the millions….from banks…..from lobbyists…..from those with business before him. But we are the ones with the momentum. And no amount of money can stop our Conservative effort….our conservative movement. So many of you have already visited and donated at JDforSenate.com. You each deserve a very sincere thank you!
There will be plenty of time to get into details of who John McCain is, was, or wants to be and whether he prefers to zig, zag, or flip or flop. But I do want to discuss one particular example that is- so egregious it should offer pause to every Republican in our state.
John often speaks of his warm friendship with Hillary Clinton, and it’s great that they are friends. But John’s problem is not that he likes Hillary; his John’s problem is that that sometimes he’s he’s like Hillary.
Take John’s his irresponsible plan to spend 300 billion dollars to buy up every bad mortgage in America that I mentioned earlier. The plan was roundly condemned by conservatives across the country as a total bailout for lenders. Making matters worse is that John actually bragged he got the idea from – you guessed it – Hillary Clinton.
If, in the middle of an economic crisis, John McCain is looking to Hillary Clinton for advice, he is more out of touch with Arizona than I could have imagined. And if you are listening to Hillary Clinton, you are not listening to Arizona.
This much is certain: Republicans will have a clear choice in the August 24th primary – between an unapologetic conservative challenger who will not abandon his principles once he gets to Washington, and the incumbent candidate of the Washington establishment and darling of the mainstream media.
Indeed, when John McCain jokingly referred to the media as “my base,” we all laughed because we knew how true it was. But the media doesn’t need another senator – Arizona does. And when you really think about it can you name anything that John McCain has done- really done in the past decade for Arizona?
I am under no illusions about the enormity of the challenge ahead. To take on a sitting senator is a tall order – even more so when that senator is a 24-year incumbent. Already the Washington establishment and the mainstream media are rallying ‘round their hero. And I’m sure John McCain will trot out a wide array of establishment endorsements – many from the same folks who got us into this mess or from those who owe John a political favor.
We now see those favors reflected in his millions of dollars. But instead of being intimidated by them – we simply say, “Thank you for your service, John McCain, but three decades in Washington is long enough.”
We begin this campaign mindful of the fact that scores of Arizona I am buoyed by the fact that scores of Arizona Republicans – conservatives and many Tea Party patriots – have urged me to mount this challenge to bring back reliable conservative representation in the U.S. Senate – as a senator for Arizona, not just from Arizona.
That call has been answered. That challenge will be mounted. And that victory, not for me, but for you – for conservatives -– for Arizona will soon be at hand.
You and I will not mount this challenge alone, in fact, I am pleased to introduce to you a special guest who will join us in this great endeavor…
$16,000 not good enough.. I hoped he would start out better than that. Hopefully after his appearance in Cavuto this afternoon it’ll pick up.
Just made my donation. Thanks.
Abramoff? Don’t you mean Charles Keating?
We should make every effort over the next few weeks to call into Hannity’s radio show and tell him to stop giving McCain credence as a conservative politician. While McCain may be characterized, at best, as moderate, he is in no way a conservative.
Hannity needs to be fair about this election or he may himself become irrelevant like Scarborough.
Why is the money just trickling in....he needs to raise a sizeable amount by the end of the week, or it will give Mccain another boost....PLEASE, everyone..forget petitions, forget rallies..THIS IS THE WAY TO ENACT CHANGE....Donate money..PLEASE!
AMEN Sister! I just spoke to JD’s scheduler and he’s going to be all around Arizona. He’s speaking at the Lake Havasu Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday..I’m excited to hear him!
Hildy are you coming over for the dinner? I was thinking about buying a ticket to go.
I’ve been spreading the link everywhere I can.
The Havasu dinner at the Nautical Inn? I have a ticket and will be there. Let me know if you want one. It might be sold out.
I’m sick of Fox propping up McCain.
Yes,I do. I saw the article in the paper, but didn’t know anyone going and wasn’t certain I wanted to go by myself.
This is the best thing I’ve heard all day, including Bayh’s announcement.
C'mon FReepers, help send McJuan into retirement!
Bump that, Hildy!
There's an understatement!
GIVE HIM A CHANCE.. Good Heavens.
TY for the POST and the LETTER....here we go with the DIVISION. There is not one person on here that can convince any Conservative that McCain has done anything since the 2008 election. McCain certainly does not stand up to the Democrats and OMGOSH he gave us CFR (McCain/Feingold).
Hopefully J.D. will win so we can get someone who is for protecting our borders and J. D. certainly will not support AMNESTY for 25 + million ILLEGALS.
And it looks like Hayworth's taking no prisoners:
"You and I will be part of what will be a classic political match-up, with confrontation: John McCain and the Washington establishment on one side, and “WE THE PEOPLE” on the other.
Ouch.
But for all the outspokeness on FR about McCain has to go, JD’s only collecte $28K in his money bomb today. Seem there is a lot of people who are all hat and no cattle.
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