Today, I filed papers to become a candidate for the United States Senate.
I have no special beef with the incumbent, Senator Boxer. She is a state-of-the-art Democrat. But to be "state-of-the-art" in our party is not such a good thing anymore.
"State of the art" means the incumbent has learned to please the party's interest groups, often at the expense of the needs of average individuals and the party's own ideals.
It means the incumbent supports a "card check" bill that would effectively take away the secret ballot from workers in order to give more power to the big unions-- including public employee unions--whose influence over our great industries and our government has led to disaster.
"State of the art" means the incumbent endorses a misguided immigrant legalization scheme that would create a huge incentive for more illegal immigration--before we're sure our broken border has been fixed to withstand it. We tried the legalization approach in 1986. A wave of illegal immigration followed. Another new wave would again bid down the wages of unskilled American (and legal immigrant) workers--the people who've been hurt the most in the economy of the past three decades.
It shouldn't be the policy of the Democratic party to make it worse for them.
These aren't minor questions. One affects the organization of the entire economy. The other could irreversibly alter the quality of American life.
I am a lifelong Democrat. But on those issues, and others, what has become the party's dogma--what you have to say and think if you want to run for office as an anointed Democrat--no longer passes the test of common sense.
Common sense tells you that when you can't fire bad teachers because their union won't allow it, you'll get bad schools. Common sense tells you that when you keep flooding the labor market with new unskilled workers, wages will deterioriate.
To see why the state-of-the-Democratic-art isn't working for the nation, you only have to look at the state of the public schools, the state of our auto industry, and the state of our local and national budgets .
This isn't the Democratic party I signed up for. It's not the party many common sense Democratic voters signed up for.
I intend to try my best in the months ahead to offer these common sense voters a way to make their presence known and change our party's course before it's too late. I want to debate these issues and offer alternatives, not just say 'yes' to the party's entrenched powers.
Democrats deserve a choice too.
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Barbara rocks, we will keep her!!!!
I have followed politics recently...more than ever before; and I'm happy to know that I can recognize pure rhetoric when I hear it.
I'd be careful of this gentleman.
Americans have enjoyed an elevated standard of living off of the backs of the people who came here to do the hard labor. They are unwilling to pay higher prices, and at the same time are unwilling to work for the wages the immigrants work for. They could easily take those jobs back by working at the competitive rate.
Immigrant's don't drive wages down. Profiteering Corporations do, and they bribe the public with slightly lower prices.
As the middle class collapses, and the wealthy sequester themselves to their un-blemished refuges, the people who are left behind seek someone to blame for their suffering, and the easiest target are the immigrants. The culprit is institutionalized Greed. Is carte blanche for Capitalism, and every indiscretion, or sociopathic strategy designed to siphon more profit into the hands of a microscopic minority who can never hope to spend that which they have accumulated.
The whole illegal immigration argument is a subterfuge to keep us at each others throats.
That has been proven FALSE again and again!
“Construction Worker” used to be a respected job that Americans without college could work hard at and achieve a middle class living. Now illegals have most of these jobs and have depressed the wages in all the rest. If you think illegals just do farm work your dreaming. After a recent Immigration raid at a "Pilgrims Pride" meat packing plant caught 200 illegals, there were over 1000 Americans lined up for those jobs the next day.
And employers can pay “crappy wages” because they can hire illegal workers.
I hope the filing fee doesn't turn up on some big corporations business expense report next year.