Dr. Howard Dean: "You still have the power":
This is not about whether we like the Party or not, it's about getting good people into our political leadership. And there is still plenty of opportunity to make it happen.
Message received, Dr. Dean. We're on it.
No woe is us here in the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina! We recruited "a leader who won't quit," "with strong American backbone" who is from the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party" to take on Republican nutjob Virginia Foxx, and we've been taking it on the road. Here's the first of Billy Kennedy's filing day photos from yesterday:
Billy Kennedy is making waves and headlines in the small towns across this district, in the blogosphere, and in social networking circles. He's received a very excited and lively welcome here at DailyKos. He has been featured at Huffington Post, and Howie Klein of downwithtyranny and Blue America thinks Billy Kennedy is the cat's meow. Klein interviewed Billy personally just the other day ("I spoke with Billy on the phone at great length this weekend, eager to gauge if he could really be as good as everyone I know in North Carolina tells me he is. I walked away a believer...."). Klein subsequently published "Billy Kennedy Is Who The Founding Fathers Had In Mind When They Drew Up Plans For The House Of Representatives." Read the whole article. It rocks. Billy has over 800 members on his facebook page. He's on twitter, and ActBlue, and has a text campaign.
But most importantly, Billy Kennedy is meeting one-on-one with the people of the 5th district, a district gerry-mandered to screw working people from the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont Triad.
On Monday, candidate Filing Day, Billy Kennedy and his supporters caravaned from thigh deep snow in Watauga County to the Board of Elections in Raleigh, with speech stops in Boone, Wilkes County, and Winston-Salem. Supporters showed up with handmade signs and flags and cheered Billy on. Local TV and newspapers were there to take it all in.
Billy Kennedy in Watauga County.
Above Photo Taken by The High Country Press in Boone, NC
Billy Kennedy in Wilkes County (cell phone shots).
Billy Kennedy in Winston-Salem.
Above Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer of the Winston-Salem Journal
And following is a picture taken of Virginia Foxx coming into the Watauga County Board of Elections to get her filing certification. Notice the crowds? The groundswell of support? A pot full of teabaggers cheering her on? Do you even see a single family member by her side? An eagerness to show her face to the people of the 5th district who have been victimized, yes victimized, by her representation of our "interests" in Washington?
And because I don't want to leave on that sour note... here are a couple of pictures of Billy in his "regular" (not Sunday-go-to-Meeting) clothes back on his farm in Bethel, North Carolina followed by excerpts from Billy's filing day speech.
Picture above by cosmophotos
Excerpts from Billy Kennedy's Filing Day Speech:
I come from a long line of preachers and teachers. My father was a minister and an educator. After he retired, he was elected mayor of Black Mountain. He found that he could help others by serving in government—that GOOD government DOES help people.
Growing up, my parents taught me that serving others is important. My wife and kids share that commitment to serve others. We feel called by our faith to help those in need. I believe we must replace the culture of corruption in Washington with a renewed culture of service.
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I am running for Congress because the American way of life is under attack by Washington lobbyists and selfish politicians who are not looking out for working people.... I am running for Congress because I am frustrated at corporate welfare and corporate interests being placed above Americans’ interests. Washington voted for free-trade agreements that sent American jobs overseas, and then politicians gave those same corporations tax-breaks to sell us the very products we used to make.
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I am running for Congress because, as a small businessman, I remember when small and mid-size businesses had a fighting chance in our economy.... It used to be Americans would go to work because they had a career. Now all we have are hourly jobs or no job at all. My opponent won’t extend a helping hand to out-of-work people, and she votes with big banks, which have taken advantage of us and have taken more money from our pockets.
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I am running for Congress because we are wasting too much money fighting two foreign wars, with no end in sight.... If we are going to succeed overseas and bring our fighting men and women home, we need to be smarter—and that means holding corrupt contractors who don’t do their jobs accountable. I want to spend that money on American kids and American schools and American jobs.
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I am running for Congress because I remember when Education was a priority in America.... Our current representative says "government has no place in education" even though she came to our state from New York and took advantage of one the best public education systems in the world. She has made her living off our tax dollars and education system ever since. Now she votes against education reform and she wants to deny the very same access she had to other North Carolina families.
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I am running for Congress because I’m sick of "business as usual" in Washington. My opponent has been a politician for 27 years, and is part of the problem. Has your life gotten any better during her tenure as a political insider?
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We need accountability in Washington and in Western North Carolina. We need people not only with integrity, but also the right priorities—priorities that promote American values over greedy corporate values—priorities that promote truthfulness and not shameless grandstanding. I am running for Congress because the answers to these problems are simple: Prioritize American jobs, help small to mid-sized businesses, improve and expand
education, get smart about defeating terrorists, and focus on improving our quality of life.
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It is time to bring American values back to Washington, and that movement starts here in Western North Carolina. Please join me as I campaign to demand accountability from our government and work to ensure liberty and justice for all.