| |
Thank you for coming here today.
For me, this is home, so it’s the right place to announce that I will be running for Congress from Alabama’s Second District.
Some people who knew the young boy who was raised just a few miles down the road will see this as an unlikely turn of events.
But I choose to see today in very simple terms. Today is a testament to America.
My father was a sharecropper, and my mother was a homemaker and looked after the children… all fourteen of us.
So if you want proof that America is still the greatest, most blessed country in the world, consider that I shared two bedrooms with thirteen brothers and sisters, and that in a few months, I might represent them in our nation’s Capital.
I was raised here, and I had instilled in me what I like to call
"Wiregrass Values." Life on a cotton farm wasn't easy. We sure didn't have a lot. But my mother and father worked hard every day to make sure my brothers and sisters and I had a roof over our head, food on the table, and clothes on our backs.
My mother and father taught me a love of the Lord, the value of an honest day’s work and the understanding that just as they were providing me with a better life than they had it was my responsibility to make life better for my children.
I will take these "Wiregrass Values" with me to Washington and I will never forget where I came from and I commit to you that I will represent you and make you proud.
As I said, life on a cotton farm wasn't easy. I can remember that every year we missed the first few days of school to bring in the cotton harvest.
But my parents insisted that a good education was a ticket to a better life and a brighter future.
So I completed high school and saved my money for college. I worked sheet metal, and then as an auditor, a math teacher, and after graduating in the top of my class from the police academy, I worked as a correctional officer.
It was during my time as a correctional officer that I saw firsthand the consequences of a culture that is allowing an entire generation of young Americans to go down a path of self-destruction and end up incarcerated -- often times for the majority of their lives. I knew I had to do something to make a change.
I went on to law school, where I met my wife Lynn, and after practicing law for 15 years,
teaching Sunday school, coaching little league and raising our three
children, I decided to run for Mayor of Montgomery. Everyone thought I had lost my mind, but I felt that Montgomery was ready for a change. The people who should have been leading the city were too busy bickering to get anything done. There was no unity and without unity, Montgomery lacked a vision for the future.
Although most of the pundits said I didn’t have a chance I won that election in 1999. And I’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to have been re-elected twice.
Because of that first election and the new spirit of working
together, we are revitalizing downtown and the riverfront with an amphitheater and a baseball stadium.
Our new downtown convention center and hotel complex is second to none and construction work in Montgomery is at an all-time high.
We have begun the transformation of our historic district with new restaurants, offices, and apartments.
We’ve completely revamped our public transportation system, and helped families buy new homes,
We have led the state in job creation – 3200 from Hyundai alone with 500 more on the way.
We’re recruiting the best-paid police force in the state and we've implemented a state-of-the-art 911 Center and a rapid response team that are aggressively combating crime.
City support for our public schools is at an all time high, and we will be opening a wonderful new high school and junior high within the next eighteen months.
We have done all this together but most importantly, we have done all of this while balancing the budget every year as well as creating a rainy day fund.
Outlook magazine ranks, Montgomery 15th in the nation for affordable living.
Forbes magazine names us as one of America’s top cities for high tech jobs.
I am proud of all the changes we have made in Montgomery. But what I'm proudest of is that we put aside our differences and all pitched in to make our city a better place to live, work, worship, and go to school. I might be the Mayor, but we made this progress together. And together, we can make progress for those who live in Alabama’s second congressional district.
In America today we are facing a similar mood to what I felt in Montgomery in 1999.
We have bitterly divisive politics, a sagging economy, a broken healthcare system and
our standing in the eyes of the world is slipping.
It is time to send a representative to Washington who is ready to roll up his sleeves and take this country in a much more positive direction.
Here is the reality: America went from record surpluses to record deficits and from a shrinking federal government to an ever expanding bureaucracy.
Our brave men and women have done all that our country has asked them to do and have advanced the cause of freedom and made us safer from those who would seek to do us harm. But they are now tied up in a dangerous and costly war, and we are racking up a debt for our children and grandchildren to pay-off.
And instead of talking about bolstering our military, there are those in Washington determined to close military bases with the decisions based largely on back room deals between politicians.
I am proud to have led the fight to stop BRAC from taking over 1,000 high tech jobs from Maxwell Air Force Base.
Healthcare costs are rising faster than salaries.
Our education system is struggling to keep up with funding cuts and the challenges of a global economy.
If you want your child to go to college, you need to start saving for tuition on the day they’re
born.
Jobs are going overseas and then the products they create are being sold back to us often times loaded with lead paint or some other safety hazard.
We have a do-nothing immigration policy that encourages people to cross the border and allows companies to hire them with no fear of prosecution or penalty.
And all too often our government does not keep the trust made with our men and women in uniform.
Our veterans, including members of the guard and reserves, should get as high a quality of healthcare as do members of Congress.
Where are our leaders in all of this? And by that I mean, where are the leaders of both parties in all of this?
You see, I never ran for Mayor as a Democrat or a Republican.
I have friends who call themselves both. If you call the Second District home, chances are you have ideals championed by both. But I don’t see folks in Washington who are loyal to those ideals.
The Republican Party claims to be the party of small government and individual freedom.
But what happened? We’ve run up a huge debt and watched our economy slow dramatically.
The Democratic Party has traditionally protected jobs and led the fight for change in America. But we are losing jobs overseas, and too often we lack the courage to stand up and really change the way Washington does business.
I’m running as a Democrat, but I’ll work with anyone in any political party to take on the challenges we face.
I might be running as a Democrat, but I will not hesitate to challenge the Democrats on issues where I disagree. Two I can think of off the top of my head are abortion and Second Amendment rights.
I am a pro-life and pro-gun social conservative. This is what I think is lacking in Washington. The ability to stand up and say that you honestly disagree with someone and be willing to defend that position without resorting to name calling or the kind of gutter politics that have become all too prevalent in America today.
But where do we begin? How do we get past the political finger pointing and skepticism?
I see only one way. It’s up to us. It’s up to the people. We need to come together out here in America in order to come together in our nation’s Capitol.
We have to get past the labels thrown about in campaigns and find people who share our priorities.
We have to put aside politics and parties, because the people of the Second District have far more in common than the adjectives that are too often used to divide us.
I want to be a voice for the man who works for the Post Office in Dothan and his wife who raises the children and works part time at the grocery store wondering how to pay for college for their two children.
I want to be a voice for the man and his wife in Troy. He’s a plumber and she answers the phone at a doctor’s office. The children are in school or with her mother during the day.
They're worried about an economy that is taking more out of their paychecks for healthcare and created a
sub-prime mortgage crisis that is threatening to take their home.
I want to be a voice for the family in Montgomery. He manages the bank. She’s the president of the P.T.A. They have one child in high school and one in college.
They're worried about the future, and America's place in it. They've seen an America that was once the most respected country in the world begin to have its leadership questioned and its foreign-policy criticized.
Mr. and Mrs. Dothan, Troy, and Montgomery might never spend a Saturday night together or be in the same Sunday school class the next morning.
They might attend different churches and belong to different political parties. But they will all spend their lives working for the same thing.
They want their children to be safe and happy, educated and successful. They want their children's lives, to be better than theirs.
They want their parents to stay healthy and not to suffer… to be cared for as they get older.
They want to know that if they do their jobs, they will earn enough to support their families and be able to put enough money aside for the time when they can no longer work.
They want to know that if they get sick or someone in their family gets sick, they can go to the doctor or the hospital and get help without giving up all that they have saved.
Those are the same things my parents wanted for me, my brothers and sisters.
It’s what Lynn and I want for our children. And it’s what we all want for everyone in Alabama. If you have a faith to guide you, devotion to family, loyalty to your country and community, and you’re willing to work hard, you should get these things, because we are still the greatest country in the world. And I stand here today as a testament to this fact.
So I start this campaign in my hometown, and I ask for your help. We need to change Washington one person at a time. Only then will the priorities change, and America will grow stronger. We need to become one country, united once again. You and I together can send a dose of “Wiregrass Values” to Washington and we can begin right here in Ozark, Alabama.
Once again, Thank you and God bless you.
|
|
