Posted by Mike on 02/03/2020 | Permalink
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Michael Bennet Makes Case to Beat Trump with Better Ideas, Ambitious Agenda at Liberty & Justice Celebration
DES MOINES — Michael Bennet made a clear and honest case for leadership that can unite the country and deliver on urgent priorities to build opportunity for the next generation at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty & Justice Celebration tonight.
Bennet, the only candidate in the race who has won two national races in a swing state, drew on his service as Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools to share an ambitious agenda that will bring together Democrats and win back some of the nine million people who voted for Obama then Trump.
“Our kids do not have the time for us to spend the next 10 years fighting a losing battle for Medicare for All,” said Bennet. “And that's not because it's a big idea. That's because there are better ideas.”
“I’m not scared of Donald Trump,” he continued. “I know what to do with a schoolyard bully like Donald Trump…I know I have the experience and temperament and agenda to beat Donald Trump. I know it’s an agenda that Cindy [Axne] and Abby [Finkenauer] can run on.”
Bennet also made clear that he is the opposite of Donald Trump.
“If you want a President who gives a damn about your kids, join my campaign,” said Bennet. “If you want someone who is going to fight for an economy that works for every American, join my campaign. If you want somebody who is going to fight for our democracy and to reestablish our alliances around the world, join my campaign. If you want someone who will tell you the truth, even when it’s hard to do it, join my campaign.”
Read the full transcript below.
You are a patient group of people. I didn’t know how patient. And I want to thank you for allowing all of us to impose on you. I particularly want to thank you for the kindness you’ve shown me and my family as we’ve traveled the state of Iowa. And I want to thank my friend Tom Harkin, my chairman, who is right here. Tom, thank you for your leadership and thank you for your friendship. I've been in the Senate, as Tom knows, for 10 years, it’s hard for me to believe it’s been a decade. We served on two committees together.
But tonight I want to talk to you not as a Senator, but as the only Superintendent of schools who has ever run for President of the United States. I worked for the kids of the Denver Public Schools before I went to the Senate. It’s a school district that’s got about a billion dollar budget. For reference, that's about three times the size of a certain municipality in the state of Indiana. I’m just saying. It has 95,000 children in it, most of whom live in poverty, most of whom are kids of color. And if their parents were here tonight, what they would tell you is that they are killing themselves at work. And no matter what they do, they can't get their kids out of poverty.
And it reminds me a lot of the town hall meetings I've had for the last 10 years in Colorado, and in Iowa, and in New Hampshire. Where people come and they say, Michael, we are working really hard, but we can't afford housing. We can't afford health care. We can't afford higher education. We can't afford early childhood education. And Iowa, that's why I'm running for President. To restore opportunity to the American people. That's what we have to do.
When I was deciding to run for President, I am not as much of a celebrity as some other people and I'm not as well known, but I went home to talk to my kids and my wife, Susan, and I asked them, “What do you think? Should I run for president?” My fifteen year old, of course, said yes, because she saw it as a way of keeping me away from her and out of the house. I don't know what's going on there tonight. My twenty year old daughter said to me “You should run, Dad. Because if you run, and you tell the truth, and you lose, no one can fault you for it.” And I said, “That's good, Caroline, because there's no other reason for me to run, but to tell the truth. I don't think there's any other way for me to win.” And so I was so happy about a month or two ago when I was able to take the headline at the Des Moines Register and show it to Caroline. That headline on the editorial said, “Michael Bennet pounds truth into this campaign.” And, Iowa, that’s what I’m trying to do because this time is too important. It’s too important.
And that’s why I want to tell you tonight, Iowa: our kids do not have the time for us to spend the next 10 years fighting a losing battle for Medicare for All. And that's not because it's a big idea. That's because there are better ideas. And here are some from the perspective of the kids that I used to work.
We could make sure that everybody in this country that works hard, 40 hours a week, can actually raise a family in this country cause they're paid a decent wage.
From the standpoint of the kids I used to work for in the Denver Public Schools, we could end childhood poverty in America. That would help! I have a plan, I have a plan with Sherrod Brown from Ohio that would reverse the Trump tax cut, that would reduce childhood poverty in one year by 40%, and end $2 day poverty for kids living in Iowa and in Colorado, and in America. For 3% of the cost of Medicare for All, we could cut childhood poverty by 40%. That sounds like a big idea to me.
Iowa, Iowa, here’s another idea. We could make our schools engines of opportunity again in the United States of America. And we could do that, not by promising free college, but by delivering free preschool to every kid in America who needs it. And let me tell you something, that's every kid in America.
And what about the 70% of kids who graduate from high school and don't go to college? We can fix high school so that when they leave, they can earn a living wage, not just a minimum wage. That would transform the lives of millions of Americans, and our economy.
We could create universal health care in three years with a public option I've been fighting for since we passed the Affordable Care Act. It's called Medicare-X, and it’d give everybody in the country the choice of a public option or private insurance if they want it. Reduce health costs by getting drug costs down. And we could do it, as I said, in three years.
And we need to address climate change, Iowa. But it’s not enough to be urgent about it. That’s not enough. We need a solution that will last a generation. And that’s why you can’t accept the politics in Washington where Michael Bennet puts his climate plan in for two years, and the climate deniers rip it out. And then we put it in for two years, and they rip it out. That's how politics in Washington works today. That's not good enough for the American people. And trying isn't enough, having good intentions is not enough. We have to win. And we have to win again, and again, and again. So our kids inherit a planet that can be sustained.
And to do that, Iowa. To do that, we have to fix our broken politics. We have to take the money out of politics and put people back into politics. And I’m telling you, if you elect me president, I will lead an effort in every one of the 50 states to overturn Citizens United. And engage the next generation of Americans in our democracy. Which is what we need to do.
This might sound really hard. But it’s no harder than anything any other Americans have done.
I tell kids when they come to Washington DC, they have a tendency to think, Tom, they have a tendency to think it was all just there. The Capitol was there. The White House was there. The Supreme Court was there. None of it was just there. 230 years ago, it was just an idea. That's all it was. And the founders of this country did two incredible things in their generation. They led a successful revolution against a colonial power. That had never happened before. They wrote a Constitution that was ratified by the people that would live under that Constitution. That had never happened before.
But they did something terrible as well. They perpetrated human slavery. And we will be with that for the rest of our days.
What's important to remember is it took other Americans to end slavery in this country. Frederick Douglass, I tell them about him. Born a slave in the United States of America. And because of his leadership and what he did, he saw human slavery end in this country in his generation. And you know what? I think that Frederick Douglass is as much a founder as the people who wrote the Constitution, that's what I believe. That's what I believe, Iowa. And I believe the women that fought for my daughters to have the right to vote are founders, just like the people who wrote the Constitution. That's what I believe, Iowa. And that’s what I think of all of you. That's your job as citizens in this republic, you are founders of the republic. It is that elevated a sense of what your responsibility is.
And when you have a President who doesn't believe in the rule of law. Who doesn't believe in the separation of powers. Who doesn't believe in the independence of the judiciary. Who doesn't believe in the freedom of the press. Who does not believe in our democracy, you have a job to do. You may not have asked for it. But you know what your job is, it is to save this democracy for the next generation of Americans. That is what you are being asked to do, Iowa. That is what you are being asked to do. And I know you won’t shirk that responsibility. We can’t and live up to the example that our parents and grandparents left for us.
I’m not scared of Donald Trump, Iowa, and I don’t think you are either. I’ve already had the hardest job you can have in America, being a school superintendent, other than being a school teacher. And, by the way, we should pay them what they deserve as professionals. But, I know what to do with a schoolyard bully like Donald Trump, and I need your help. I need your help, Iowa. To help you, I need you to help put me in a position to be able to win this race because I know I have the experience and temperament and agenda to beat Donald Trump. I know it’s an agenda that Cindy and Abby can run on. I’m the only person in this race who’s won two national races in a swing state. And I know how to do it. I know how to win Colorado, and Iowa, and Maine, and Arizona to get us a majority in the Senate and to get us the White House as well.
But I can’t do it without you. So I’m asking for your help tonight. If you want a President who gives a damn about your kids, join my campaign. If you want somebody who is going to fight for an economy that works for every American, join my campaign. If you want somebody who is going to fight for our democracy and to reestablish our alliances around the world, join my campaign. Iowa, if you want somebody who will tell you the truth, even when it’s hard to do it, join my campaign.
I want to thank all of you again for the opportunity to be here tonight, for the kindness you’ve shown Susan, Caroline, Halina, and Anne, and we look forward to seeing you on caucus night because more surprising things have happened than this, Iowa. I can assure you of that.
Let’s go do our work as founders. Thanks for having me today. It’s great to see all of you. Thank you, Iowa.
Posted by Mike on 11/02/2019 | Permalink
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Klobuchar: “We Have To Win Big”
Senator Delivers Remarks at Iowa Democratic Party Liberty and Justice Celebration
DES MOINES, IA — Tonight, Senator Amy Klobuchar spoke at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration where she laid out her optimistic economic agenda for America and emphasized the need to win big up and down the ticket in 2020.
“I believe that we need someone that heads up this ticket that understands that what unites us as a party is so much bigger than what divides us,” said Amy Klobuchar. “That understands that we have to bring in our fired up Democratic base but we also have to bring in Independents and yeah, even a few moderate Republicans. If we want to win big, that is what we are going to have to do, that is what we are going to have to do, my friends. I am someone that has passed over 100 bills as lead Democrat in that gridlock of Washington, DC. I have won every race, every place, every time, in the reddest of red congressional districts. And I am someone that believes that we need a president that is not a president for half of America, but is a President for all of America.”
Read Amy’s Full Remarks As Delivered:
Wow! Thank you, Iowa. It is so, so wonderful to be back here with so many friends. Thank you!
Thank you to my good friends, Ruth and Tom Harkin and Tom and Christie Vilsack. It is great to see you. As you all know, I can see Iowa from my porch.
And we are going to win big in this state in November.
We are going to build a blue wall around Iowa and Ohio - all those states that Donald Trump won in 2016. Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We are going to build that blue wall Democrats and we’re going to make Donald Trump pay for it!
So we have been, we have been on a long journey together, and I bet you all remember where you were on election night in 2016.
I do. I was in Minnesota. And late at night I got a text from my daughter. John’s here, my husband, and that text, it said: “Mom, what should we do now?”
She was actually at Hillary's party in New York. She was in college and I had forgotten she was there.
“What should we do now?”
And I wrote back this mom guilt text really fast, and it said: “The subway is still running. You need to go home. It’s very sad. And remember you have class tomorrow.”
She wrote back, “Mom, I mean our country.”
That’s when it hit me, and that’s something I’ll never forget. And I told her then what I tell you now: is that our country, we have been through wars, we have been through financial crises, we have been through despair, and we have always come out on the other side.
But that question she asked still echoes in my mind and in your mind every single day, “What should we do now?”
Because Democrats, if we answer it with a shrug of our shoulders or with apathy, if we just turn down the TV and put the blanket over our head, then we don’t win. But if we answer it with action, we win. That is what we need to do.
And this journey, this journey for all of us, it didn’t end that night. It actually began the day after the inauguration when millions and millions of people, including here in Des Moines, marched across this country. You remember that.
And the next day when 6,000 women signed up to run for office. That happened.
And then you think of it where we marched with our union brothers and sisters and we marched with immigrants and we stood up for those kids in Parkland and those moms who demanded action.
And when Donald Trump, when Donald Trump tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, when he tried to kick off kids from their health insurance - we didn’t just sit down, we stood up and we won. That’s what happened, and that’s what we did.
Now, what happened through all that, we got Abby and Cindy - you did this - elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. You did that. You got them - I think that’s a Viking horn - you’re going to piss off all the Packer fans.
We got Abby and Cindy elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. And you turned the House of Representatives into the People’s House again! You did that. And you gave us Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House.
And when people tell me that a woman can’t beat Donald Trump, I tell them, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.
And if you think we can’t win in the Midwest, Iowa Democrats, I have four words for you: “Former Governor Scott Walker.”
But we still have this guy in the White House. And every single morning he wakes up, and he tries to divide us. He sends out tweets going after immigrants, he goes after people of color, he belittles people that don’t agree with him and he allows a foreign country to make mincemeat of our democracy. And every day, our path gets clearer.
I believe that we need someone that heads up this ticket that understands that what unites us as a party is so much bigger than what divides us. That understands that we have to bring in our fired up Democratic base but we also have to bring in Independents and yeah, even a few moderate Republicans. If we want to win big, that is what we are going to have to do, that is what we are going to have to do, my friends. I am someone that has passed over 100 bills as lead Democrat in that gridlock of Washington, DC. I have won every race, every place, every time, in the reddest of red congressional districts. And I am someone that believes that we need a president that is not a president for half of America, but is a president for all of America.
Now, we have got this president that would rather lie than lead, that’s what he does. He is running the country like a game show. And have you noticed how he always puts his business interests in front of the interests of our country? That’s what he does. He sides with tyrants over innocents. He sides with dictators over our allies. I can tell you one thing, when I am president I will bring sanity back to our foreign policy. And something else, something else that I promise you, I will never ever host a gathering of international leaders at one of my resorts. Oh that’s right, I don’t own a resort. But what I do own is this: I own an optimistic economic and justice agenda for this country.
What does that mean? It means that after Charlottesville, there weren’t two sides when one side is the Ku Klux Klan. There is only one side and that is the American side. What that means is if multimillionaires can refinance their yachts, then students should be able to refinance their loans.
And to the NRA, and to Big Oil, and to Big Pharma, no, you do not own America. And when I am president, they will not own me. The citizens own Washington, DC. And what this means is that we will take on the existential crisis of our time: climate change.
And I will get us back into the international climate change agreement on day one. Day two, bring back the clean power standards, day three, bring back the gas mileage standards and then introduce sweeping legislation and get that done in one year. That is what we have to do, Democrats.
There is an old Obijwe saying, and it is this: great leaders make decisions, not for this generation, but for generations, seven generations from now. We have a president that can't keep his decisions seven minutes from now.
So I want you to imagine what it will be like to have a candidate on the debate stage that can literally look at this guy and say, you know what the Midwest is not flyover country. I live here and I will not be treating the workers and the farmers of this country like poker chips in one of your bankrupt casinos because they are my friends and my neighbors. And I will have plans that I can pay for and deadlines that I can make that are grounded in reality.
And finally, you might go to Mar-a-Lago and tell all your rich friends that they just got a whole lot richer. You know where I’ll go? I'll go to our neighborhoods and bring them gun safety legislation. I will go to our small towns and bring them rural broadband and make sure that everyone understands that health care is not the same in small towns in America. I will go to our hospitality workers and our food service workers and tell them yes, you deserve an increase in the minimum wage and child care. And I will go to our military bases with humility and with decency and the respect ground and born in the allegiance to the United States flag. That is what this is about.
But to do this, we not just change our politics. No, we have to change the tone in our politics. And that is what I will do. I ask you this: if you want to get AK-47’s out of the hands of domestic abusers, we can't just win. We have to win big. If you, my friends, want to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, we can't just win. We have to win big. And if you want to get rid of the privatization of Medicaid in Iowa, we can't just win. We have to win big.
My background is different than Donald Trump's. And I think that's a good thing. I don't come from money. But I come from the grit of a February snowstorm in the middle of Minnesota. My grandpa was an iron ore miner who worked 1500 feet underground. He saved money in a coffee can to send my dad to college. My dad, he was a newspaper man; my mom, a union teacher, who taught second grade until she was seventy years old. I stand before you as the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Minnesota, and a candidate for president of the United States. And that is because we live in a country of shared dreams. We live in a country that no matter where you come from, or who you know that you can make it in the United States of America.
That is our country. And I am running for you. I am running for every parent who has a kid who needs prescription drugs. I am running for every worker who needs respect for their work. And I am running for every farmer, student, builder, dreamer—I am running for you.
So I ask you to vote for me, to caucus for me, to sign up with me. And we will not only win because we know that our work doesn't end on election day. Our work begins on Inauguration Day. So let's just not win Iowa, let’s win big.
Posted by Mike on 11/02/2019 | Permalink
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Cory Booker Iowa Democratic Party Liberty and Justice Celebration Remarks
Newark, NJ — Tonight at the Iowa Democratic Party Liberty and Justice Celebration, Cory Booker brought the crowd to its feet by making the case that Democrats should come together to do more than just beating Donald Trump.
See below for a transcript of his remarks.
REMARKS AT LIBERTY AND JUSTICE CELEBRATION
NOVEMBER 1, 2019
Hello, Iowa. Hello, Iowa. Hello, Iowa. Hello, Iowa. Hello, Iowa.
It was 10 years ago, 10 years ago, this very month that I was having a conversation in a hospital room with my hero, and someone who was like a father to me. It was the last conversation I would ever have with him because 10 years ago this month he died. He was my hero -- a man named Frank Hutchins. Frank Hutchins was a legend in Newark, New Jersey. He was one of the greatest tenant leaders that has ever lived. He led Newark's longest tenant rent strike and he won. 10 years ago, when he was dying in the hospital room, I was the mayor of the city of Newark and that conversation has shaped me.
You see, in the 1990s I met Frank Hutchins as a recent Yale Law grad, and I was helping him to take on slumlords. I'll never forget one meeting in a basement of the projects where people were together. In that meeting, we were fighting against a slumlord with no heat and hot water and other conditions that were unacceptable and the meeting went on and on and on. And I'll never forget that after it I was walking out with him and I made a snarky comment. Back then in the 90s, I just talked about how long the meeting was. He stopped and looked at me with his kind and gentle eyes and said, you know, Cory, this is not just about repairing the buildings, it's about repairing unity. It's about understanding that our power and our strength in tearing down that slumlord comes from the strength we have together.
Well, Frank got me into politics, helped push me to run for city council. I became mayor, he got older, sicker. His eyesight, when he became blind -- and I'll never forget every time I would go out to see him to take him out grocery shopping or whatever I would say, “Hey Frank it’s Cory.” And he would speak, [and] say simply, “I see you.” That became our greeting. And so when I walked into that hospital room in his last hours when they told me it wouldn't be long, and I walked over to his bedside, I said, “Frank, I see you,” they told me he couldn't speak. But he forced out those words: “I see you.”
I sat by his bedside and held him and kissed his forehead and told him how much he'd meant to me. It wasn't a crowded hospital room, but, you see, Frank didn't care about those things because for him, life was not about celebrity, it was about significance. It wasn't about popularity, it was about purpose. If he was here today he would tell you that life isn't about how many people show up for you when you're dead, but how many people you show up for when you are alive.
And let me tell you Iowa, I was a mayor of a city in a recession, which meant the city had depression-like circumstances. I had to leave his bedside, and the last thing I said to him was, “Frank, I love you,” and the last thing he said to me was forcing out those words, “I love you.”
Tonight, I want you to think about his last words to me. “I see you, I love you.” I see you, I love you. Frank knew that the power in this country comes from those are often overlooked, often ignored. With the power of people in a project's basement, “I see you, I love you” is powerful enough to tear down a rich and powerful slumlord. “I see you, I love you” -- he talked about the power in this country against hate is love. Against indifference is empathy.
It's understanding that we together, that is what has overcome. “I see you, I love you” -- and I'll tell you right now in this election, there are those people who think it's naive to think that this election is most importantly about our values, about our ideals -- but I tell you, that is where our strength will come from, that is where our power is. And it's our connections to each other, or ability to pull together coalitions and unify around our highest ideals, this is how we have always accomplished things in this nation. And I'll tell you, I hear the pundits say this is about who's polling the best or who has the most money or who can best deliver a shot against another Democrat on a stage.
Well we know, Iowa, that the polls of our party -- who's leading in the polls this far out has never gone on from our party to be President of the United States. It's not how much money a person has or how much you tear down another Democrat. This, this is going to be decided by who can best call us to our common aspirations, who can best inspire us to be the truth of who we are. We don't abandon our values during trials, we double down on them.
This election for us Democrats, everyone that's come out here has told you how much they don't like Donald Trump. But Democrats, this election will not be defined by what we're against, but by what we're for.
This election, as much as the differences in policy are between fellow Democrats, they're small compared to what is between us and what's between this person in office. And this is a moral moment in America. We as Democrats have to call this whole country to higher aspirations, with a president that tries to divide us, the end for Democrats shouldn't be to beat Republicans. The calling of this party must be to unite Americans again in common cause and common purpose.
Because that's how we do big things in America. That's how we have always done them, by creating bigger and larger movements. Look, I come from an Iowa-born grandmother who worships right here in Des Moines at Corinthian Baptist, born before women had the right to vote, and what she taught me from the women's rights movement is that we created broader coalitions to secure suffrage, to gain ground.
Well now in America, we need a movement again because women's rights are under assault. They're attacking Planned Parenthood. They're attacking Roe v Wade. I'm running for president because we need a larger American movement for women's rights again, equal pay for equal work. It took a movement in America, as my grandfather, a UAW worker, would tell me, it took a larger movement to secure workers' rights, to expand union rights. Well you know what, workers' rights are under assault again in America, and we need a broader coalition, a new American movement to ensure that people can retire with dignity, that we have a living wage.
My father and mother told me it was a civil rights movement that ensured that I would one day have the chance to be the first descendant of a slave to be in the White House, which was built by slaves. That this is a movement that we need again at a time in America where they're assaulting civil rights and voting rights, with gerrymandering and money in politics, we need a new American movement to make sure we end the new Jim Crow of mass incarceration, secure voting rights, and extend civil rights to LGBTQ Americans.
This is what we want. The pundits will tell us Democrats, they'll say things like, well, you know, Democrats, according to our fancy polls, the number one thing Democrats want is just someone who can beat Donald Trump.
Well, they don't know us. Democrats, beating Donald Trump is the floor, it is not the ceiling.
Beating Donald Trump gets us out of the valley, it does not get us to the mountain top. We are a nation that has always aspired to turn our common pain into common purpose. We are a nation that understands, from the founding of our nation, the world's oldest constitution starts with that word “we.”
“We the people.” My parents' generation, they marched together and joined together and understood that their slogans, that their songs, began with “we shall overcome.” And now, as a nation, how we ensure that we unite our country, that every day, a president who engages in moral vandalism is trying to tear apart, the way we aspire not just to beat him but to go to a mountain top, is the way our ancestors did.
Whether it was Kennedy that pointed to the moon or King that pointed to the mountaintop, we joined together and said, “We will rise.”
We have seen hate before. We have seen bigotry before, but when others have tried to beat us down, at Stonewall or beat us back on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, we didn't turn against each other, we unified together and said, “We will rise.”
I'm running for president to unify our whole party -- from those who call us progressives and divide us into camps as moderates -- we need all Democrats, together, to call to this country, to stand together, to work together, to rise together.
It is time now that we call for those broader coalitions, that we call to the heart and the aspirations of this country. Because if I am your nominee, I will inspire, engage, and ignite this nation like no other nominee can.
If you believe like I do, if you want to join a movement, then go to corybooker.com. I need your help, Iowa, because it's time that we all stay together. As a chorus of conviction, we will rise for workers’ rights, union rights. We will rise for public education and schools for all kids. We will rise to deal with the challenge of climate change.
We will rise to make sure that we in America are truly a nation of liberty and justice for all.
We're not defined by Donald Trump, we’re defined by the love between us. And when they try to demean and degrade with darkness, we bring light. When they try to divide with hate, we bring love. Remember the words of that great American poet, Maya Angelou. To use her phrase that we all know, he may try to write us down in history with his bitter, twisted lies. He may try to trod our nation in the dirt, but still, like dust, we will rise. Iowa, I see you, I love you.
Let us join together. Join with me, we will rise together. Our best days are ahead, we will rise together. Iowa, I see you, I love you. I see you, I love you.
Together, we will rise.
Posted by Mike on 11/01/2019 | Permalink
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OUR KIDS AREN’T ALRIGHT. ANDREW YANG OFFERS A NEW WAY FORWARD.
Yang’s supporters braved the cold and rain to attend an outdoor rally, showing the dedication needed to win the caucus During the Liberty & Justice Celebration, Yang’s future-focused speech explained how he’d enact a New Way Forward to ensure a future we can be proud to leave for our children
Des Moines, Iowa - Andrew Yang showed the strength of his support in the Hawkeye state today by hosting Yangapalooza, a rally featuring performances by Kyle Christensen - a Freedom Dividend recipient - and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. Kyle played his set on a guitar purchased with some of the Freedom Dividend provided by the Candidate. While other campaigns moved their events inside or canceled them, 1,000 members of the Yang Gang braved the cold and rain, showing the dedication that they’ll bring to the caucus in February.
Andrew appeared at the event with his wife Evelyn, her first public appearance. She spoke to the crowd before heading to the Liberty & Justice Celebration with her husband, leading the Yang Gang on a march over to the event center where he spoke about his vision for America.
Yang, a father of two, spoke about his reasons for entering the race. “We are leaving our kids a future that is far darker than the lives we have led as their parents,” he explained. During his time at Venture for America (VFA), the non-profit he founded, he traveled across the country and saw too many communities devastated by a lack of economic opportunity. He realized that the jobs he was creating through VFA wouldn’t be sufficient to replace those being lost to a wave of automation.
“I am here tonight because millions of Americans are willing to admit that our kids are not alright and our system is failing them. We are failing them,” Yang said. “We cannot keep proposing the same solutions that have not worked. We need to provide a New Way Forward.”
While Yang is known for his Freedom Dividend proposal - $1,000/mo for every American over the age of 18 - tonight he highlighted his greater vision for this country, and the way we value work and ourselves.
“What I’m here to tell you tonight is that $1,000 a month is really about everything BUT the money. It is about us,” Yang said, adding he wants to build a trickle-up economy that lifts families and communities. “We need a New Way Forward. One that will value us and our kids.”
The entrepreneur and first-time candidate has been rising in the polls, surprising the political establishment. The Yang Gang raised $1.5 million in campaign contributions in the last eight days of the month, and Yang’s message on automation and the future of work drove the discussion of the economy during the most recent Democratic debate. This message is resonating with voters - a recent NH poll showed his favorability growing more than any other candidate.
REMARKS BY ANDREW YANG (AS DELIVERED):
Hello, Iowa! Thank you, Iowa. Thank you so much. And thank you, Yang Gang! I love campaigning in Iowa, because this is one of the only places in the entire country where Democracy still works as it is intended. You know this, but I do not know if you realize just how much power is in this room tonight.
I did the MATH, Iowa. You know how many Californians each of you is worth? One thousand Californians each.
When I look around this arena tonight, I do not just see fourteen thousand Iowans - I see fourteen million Californians. That is a power in this room, the power to change the course of history. That’s why it’s a thrill to be back here and a privilege to address you all.
Now, I am a presidential candidate, yes, but I’m also a parent, a dad. How many of you are parents? My wife, Evelyn, is here with us tonight. We have two young boys, Christopher and Damian, and I’m running for president because of a thought that the parents here in this room have had but we’ve been afraid to express.
And it is this: our kids are not alright.
They are not alright because we have left them a future far darker than the lives we have led as their parents.
Now, many of you think of me as a business guy, but for the last seven years I've been a non-profit guy. I started a non-profit called Venture for America that helped create thousands of jobs in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Baltimore, and you know what I saw during these seven years?
I saw millions of young people who are not starting families, let alone businesses, because they couldn’t pay their bills. I saw millions of young people who were buried under a mountain of debt and trapped in their parents’ basements. I saw record high levels of anxiety, stress, depression, mental illness, even suicides and drug overdoses, to the point that our country's life expectancy has declined for three years in a row.
The first time in a hundred years that has happened, Iowa. If you turned on cable news today, why would you think Donald Trump is our president? Go ahead and shout something out. Someone who’s not the Yang Gang.
Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, emails, all mixed together.
But I believe many of you know different. I am a numbers guy, and the reason why Donald Trump is our president, the reason why he won your state by eight points, is that we blasted away forty thousand manufacturing jobs right here in Iowa and you saw all of those towns go from blue to red as it happened.
And that did not just happen here in Iowa.
We did it in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri — all of the swing states that Donald Trump needed to win.
We blasted away four million manufacturing jobs and unfortunately we are not stopping there, Iowa. How many of you have seen stores close where you work and live here in the state? Raise your hands.
Why are the stores closing? It’s a one-word answer: Amazon.
That’s right. Amazon soaking up twenty billion dollars in business every year, causing 30 percent of your stores and malls to close.
How much did Amazon pay in federal taxes last year?
[Crowd: ZERO!]
That is your math, Iowa.
Twenty billion out, zero back. Thirty percent of your stores and malls closed. The most common job in your state is retail clerk, 39-year-old woman making between $9 and $10 per hour. When her store closes, what is her next move going to be?
I'm a numbers guy, but you don’t need the numbers. You just look around your communities. You see it when you walk into the CVS and the grocery store and you see the self-service kiosk. You see your neighbors’ kids addicted to drugs. You see the headlines where Google and Uber are working on trucks that can drive themselves.
These are the real problems that got Donald Trump elected. The fact that more and more of us are feeling left behind.
Experts are calling this economic transformation, this period, the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
When is the last time you heard a politician even breathe the words, Fourth Industrial Revolution? Just now, right? And I am barely a politician.
These are the problems that got Donald Trump elected and this is what you must solve. This is how you must use your power.
Now I want you all to ask yourselves for a moment: How is a man you had never heard of eight months ago speaking after Joe Biden and before Elizabeth Warren? How did a man you had never heard of before raise $10 million last quarter, in increments of only $30 each?
So my fans are almost as cheap as Bernie's. It is because I know what the true nature of the problems are, and how we can solve them.
And it is up to you to take these solutions to the rest of the country, to present a New Way Forward as fast as possible. Now, what is this New Way Forward, what is the vision?
If you’ve heard anything about me and my campaign, you've heard this: there’s an Asian man running for president. He wants to give everyone one thousand dollars a month.
And the first time you heard that, it sounds like a gimmick, too good to be true, but this is not my idea and it’s not a new idea.
Thomas Paine was for it at our founding. Martin Luther King fought for it in the sixties. A thousand economists endorsed it. Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives, passed it twice in 1971. And eleven years later, one state passed a dividend where now everyone in that state gets between one and two thousand dollars a year, no questions asked. And what state is that?
[CROWD: ALASKA!]
And how does Alaska pay for it?
[CROWD: OIL!]
And what is the oil of the 21st century, Iowa?
[CROWD: DATA!]
Technology, software, self-driving trucks — our data is now worth more than oil. Raise your hand if you got your data check in the mail.
Where did the data checks go? They went to Facebook, Amazon, Google, and the trillion-dollar tech companies that are paying zero or near zero in income taxes.
Now, think about what a thousand dollars a month would actually mean in your hands and the hands of your friends and neighbors. It would mean lower stress levels. It would mean fewer arguments with your spouse. It would mean being able to retire with dignity. It would mean not having to choose between car repairs and new clothes for your kids.
It’s not about the money, it’s about what it means to us. And I have been giving a thousand dollars to families around the country for a number of months now. I recommend it.
And one of them is here tonight. Kyle Christensen who lives in Iowa Falls.
Thank you, Kyle. Look at that. I thought you were up there, Kyle. I’m glad you’re at the fancy table.
So, Kyle lives in Iowa Falls with his mom who’s recovering from cancer. And when I saw Kyle on my last trip, he said that after he had taken care of some bills, he bought a guitar and was playing shows for the first time in years.
For Kyle, it was a guitar. For Jodie in New Hampshire, it was car repairs to visit her daughter. For Malorie in Florida, it was going back to school at the age of 68.
This is what the Freedom Dividend would mean for us in real life.
And this is the vision you can make a reality, like this, Iowa, because this is your power and your power alone.
Now, my first move, my first move was not to run for President of the United States, because I am not insane.
I worked in the Obama Administration. I went to Washington, D.C., and I said, what are we going to do to help our fellow citizens understand that it is not immigrants that are causing these problems, it is technology and an economy that is pushing more and more of us to the side.
And the folks in Washington, D.C., had very little to offer. But one of them gave me some guidance that led me here to you all tonight.
He said, “Andrew, you’re in the wrong town. No one in Washington, D.C., will touch this, because fundamentally, this is not a town of leaders. This is a town of followers. And the only way we will do anything is if you were to create a wave in the rest of the country and bring that wave crashing down on our heads.” And that is why I am with you tonight, Iowa!
I am with you tonight because you must be that wave. I'm not running for president because I fantasized about being president.
I am running for president because, like so many of you in this room, I'm a parent. I am a patriot. I have seen the future that lies ahead for our children, and it is not something I'm willing to accept.
Here in Iowa, you actually know what the future holds if you look up. You saw it happen to your farms. And then your factories. Now it’s on your main streets. Soon it will hit your highways. It is up to you and you alone to turn the tide. You must be the wave that helps us rewrite the rules of the 21st century economy to work for us, to work for you, the people of this country.
You must be the wave that helps give the entire nation a New Way Forward. And gives me, and millions of parents around the country, the ability to look our children in the eyes and say, with truth, in our hearts, your country loves you, your country values you, and you are going to be alright. Thank you very much, Iowa. Let's make history. Let's move the country forward together in 2020 and win this whole thing.
I love Iowa. I love it here.
Posted by Mike on 11/01/2019 | Permalink
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Posted by Mike on 09/21/2019 | Permalink
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