Cross-posted at the Carter Blog
As many of you know, my Dad is Nevada Senate Candidate
Jack Carter. At the beginning of his campaign, I wrote about his
Announcement events, which included my grandpa, Jimmy Carter. About a month ago, I told you about going out to five Northern Nevada counties in one day to talk to folks at their
County Conventions. Today, I'm going to tell you about going to the state Democratic Convention, which took place this past weekend in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun, and everyone said that Dad's speech was the best speech that he'd ever given.
I arrived in Las Vegas on Friday night after a non-eventful flight (in sharp contrast to my disastrous
drive to Reno last month). My parents picked me up at the airport and we went straight to the Plaza Hotel-Casino (where the convention was taking place) for the tail end of a "kickoff reception" for conventioneers. By the time we got there, the party was dying down, and everyone had moved upstairs to a party thrown by Gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus. We stopped by to say hello, and I was amazed to find that people over 40 could still hang around in hotel hallways chatting and drinking cans of Bud Light. (We like Jim Gibson, Titus' primary opponent, too, but he wasn't throwing a party.)
After a late stop at the In-N-Out Burger (somehow, we had all missed dinner), we went home to Dad's house in Summerlin.
We arrived at the convention hall early in the morning on Saturday. While Dad talked to the never-ending flow of people who wanted to talk to him, I surveyed the scene. Our Carter for Nevada table was well-placed just inside the door to the main convention space. We had T-shirts, bumper stickers, rolls of smaller stickers, buttons, pamphlets, peanut M&M's, volunteer sign-up sheets, and plenty of volunteers. There were signs and posters and banners for candidates covering the walls. I was pleased to see that our orange Carter for Nevada paraphernalia stood out against the sea of blue that announced other candidates. It would be a good day.
Dad was scheduled to give his speech at 10:40am, following Harry Reid and the special keynote speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (the Mayor of Los Angeles). But, Villaraigosa was running a little bit late from the airport and Reid didn't want to start his speech and introduction of the Mayor before he arrived. So, Dad offered to speak early so that the convention wouldn't have to be stalled. When his name was announced, the crowd was on their feet.
He started his speech by saying that he had been spurred into action and had given up his normal life to run for Senate for three reasons. The first:
"The Bush Administration, with the full support of my opponent, John Ensign, is moving our country away from our core American values.
We have a bankrupt foreign policy which avoids allies when we can and uses them when we must; one which advocates pre-emptive strikes even when there is no imminent threat; one which unilaterally broke the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with the Administration's special deal with India. These are not American values.
We now read headlines about illegal wiretaps and torture. Our President ignores the law of the land and leaks classified information for political purposes. Our Congress, especially the Senate, is shirking its oversight responsibility over the executive branch. These are not American values.
The environmental and safety regulatory agencies which oversee our industries have been turned over to the industry lobbyists. We established a tax structure that favors the wealthy. We pack every bill with pork. These are not American values.
He defined those "American values" this way:
"Core American values are the ones on which all Americans agree. We honor liberty and democracy, and the rule of law enshrined in our Constitution. We love our families and respect our neighbors. We care for our sick, our poor, and our elderly. We educate our children. We believe in honesty and integrity, cooperation, fiscal responsibility, and sound business judgment.
These are the values that define us as a Nation; they are not the ones we see in Washington today."
The second reason he gave for running for Senate was that he was frustrated with the atmosphere of "partisan politics" that prevents problems from being solved:
"I said I was a businessman. The act of running a business IS the solution of one problem after another. But in Washington, solving problems is second to political posturing aimed at the next election cycle. We have serious issues before our country today - our reliance on Arab oil, a healthcare system so inefficient that it threatens our competitiveness in the global market, a looming social security and Medicaid bankruptcy, the security of our ports and our borders, Iraq, Iran, Korea.
We do not lack for problems, but that is normal. Nor, I am convinced, do we lack for solutions. What we lack is the political will to make hard decisions against the vested interests but for the American people."
And his third reason was the budget deficit. After saying how huge the deficit and the National debt had become, he said:
"Part of this increase is caused by the Administration tax cuts - largely in favor of our wealthiest Americans, tax cuts that were insisted upon even in the face of our major war on terror. Eisenhower must be rolling over in his grave.
. . .
Today's Republicans have proven that they are no longer trustworthy with our money in their hands."
Dad's opponent is John Ensign, who claims to be a fiscal conservative and occasionally gives lip service to the idea that we need to reduce the deficit. In his speech, Dad characterized him this way:
"My opponent is well aware that something is amiss. He talks about it, but he can't do anything about it because he can't wean himself away from the Bush Administration. He voted with them 96% of the time since he took office - and in 2004 an astonishing 100% of the time."
He ended his speech with this:
"I should be running my own business, but I'm running for the Senate because our country is going in the wrong direction. I should be jogging my favorite trails in Red Rock Canyon, but I'm here because someone has to take our good old-fashioned American values to Washington. Someone has to take the good sense and business judgment that is second nature to every Nevadan family - but which this Republican Congress knows nothing about. I should be picking my guitar, but someone needs to be an independent voice who can stand up to partisan politics on both sides of the aisle and say what needs to be said.
. . .
I know that we Nevadans are independent. And we wouldn't hire someone to go to Washington to find out what the White House wants so they can report back. We want someone to go tell the folks in Washington what Nevadans want.
John Ensign is Washington's Voice to Nevada. I want to be Nevada's Voice to Washington."
At the end of the speech, Dad again got a standing ovation, and some people started to chant
"We want Jack! We want Jack!" It was great to see the party activists fired up on our behalf.
For lunch, we joined the Young Democrats, and Dad told them how fortunate they were to have been raised by Baby Boomers. I tease him all the time about how his generation has no financial sense and are ruining everything, and I'm sure his remarks were for me as much as for them. He also said this (I'm paraphrasing - his remarks were not prepared):
"This is the most important election in my lifetime, and it's likely to be the most important in your lifetime, too. If we don't win back at least one of the House or Senate, these guys are going to do damage that'll take 30 years to undo. For you [the Young Democrats], that'll be most of your working life. If we can win back the Senate, we can start putting a tourniquet on the bleeding that's going on in our government.
I need your support, but I need more than that - I need you to work hard, and I need you to drag your friends kicking and screaming to the polls."
After a somewhat odd meal of two egg rolls, two small finger sandwiches, and two chicken wings, we went over to the Women's luncheon and Dad spoke to them, too. For the rest of the day, we listened to speeches and chatted with people. Definitely a highlight of the day were the three speeches given by Shelley Berkley,
Jill Derby, and
Tessa Hafen all in a row. Berkley is the Congresswoman from CD-01 (Las Vegas), and her seat is safe. She started off by saying that when Bush first ran for President, he called himself a "Compassionate Conservative," but he should have called himself an "Arrogant Incompetent." The rest of the speech was just as fun.
Both Derby and Hafen are challengers. Derby's CD-02 is Northern Nevada (just about everywhere except Clark County). Jedinecny did a great diary on her race a few days ago. She has a good shot at taking the seat, and her speech was great. Tessa Hafen is running in CD-03, which basically consists of Clark County outside the city of Las Vegas. She's only 29 years old, and it gave me chills to watch her speak. She looked just like me and my friends! I've never seen a serious candidate from my generation before. It was really exciting.
It was a fun day full of talking and speechifying and generalized politicking. But, here, Dad was preaching to the choir. To win this race, we're going to have to go out there and change some minds. I think we can do that. Dad is dedicated to doing that. And we're going to win this thing come November.
Thanks for reading!
Sarah
Carter for Nevada