A few weeks ago, the Florida Democratic Party invited me to be the keynote speaker at the first meeting of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida. Contrary to popular belief, we must have plenty of progressives in Florida, because at 8 am, it was standing-room-only, as hundreds of people tried to squeeze into the event.
We didn’t record it, but some brave soul in the audience did, and then posted segments of it on YouTube. So there it is: Twenty Minutes of Grayson, in pieces, starting here.
In the first segment, I started talking about the Republican presidential candidates, but my point was to explain how we are different from them. Here is what I said...
I said on HBO a few weeks ago that I was disappointed that Sarah Palin was not running. But I understood why. She realized that she could not put the Oath of Office on her palm.
And maybe she thought that not running was a way of quitting early. Why wait for the last minute? Just quit early.
She is one of the most unintentionally funny people I’ve ever seen. You are not going to believe what I am about to tell you, but we actually have videotape of this, so I have proof of this. She came to Orlando to campaign against me last year, and she said as follows: “Alan Grayson. What can I say about Alan Grayson?” And then she looked at her palm, paused, and then talked about something else entirely. So she’s not running.
They’ve got Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney. There’s somebody who spends all day trying to figure out whether he should flip or flop. He just can’t make up his mind.
You remember that kid in nursery school when you were four years old? You said that you wanted to be a fireman one day. And the kid next to you said that he wanted to be an astronaut. And then the other kid said that he wanted to be President of the United States. That was actually Mitt Romney who said that. In nursery school when he was four years old.
You actually run into people like that in Washington. Like I said before, there are people who want to do something, and there are people who just want to be something. And Mitt Romney just wants to be something, which in a way is safer if you are Mitt Romney.
Gee, who else is running? Hard to even think about it. Herman Cain. Okay, I’m delighted Herman Cain is running. I hope he gets the nomination because clearly, if both major parties nominate African-Americans, every racist in the country will have to commit suicide.
But think about it. Here’s a man who’s running on his business genius. What is his business genius? That he paid people eight dollars an hour to deliver fifteen dollar pizzas. And they’re not even good pizzas, let’s be honest. That makes him a business genius. I mean, what’s his jobs plan for America, another topping?
And Governor Perry. Here’s somebody who dropped into single digits in the Republican polls when they found out that he was pro-education and pro-vaccination. They got their lessons in grammar school all wrong. They think that if the word ends in “tion,” you have to shun it. It really is surprising, but when you think about it, he’s George Bush without the wit.
Who else is running? Newt Gingrich. Somebody said to me recently, “I actually listened to Newt Gingrich and he sounded really crazy to me.” I said, “Look, Newt Gingrich has been listening to Newt Gingrich for 68 years. If you listened to Newt Gingrich for 68 years, wouldn’t you be crazy?”
And then Rick Perry tried to pick a fight, a fistfight, with Ron Paul. Governor Perry tried to pick a fist fight with Ron Paul on national TV. A 76-year-old man. Perry doesn’t want to just cut Social Security. He wants to beat up everybody on Social Security.
By the way, I’m going to disregard Ron Paul, because everyone else does. He’s actually a really nice guy. I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with him. But no point in talking about him, because no one else does.
Michele Bachmann. I actually know Michele Bachmann pretty well. We sat next to each other on the Financial Services Committee in Congress. I’m not going to say anything about her, because we actually have an agreement between ourselves. The agreement is that if I don’t tell the truth about her, then she won’t lie about me.
And that’s it. That’s all they got. That’s it.
AUDIENCE: Rick Santorum
Honestly, let’s keep it clean. You shouldn’t use that word in public. There’s a child in the audience.
They all have certain things in common. You know that, right. They have things in common. Their favorite TV show, all of them, all Republican candidates, their favorite TV show is “Father Knows Best.” It doesn’t matter that it hasn’t been on for fifty years. It doesn’t matter. That’s the show they all love.
And to show how “groovy” and “with it” they are, their favorite song is Jefferson Airplane’s “Don’t You Need Somebody to Hate.”
They are like peas in a pod. You literally can’t tell one from the other, and that’s really the problem that faces us right now. They’re so different from anybody who has any head or heart. The people in this room, you’re all here because you have a head, a heart and even a spine. And they’re all missing that. That’s the fundamental problem. The fundamental difference between us and them is that we actually care about our fellow man.
Last time, their nominee was named McCain. Now the person who is leading in their race is named Cain. You have to consider the possibility that it’s because of the name. You have to consider that possibility. It might just be the name. And what is that story, okay? I mean, think about it. Why would they be so attracted to somebody named Cain?
As I recall the story, he killed his brother with the jawbone of a donkey, which probably meant he wanted to blame it on the Democrats. And then when God said, “Where’s your brother?” he said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” As if he had no idea.
And that is actually the fundamental question that separates us from them, right? Am I my brother’s keeper?
Our answer is, “Yes, we are.” We are.
Let’s test this out. Turn to the person on one side and say, “I care about you.” Now the person on your other side is feeling left out right now, so turn to the person on the other side.
I think what we just proved is that you don’t even need me. You have each other.
Courage,
Alan Grayson