(delivered by Tom Dwyer at the 2nd Quadrennial Election Night Bash, Historic Bob White Theatre, Nov 6, 2012)
Good evening everyone,
I’m Tom Dwyer and welcome to the Election Night BASH!
Before anything else, I’d like to extend a very special “thank you” to AM 620 KPOJ radio and especially to Topatio Restaurant and Catering for providing this incredible spread of Mexican food. Next time you need catering think about using Topatio to say thank you. Also I’d like to thank Dan Payne with VIP Events for providing the audio visual support for our gathering here tonight.
So on behalf of KPOJ, Topatio Restaurant and Catering, VIP Events and myself, I’d like to thank each of you for coming tonight to spend this Election evening with us. No matter which way it comes down, it will be better getting the news with friends and compatriots. I’m really glad to have you all here!
At the last Election Bash, the explosion of energy when Obama’s win was announced was life changing for me and my family. My daughter Hayden was disappointed that she was just a couple months shy of voting for Obama but she was not disappointed by the results and the celebratory bash, and now my daughter Deena is in the same position… eager, informed, but just a few months too young to vote. I hope history will repeat itself so we can all feel that same positive announcement and energy tonight.
Just four short years ago, we were ending eight agonizing years under Bush and we were a nation in free fall. The world’s financial system was crashing, we were hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs, and we were so desensitized to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that they were barely news to us anymore.
…But there was a glimmer of hope… hope that we wouldn’t have to settle for the nightmare of an angry war monger and a folksy bumpkin as our elected leaders. There was a chance, just a chance, that war, lies, and incompetence might be put behind us.
I didn’t have unrealistic hopes about Obama. Just having a president has high functioning as Obama would have been change enough! ….But when he said “Change” I took it as “change away from the path we were on”, not “change directly to where we needed to be”. I knew it would be almost impossible for anyone to clean up the Con’s mess. I just “hoped” that Obama wouldn’t make things worse, and that maybe he’d believe in government centered on people instead of corporate money.
By the time Obama actually took the big chair things had really deteriorated; he’d be facing the usual political constraints and an economic black hole now as well. We didn’t know at time but on the night of his inauguration, key RepubliCons were conspiring to deepen our economic troubles and then run on our failure as a propaganda tool. Seems in their twisted world, control and party power are more important than our democracy, our economy, or the condition of the middle class. I consider their pact treason….. These traitors swore to oppose Obama’s every action, regardless of the cost to our country and they’ve opposed him at every opportunity. A record number of filibusters have hobbled our nation, wasting the opportunities of the last four years.
Every time I’ve heard Romney throw out the meme that “Obama’s policies just haven’t worked” my blood boils…. His policies were never allowed to be tried. From a neutered stimulus package, needless bickering over the debt ceiling and spending cuts, to Obama’s jobs bill that never saw the light of day, this president has faced nothing but opposition from the Republicons…. And Romney has the animus to say “Obama uses division” and has not “reached out to work across the aisle”!
If I were to point out one of Obama’s faults it would be him trying too hard and too long to reach across the aisle. He should have figured out you can’t negotiate with terrorists and recalibrated.
Beyond the legislative opposition, he’s faced completely groundless lies and attacks; from Birtherism and Kenyanism to Socialism and more,…… but he’s still standing with dignity.
People have hammered me for being too hard on Obama. I knew Obama was no liberal, but even some of the realistic hopes I had for him dimmed a bit over the last four years. I was disappointed that he didn’t put on his comfortable shoes to go support collective bargaining in Wisconsin. I’m horrified at the way he’s diminished our rights with the National Defense Authorization Act and I’m not in favor of drones or proxy wars….
Even his signature accomplishment, ObamaCare, is a long way from the logical SINGLE PAYER system we so desperately need…A true Single Payer system would be the greatest stimulus package this nation has ever seen….
ObamaCare however is an accomplishment; it is incremental change for the better. His support for the rights of gay Americans and immigrants is something to cheer. The stimulus package indeed helped and would have worked better had it been allowed to be about three times larger as most of the economists had urged. I do like the fact that we’re out of one republican war and moving to end another…. He saved the domestic auto industry and has a long list of successful achievements despite the total lack of cooperation from the traitors of the Republican Party.
Tonight, we face a critical decision affecting America’s future. Media has portrayed this election as a clear choice between political philosophies and it certainly is that. But it’s also a choice between radically different characters. Romney “the chameleon” has a complete lack of character; he’ll say or do anything to gain power; he has no stable positions or details to comparison shop him with. The Romney campaign… is a symphony of citizens united sponsored propaganda. Big lies echoed even louder after they’ve been called out as false. “I’ve got a five point plan..”, “I’ll give you the details of my plans after I’m elected“, “I don’t need to show you my taxes“, “I’m going to create 12 million new jobs”…. Backing up the lies and shadows is a criminal effort to deny Americans the right to vote…. I can hardly believe Republicons aren’t in jail let alone in range to actually win this thing.
President Obama is a man of character and rationality. He’s demonstrated some definite successes in a very bad climate and has been consistent and predictable. And although he’s had to walk back some of his overpromises, he’s done what he could do alone and considering the depth of the hole he stepped into and the 100 percent road block by the Cons…….. He’s done well !
No one could be expected to fix 30 years of trickle down erosion and the damage from intense millionaire welfare with both hands tied behind their back.
After Obama wins tonight and he’s free of the re-election pressures I’m hoping he can move back to the middle…. Maybe even a bit to the left. He should well know now he won’t get any help from the opposition party… so time to quit being so diplomatic; time to play by their rules. Maybe rationality will squeak by again this year but … with propaganda, low information voters, voter apathy, and voter suppression… I just can’t relax. I can still barely believe there’s even a race….
I understand that the wealthiest 3 or 4 percent of Americans see it in their selfish economic interest to vote for their money…. And in addition to them it seems that 20% or so of the population, the vote my religion and the vote my party over country hardcores, will vote for any sociopath the Republicons run; ….. so I see that 20 or 25% of the population will vote Romney no matter what… but what form of brain damage creates the other 25% of the population to make it a race?
Only 4% of Americans make over $250,000
51 % of the population is female
36% of the population isn’t white
Somewhere between 5 and 10 percent identify as LGBT.
From where does this other 25% emerge?
Never underestimate the power of propaganda to sway ill-equipped Americans. Even though I’m expecting victory tonight the American Taliban won’t be going anywhere…, and our election system is still poisoned by Citizen’s United money, unsecured voting machines and worse than third world voting conditions… But there’s still hope.
Hope for 4 more years of President Obama so we can do what he asked of us……..Let’s make him do it!!!!!!
We need to take advantage of dodging the Romney-Ryan bullet by getting serious about working on some of the problems we’ve accumulated…Things like
Bringing the rest of our people home from war and reducing our military spending. Nation building and repairing decay here at home. Getting serious about prioritizing Education. Securing voting methods we can trust, that don’t require hours in line and arduous ID requirements.
We need to work to restore actual representative democracy, dethrone corporations, restock the Supreme Court with fresh opinions, create Fair Taxes on wealth to reduce tax on actual work and shore up social security, Medicare and Medicaid. And let’s Restore one set of rules we can all live by!
There might even be an opportunity to work on global issues like; Peace, Alternative energy, Climate change, And Renegotiating trade agreements.
We need to look at the long game like the conservatives have for years now and be ready for 2014, 2016 and beyond.
The optimism I have doesn’t come from Barack Obama, or any other single person. It comes from people like the people in this room; people who are willing to show up and still care about and are willing to fight for things that really matter.
The American Dream is not about selfish wealth and greed. The Greed gene needs to be extinguished from the pool! My hope is for a future with an educated populace awake to real threats, not projected or imagined ones, willing to fight to eliminate them.
You have heard me quote Thomas Jefferson before when he said…
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
I think people are beginning to notice…..That’s why, bleak as things seem at times, I’m still optimistic. Election time should be a time of celebration as we look forward to a brighter future. And with that, let’s have a good time…. whichever way it may come out!
Thanks for listening…… and thank you all for being here with me tonight!
