Consider this an old fashioned handbill, albeit an electronic one. But try and imagine this posted on lamppoles, tavern walls, and distributed manually at town meetings.
REPEAL THE BILL! THROW THE BUMS OUT!
I am an American, and an independent small businessman. I am not stupid. The Media thinks I am. The University/Educational establishment thinks I am. The Democrat party apparatchiks think I am. The AARP thinks I am. The SEIU thinks I am. The institutions that support the Statists in Washington think I am. Clearly President Obama and the whole contingent of Democrat/Progressive elitists think I am.
Want to know something? They think YOU are too!
Since the financial meltdown in late 2008 and early 2009, I have been revising my plan for retirement, trying to find ways to protect my savings from the threat of hyperinflation and generally, trying to think differently about the future in which I once had great confidence, for me, my children and grandchildren.
After the passage of the government takeover of healthcare last night, it occurred to me that I need to think even MORE differently.
I started feeling a bit guilty for just doing my thing and didn’t know how to get engaged. I wasn’t even sure how to make a difference. Maybe I sound a little Glen Beckish here, but there is a reason he strikes a chord. This is a common experience.
For the first time instead of reacting to the occasional RNC mailer and sending in the odd contribution, I started snooping around websites like Powerlineblog, and PJTV, and started seeking out ways to insert myself. I started giving $25 here and there to candidates running against the establishment elitists in Washington. I started forwarding links to my circle of friends and family, and I even made phone calls on behalf of Scott Brown on the eve of the election. FROM ARIZONA! I started acting like a citizen and not a consumer. I was greatly encouraged when Scott Brown won in Massachusetts…
Then Congress passed the Government Health Care bill.
I learned what I already should have known: the Democrat/Progressive Party does not care about the will of the people. They took the lessons of Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, observed the rallies of ordinary Americans on the steps of Congress, and basically gave us all the finger.
Well, I have a finger too! Its time to ramp up!!
Here’s how we are going to start. My wife and I sat down and agreed to set aside whatever our legal IRA Savings maximum is this year and give it to candidates who are running against those in Congress who voted for this tyrannical bill. We may have to strap our budget a bit so we have our own war chest to contribute. The best way we can “plan for retirement†is to make sure we have one.  And we are asking every American  to do the same thing. After all, what good is it to save money if that money ends up being worthless?
I am going to research to find the strongest candidates and support as many of them as I can with donations to help their campaigns. If we have $5,000 in our war chest, and I can find 50 candidates, I can give $100 to each of them. If 10,000 of you do the same thing, that’s $1,000,000 for each candidate. And so on.
Our goal is to do as much as we possibly can to bring “change” to Washington. If we can take both houses of Congress with a 2/3 majority, we can repeal ObamaCare and override a Presidential veto.
And not only that.
It would then be possible to begin the process of enacting legislation to reinforce the Constitution, and begin taking our country back from the elitists who think they can run our lives better than we can. We can do this if like-minded others join us. Ordinary Americans can turn this around, but only if we act now. It’s not just the Congress. It’s institutional corruption on a broad scale.  We need to start paying attention to what our children and grandchildren are learning from their textbooks and undo the brainwashing. We need to withdraw financial support from alumni associations of universities that undermine our values and from organizations like the AARP, the AMA, the NEA and others that are complicit in trying to remake our country to conform to their  worldview. I want to defund NPR and the NEA and make sure nothing like ACORN can ever corrupt the democratic process.
This is not the country in which I grew up, and not the country our Founders fought and risked their lives to create. Our institutions are corrupt and Congress and the Executive Branch are contemptuous of the American people. They don’t care about the will of the people, they only care to extend their power by any means they deem necessary. Their world view is opposite to most Americans, and they have lied to us repeatedly. As far as I am concerned, they have declared war on me and my family and I intend to declare war right back at them.
Please think about this:
If 1,000,000 Americans like me set aside $5,000 this year to give to candidates to unseat those in Washington who are trying to destroy our childrens future, do you know what that amounts to? That is $5 billion.
That is an amazing amount of money.
Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and others have shown us that we can outfight, outthink  and outwit the usurpers in Washington. Let’s outspend them too.
This will be a grassroots effort like none in our history since ordinary men took action to protect their freedoms in 1776. And that would be a good thing because we have not faced a greater internal threat to our liberties since the founding of our Republic. We will need to get over the idea that life will ever be normal again.
That is the hardest thing I have ever had to face. I just want to get back to the job of taking care of my family and my business and not worry about what the government is trying to take away from us.
Well, I, that is all of us, need to get the hell over it and face the reality that we are at war.
Wars need funding. Join me please!! Show what ordinary Americans can do. Let’s be the force THEY have to reckon with!
I am going to send this letter to every media outlet that I can find an address for, and figure out a way for us  to channel these resources. We need to understand who is out there and who needs our financial support. We  will need to be informed and we will need help to get this done.
But it starts with the war chest. Just set it aside. Get ready. Help me to get the word out. I am just one guy sitting at my computer with TEN fingers, trying to channel my grave concerns about my country into positive action. I figure it’s time I got a little less selfish and a lot more engaged.
This is a wake up call for all of us.
YOUR IRA CAN WAIT! YOUR COUNTRY CAN’T!!!
Here is how you start.
1) Open a checking account; you know one of those free ones from one of the banks too big to fail. Make your deposit. Maybe you can put in $500 or $5,000 or $10,000, or whatever you can eak out. It ought to hurt a little. That’s what sacrifice means. Get your family involved and agree together what you want to put in the account.
2) Send me (erich at whatwouldthefoundersthink dot com) your email address and your name and how much you have decided to contribute to your personal war chest. I just want to know who you are so we can help each other keep score. I will figure out later how to tabulate all this. The idea is to encourage one another and spread the word.
3) Then start doing your research and I’ll do mine. Together we’ll figure out who the targets are.
I will try to make it a little easier for you. I did some research and ran across this list put together by NRO’s James Geraghty. He went through the House races and came up with these open seats and plausibly-competitive or endangered House Democrats (remember, even if they’ve performed well in the past, this is a Scott Brown electorate.
This doesn’t even include the Senate. That is a  work in progress. But just so you know, Harry Reid’s seat is up for relection in November and there are a couple of pretty good Republican contenders. UPDATE: Just pulled this short list of Senate Democrat/Progressives from the “Senate Conservative Fund” website.
Barbara Boxer – CA
Patty Murray – WA
Arlen Spector – PA
Blanche Lincoln -AR
Michael Bennet – CO
Harry Reid – NV
Here is Geraghty’s House list in their “historic†moment:
(This list is not exhaustive. For example, North Carolina’s Heath Shuler won healthily in 2008, and faces underfunded challengers, but maybe his heavily-Republican district gets fed up with their guy voting for cap and trade and Pelosi.)
Next month, there’s a special election in Florida’s 19th District (Wexler’s old district), as well as special elections in Hawaii’s 1st District and Pennsylvania’s 12th District (Murtha’s old district) in May.
That’s more than 80 seats vulnerable (with your help) to a GOP takeover. And this is just the House races; there obviously are a lot of important Senate and gubernatorial races on the ballot, too.
UPDATE: A couple readers nominate a few more: Jim Himes and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Jerry McNerney of California, Van Tran looks set to give Loretta Sanchez of California the toughest race of her career…
Also, I have given twice to Nancy Pelosi’s opponent in her very left district in San Francisco, and twice to Harry Reid’s opponent in the Nevada election to come. There are more to come. This is only a start.
Start spreading the news!!
UPDATE: 3/25/10 — HERE IS LARRY SABATO’S “TENUOUS TWENTY LIST”. More info to help us decide where to spend time and energies.
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/itw2010032502/
1 comment
Hello Erich.
As a cousin of yours in Florida (link received by your in-laws), I couldn’t agree with your posting more! You’ve put out some good information and ideas. Now is certainly the time for the silent majority to get off the couch. As a proud member of the 9.12 Project in Southwest Florida, I am elated with the number of folks that are getting turned on to reality, but you’re right…more needs to be done, and the sooner the better. I will continue to follow your site. Mine is still a work in progress. Keep up the good work! Hello to the fam.
M
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