Press Conference, Democratic Party Campaign
Headquarters
Schoolhouse Building, Harlow Street, Bangor, Maine
Once again, it happened on Olympia Snowe’s
watch.
We learned yesterday from the New York Times that the Senate
Intelligence Committee, on which Sen. Olympia Snowe sits, is responsible
for the posting on the internet of “detailed information on how
to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well
as the radioactive cores of atom bombs."
In a few minutes I will participate
in one of the most important processes in any democracy – I will
cast my vote. I will do so on a paper ballot, which will be counted
by hand after the close of elections next Tuesday.
Are we better off than we were six years
ago?
Senator Olympia Snowe has been in Congress for 28 years, four years longer than Margaret Chase Smith.
She is a Bush Republican, voting with the Administration
82 percent of the time in his first term in office.
I've been running for U.S. Senate since the spring of 2005.
It's been a long, but invigorating year and a half.
People are involved.
They want us out of Iraq.
They want national single payer health care.
They want a national goal of energy self-sufficiency
through renewable resources.
Temple Beth-El, Portland
It's Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006. That means in two weeks time, we
will know which of the three of us, Olympia Snowe, Bill Slavick,
or me, will be the next U.S. Senator from the great state of Maine.
University of Southern Maine
The past eight days have been pretty exciting around here.
Today we're visited by Bill Clinton, the last president in U.S.
history to have been ELECTED to the office.
Last Monday we had wonderful visits from Howard Dean and Dennis
Kucinich, two great men dedicated to building a better Democratic
Party.
Two men, who campaigned for President on a platform of peace, not
war. They opposed the war then, they continue to oppose it today,
and I applaud them for that.
Bates College, Lewiston
Forty years ago, when I was about your age, I never pictured myself doing something like this. Let me tell you a little about the path I took to get to this point.
I was born in Youngstown Ohio right after World War Two. My dad was in the Army during the war, and after it was over, he went back to work in a steel mill, an industry akin to paper mills here in Maine. It was the American dream - a good job, a house in the suburbs, good schools for the kids.
Marriott at Sable Oaks, South Portland
Our returning veterans deserve better than they are getting from the current administration. They - like ALL of us - deserve decent health care - national health care. They - like all of us - deserve decent jobs so we can support our families and ourselves. And they - like all of us - deserve a government that follows the Geneva conventions, a government that does not detain its prisoners of war without charges or legal counsel, a government that does not use torture to extract information, a government that honors and upholds the United States Constitution.
Southern Maine Community College
...We need a Democratic House and Senate so we can provide universal health care, so American manufacturing can once again be competitive in the world market, so entrepreneurs can follow their dreams while protecting their families. so our returning veterans and seniors can get the health care they've earned and deserve.
Southern Maine Labor Council, Portland - Eastern Maine Labor Council, Brewer
On this Labor Day, I want to thank all workers, in Maine and across the nation, for doing the jobs you do every day. Labor Day is the day when we recognize that, collectively, the workers of America are the driving force in this country.
Elks Club, Augusta
War has taken central focus again, particularly since last week's primary in Connecticut. People are tired of the violence, tired of our good military men and women getting killed and wounded for reasons that keep changing and never quite ring true. We are tired of not seeing any progress in an ill-advised and ill-fated war that didn't have to happen.
South Portland
I'm proud to be on the November ballot with John Baldacci, Tom Allen and Mike Michaud. I've known John since he beat me in the 1994 Congressional primary. That same year Tom Allen was running for governor in a crowded field, and our paths would cross time and again on the campaign trail. And of course, I'm proud to claim Mike as my own Congressman in the Second District.
Augusta Civic Center
"People are waking up. More and more folks are joining us, admitting we were right, that the current President of the United States cannot be trusted. That George W. Bush has lied to us OVER and OVER and OVER again. That he actually has NO compassion - NONE. That he has NO sense of history, NO understanding of complexity or diplomacy, and no comprehension that he is leading this nation down the path to destruction.
...This is our only chance this year to make a difference in the U.S. Senate. Now is the time. And I am the person in this particular race."
Kennebec County Democratic Committee - Augusta City Hall
"We need to put Iraq on the "don't go there" list for all American corporations, forbidding any American company from owning any assets in Iraq, or operating a business within that country. Part of this process is to unilaterally revoke, repeal, make null, all the laws and rules that US Iraqi civilian administrator Paul Bremer instituted shortly after the Iraq War began - in violation of international law. That means relinquishing control and any claims of ownership of the oil fields and all the associated infrastructure and turning them back to the Iraqi government.
If we want their oil, we buy it from them."
Moderated by Malory Otteson Shaughnessy - New Gloucester
Jean's Opening and Closing Remarks.
"My campaign is about true homeland security; not confiscating pen knives and authorizing illegal wiretaps, but about economy, and energy, and environment and education. It's about building a sustainable economy, restoring our nation's manufacturing capacity to its former luster, recognizing the skill of American workers, and providing them with a safe workplace, where they earn a fair day's pay for an honest day's work. It's about a real commitment to renewable energy, based on conservation, solar, wind, hydro, and other technologies, so we can develop a foreign policy based on peace, not exploitation."
Moderated by Rob Brown - Belfast Library
Responses to Questions prepared by Democratic U.S Senate candidate Jean Hay Bright.
"First, we need to make people aware of Olympia Snowe's actual voting record, particularly over the last several years. Olympia Snowe is riding on her long-ago reputation as a pro-choice moderate, which as we all know is no longer the case. Factual information about some of her most egregious votes needs to get out there. Fortunately for me in this race, but unfortunately for the United State of America, she has been casting some awful votes lately, votes that clearly don't match the rhetoric that gets into the papers. We need to let people know what she's actually doing."
Sagadahoc County Democratic Committee meeting - Bath, Maine
At the regular monthly meeting of the Sagadahoc County Democratic Committee, Jean talked about the Iraq War and its aftermath.
"This week we mark the third anniversary of the start of George W. Bush's illegal war in Iraq. Over the past three years, as the carnage has mounted, as the number of our good military men and women killed in Iraq has climbed past 2,300, as thousands of our idealistic and patriotic men and women in uniform have returned to these shores damaged for life, when even George W. Bush admits that at least 30,000 Iraqis have been killed by our bombing attacks, those of us who opposed the war from the beginning have been joined in our opposition, slowly but steadily, by the majority of Americans."
Monument Square - Portland, Maine
Jean was a keynote speaker at the rally, attended by about 200 people who stood in the bitter cold for two hours to hear all the speakers and the live music.
"Olympia Snowe voted to give George W. Bush the authorization to go to war, and she has voted repeatedly to fund the continuation of that war. She voted for the Patriot Act and for its reauthorization. She voted against giving Guantanamo Bay detainees habeas corpus rights to challenge their detentions in federal courts. And just this month, she joined with three other Senators to formulate a law that would make George Bush's illegal wiretapping of American citizens legal, retroactively and moving forward. And it would make it illegal for anyone to talk about the substance of any of that wiretapping."
Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006, was Maine Democratic Party Caucus Day. Caucuses mark the first time that many rank-and-file Democrats begin to engage for the coming campaign season. Jean spoke at caucuses in:
Auburn, Lewiston, Portland, Westbrook,
Freeport, Falmouth, and Yarmouth
"Imagine a strong, outspoken pro-choice, pro-labor woman Democrat representing Maine in the U.S. Senate. Imagine that woman Democratic Senator voting to end the war in Iraq. And voting to start national single-payer health care..."
USM Lewiston Campus
"A President already grasping at power unheard of in our nation's history, and a complicit Supreme Court stacked in the President's favor, does not bode well for the continuation of freedom and democracy in America."
Franklin County Democratic Committee - UMaine Farmington
"Olympia Snowe is also losing her credentials on civil rights. In her speech at the NAACP Martin Luther King breakfast in Portland last Monday, she publicly lamented the income disparity in this country, the wide gap between the haves and the have-nots, as Hurricane Katrina so forcefully demonstrated. Her solution? She will work hard to make sure Katrina victims can get small business loans. Quite an offer to people with no homes, no jobs, no businesses left standing."
Hancock County Democratic Committee - Ellsworth City Hall
"Dropping bombs on civilian homes because someone suspects a bad guy might be in there is not the way to win friends. Anymore, it's not even shoot first and ask questions later. We're not asking questions later."
Candidate Forum - West Newfield
"If the Supreme Court rules that the President of the United States can issue orders that are automatically lawful by virtue of his position as President, no matter how much or badly they conflict with laws passed by Congress or even provisions in the U.S. Constitution, then how useful is it to know that Judge Alito thinks not even the President is above the law?"
Campaign Update, at Waldo County Democrats - Belfast
"I just learned this morning that the revised Patriot Act, postponed from before Christmas to a vote in early February, contains a couple of clauses that are truly frightening. The worst one would allow a person to be thrown into prison for a year for holding up an "unauthorized sign" at a Democratic or Republican national convention, at an appearance by the President or Vice President, or at any other event designated by the Secret Service as a "national security event."
How fast will our jails fill up with political prisoners whose only crime was holding up a sign that said something our President or Vice President did not like? Ask the 19 peaceful protesters who got arrested outside Olympia Snowe's Bangor office last month."
Maine Campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace, Curtis Memorial Library - Brunswick
"Peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is an active verb, not a passive verb. Diplomacy is difficult, particularly across cultures and national boundaries. Conflict resolution is an art and a technique that does not come naturally to most people. Domestic violence must be confronted directly, in our courts and in our schools. Bullying must be dealt with as the violent and anti-social behavior that it is. My part of this program is to talk to you about how electoral politics fits into all this."
Meeting of Jay Democrats
"Labor issues define who we are as Americans. There are many issues involved, and they are all connected. It is not just union versus non-union. It is the minimum wage and illegal immigration on one end of the spectrum, and corporate outsourcing of high-paying jobs on the other. It is pensions and Social Security. It is education and national health care, NAFTA and CAFTA. It is also a national recognition that the workers of America are the driving force in this country."
Iraq War Forum - Bangor Theological Seminary
"But beyond the moral and ethical arguments is the overriding reality that TORTURE DOES NOT WORK. Information gleaned from tortured prisoners cannot be trusted. We can't expect to save the world based on statements made by tortured prisoners.
Likewise, people are starting to key into the fact - the reality - that WAR ALSO DOES NOT WORK. We are beginning to consider that war itself is bad, is obsolete, is not the answer."
Cumberland County Democratic Committee - Westbrook
"I think George Bush not only believes he is above the law. He believes he IS the law. He really believes he can authorize anything he wants. In his world, courts and judges are simply irrelevant. They should have no veto power over any of his actions."
Augusta, Maine
"I've been saying that a lot the last 10 months, and I've lost count of the people who have told me that I'm being brave or courageous. That puzzled me at first, until I realized that they were saying it took courage for anyone to put themselves out there, exposing their ideas to public debate, ridicule by the media or attacks by the other side."
University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) College Democrats
"The "aha" moment I had recently pointed me in the direction of explaining what we Democrats have been asking ourselves over the course of the last two Presidential elections. Why do people who should know better vote against their own best interests and vote Republican?"
Muskie Archive Building - Bates College, Lewiston
"It's a long way from being the daughter of an Ohio steelworker to being a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine. I've changed a lot, and so has this country, in those 58 years. And that's what I'd like to talk to you about today: Changing America, how it has changed since Edmund S. Muskie inhabited the Blaine House, roamed the halls of the Senate, and traveled the world as our Secretary of State."
Iraq War forum, hosted by Congressman Tom Allen - Portland High School
"I share the frustration felt in this room over the Iraq war, a war not of necessity but of choice, a war being waged not to protect us in the United States of America but one waged by the President of the United States to settle some vague personal score."
Senior Citizen Center - Bangor, Maine
"If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, according to information I saw just last week, it would be in the neighborhood of $8.20 an hour. It is now $5.15 an hour. Even at $8.20 an hour, according to this report I saw, people earning that wage would be able to afford to rent a typical one-bedroom apartment in only four of this country's 3900 counties. The figure for a living wage, as opposed to a minimum wage, is now closer to $13 an hour."
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