(Rhode Island State House, August 16, 2010)-Thank you for taking the time to join us this afternoon to roll out the 2010 General Assembly Campaign of the Rhode Island Republican Party. As I’ve mentioned previously, the Rhode Island Republican Party is taking a new approach to winning General Assembly seats this election season.
The RI Clean Slate Campaign is a unified and coordinated statewide effort to speak to the voters about the importance and achievability of transformational change for our state.
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Too often, voters feel powerless to fix what ails Rhode Island. Too often we are faced with indistinguishable choices at the ballot box. Too often, we vote for a name we recognize because we don’t have any better reason at hand.
This year will be different. This year voters will be presented with a clear choice and clear results.
It’s not just the number of great candidates we’re putting forward. It’s not just the fact that we have joined a coalition of independents and republicans together to present a ‘post-partisan’ team of reformers. It’s also the promise of a clear, simple, and achievable plan to make Rhode Island great again.
Our organization and our candidates will be talking to the voters about the elimination of the car tax, lowering the property tax, giving children a real and immediate option to the failing schools they are forced into, and reforming the economic climate to create jobs, not special deals.
When the voters see the Clean Slate brand, they will know that a candidate stands with them for that transformational change. They will know that the Clean Slate team has a plan to restore vitality and hope to Rhode Island.
The Clean Slate campaign starts today with the candidates, with signs and advertising, with stickers and radio ads, with a plan to get the word out to voters that they have a choice. That they can be part of the solution.
We will work diligently to raise the money we need to spread that word, and to make the path easy for voters who want to cast their vote for a better Rhode Island on Election Day. This is a media campaign, but it is also a political effort. A political effort with clear policy goals and an on-the-ground strategy to get it done.
We have already raised close to $50,000 to support this effort. To be honest, we were stunned by the positive response we have received from supporters of the RI Clean Slate. People who have never before given to the RIGOP see the importance of this simple plan and are willing to make a serious investment to see it through. They see that it is truly not about partisanship, but instead about putting our state back on course.
Our Clean Slate Steering Committee has stepped up and provided the initial support to help us spread the word that Rhode Island is not a lost cause and that our state can once again aspire to the greatness of its golden age, instead of grasping to become the 45th worse instead of the 50th in yet another category.
We have a lot more money to raise – we need at least another $150,000 in the next 80 days. That will not be easy, but no one expected that overcoming 70 years of bad choices would be easy.
But recall that Rhode Island has a proud history of fighting for political change. Our own Dorr rebellion was a battle for republican principles even before there was a Republican party.
Thomas Dorr was a radical and for a time an exile because he cared so much for the principles of republican government – for the right to vote and the inherent truth that leaving power in the hands of a few is directly in conflict with the principles of our nation.
Well, I challenge you to deny that as we stand here today the power in Rhode Island lies in the hands of a few.
I’m sure that Gordon Fox, and Nick Mattiello, and Teresa Paiva-Weed consider their leadership benevolent, but benevolent despotism is despotism nonetheless. And before you accuse me of using fiery rhetoric, consider that it was our own Supreme Court who said, in 1854 in a decision that was effectively the final victory of Thomas Dorr and his band of radicals, that “The union of all the powers of government in the same hands is but the definition of despotism.”
They were talking then about a charter that denied citizens the right to vote, but the circumstances today – a legislature that denies taxpayers their hard earned money, that denies thousands of children a good education, and denies workers the opportunity to work – is, in our opinion, of equal seriousness.
So we stand here today, advocating for a peaceful overthrow of the system. The system is out of balance, the leaders lie to the people with no repercussions, and the state continues a downward spiral.
The time for transformational change is now, and the mechanism for that change is the RI Clean Slate. The Clean Slate is a unified team and will be a beacon of hope, bringing an optimism that has been missing too long in our great state.
We hope that every Rhode Islander will join with us, as donors, as volunteers, as advocates, and especially as voters, to make the RI Clean Slate Campaign a great success.
Thank you for joining us as we take this first important step.
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www.ricleanslate.com
