Well I thought I would start off by letting you guys get to know a bit more about me (this is all true, or are we doin fake bios ala Norm?). I was born on July 4th, 1984 to a single mother. I did not know my birth father goowing up. When I was 2 my Mother met a great man with a good job and we move to the upper middle class town of Longmeadow, Massachusetts where I would grow up.I have 2 younger brothers. In school I did ok. I graduated High School with a 3.0 on the dot but never really pushed myself accademically. I was a highly competitive athlete who letted in football 3 years (including 2 as an all league player) where we won 2 Super Bowl titles (state title for Massachusetts), 2 years in basketbal, and 3 years in lacrosse. I was due to play football for at prep school for a 5th year before attempting to transfer to a better academic school, however a broken leg in the spring of my senior year during a LaCrosse game ended those dreams. I attended Umass for 3 years before leaving to pursue my current career, which has been extremely profitable, and here I am, less than a month away from my 24th birthday.
I am well aware of all the damage that has been done these past 8 years, and all the problems that lie ahead. I am aware that our economy, to say the least, has problems. The world does not have the greatest views or opinions of us. Our people are hurting, our planet is suffering, and we can no longer afford to sit back and watch as more and more houses are forclosed on; more and more jobs are cut, lost, or sent abroad; the treasury is destroyed; private business's keep filing bankruptcy; war veterans have no rights. We can no longer sit back and watch as other very real threats get more powerful while we sit back and ignore them. Gas prices contiue to sky rocket, healthcare is becoming harder and harder to get.
You know, it kind of funny, I was a Boston Red Sox game in last summer and in the row infront of me, there was a little girl. She musta been 4-5 years, no more, in a little pink Manny Ramirez shirt. As the game went along and I chatted with her parents, I discovered they had driven down from Maine, and they talked about how much they had spent on gas to come down there. Well it turns out, they did not have very much money. They were at the game because a friend had a season tickets. It turns out, this mans job was sent overseas. Their house had been forclosed on. This young, good natured family had no where to live. And I cannot describe the enormous sense...sorrow...that I was over come with talking to them. They were the best kind of people you could find. Back to the little girl, even at 5, she was clearly very smart. She knew her family was having tough times. She said to me, "But how come, if people are in trouble, people don't always help them?". It hit me than. This little girl, only 5 years old, gets it.
It's the mindset that when someone is down, you dont turn the other way. Its the mind set of "others first". If everybody is weatching out for eacho0ther, there is no need to watch out for yourself. This family was a defining example of what has happened to many families like the, and its sickening. It shouldnt be tolerated. We should not be comfortable sitting back and letting homes be forclosed on, people losing jobs, because all of those are just numbers. It is not until you see the effect it has on the people themselves or the kind of people they are that you can really geta grasp of how devestating this plague is. It is not a medicaol plague, but a finanicial one.
This little 5 year old girl said one sentnence, and I knew I had to do somerthing. It was that moment where I realized it was up to me to try and make the difference. I realized then - there is no more time to watch families like this struggle financially, they deserve the very best oppritunities this great nation has to offer - there is no more time to allow seemingly endless spending on an onpopular and now unjustified war - there is no more time avoid responsibility for our problems andf in term not get anything accomplished - there is no more time to watch as our true enimies grow stronger and we sit back and do nothing - there is no more time to let our own people suffer. No more. Enough. I am sick of it. I am sick of turning on the news and seeing how many people have been hurt in Iraq. I am sick and tired of hearing about out of control lunatics going on rampages. I am sick of the violence, I am sick of bad choices, I am sick of all of it. It all needs to CHANGE.
There is no more time for of this nonsense that we have had to suffer through the past 8 years. It is our job to move forward with the best and brightest of dreams and ambitions; it is our job to restore our credibility, to help spread peace across the world, to put an end violence and terrorism, to save our crashign economy, because now is not the time for the nonsense, silly season politics we have had in the past.
Now is the time for greatness, for our country to live up to it's promise of being the world greatest - now is the time for our country to begin taking care of every individual who has the gifty of being able to say " I am an United States Citizen" - now is the time for us to put aside pety differences with foreign countries and leaders and face the challnges ahead not alone but together - now is the time we stop thinking of yourselves and start thinking of eachother, stop thinking of you or me and start thinking of us.
Now is the time we can direct this country in the direction to ensure the best future for our children, their children; for everybody, and it starts today, right here, with all of you.
Godspeed to the fellow candidates, I will see you in July!
