Eighth Congressional District Candidate Forum at Alden Theatre ... >
May 15, 2014 - Patrick Hope.
Closing Statement:

Thank you Glenn.  Thank you Rip.  And thank you to everyone for just joining and staying with us on this.  It's been a long process.  You know every one up here is qualified to be your next member of Congress and I mean that very sincerely.  But we do have differences, and I tried to point some of those out today.  I mean I think the media hasn't written a whole lot about this because they want to see some differences and I hope we saw some this evening.

You know this race for me and this campaign I think should be about the heart and soul of the Democratic Party in the 8th District.  And I'll tell you it comes down to four questions.  Four words.  Who do you trust?  Who do you trust that is going to stand up for the middle class, for lower income Americans?   You know the 8th District may be the wealthiest in the entire nation; it's certainly up there [inaud.] the wealthiest district, but we have a lot of people in poverty.

When I go knocking on doors, I talk to people that are unemployed since 2009, people that are collecting SSI, disability insurance, has only seen it gone up $20 in the last four years.  And they're angry; they're angry at the president, they're angry at Congress.  How are you supposed to live with only a $20 increase in the last four years?  Everything else has gone up that we do.  So so many people are hurting. 

We need to have someone there that's going to stand up for those people.  You know there's people go to bed at night, some are Republicans, dreaming of a grand bargain.  There's certainly going to be some entitlement reform.  If you're a senior citizen, someone depending on Social Security and Medicare, you're a retiree, military retiree, federal employee, who do you trust that's going to say no.  That's going to stand up for your rights, going to stand up and say absolutely not.  People paid into the system, they should be eligible for every last entitlement.  And that's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to stand up for those middle class.

So I pledge to you I will vote against any effort to reduce those benefits.  Please join me on June the 10th and join me for a new generation of progressive leadership.  I ask for your vote.
A busy schedule in the closing weeks of the campaign.
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