Author: Chuck Pennacchio for US Senate

Today is Election Day 2005.  This is the first day of the rest of our campaign to restore sanity to America’s political process.  The World is waiting…

To illustrate the point, I met two Dutch women last night at a Philadelphia restaurant.  They happened to be present where my college alumni association chapter had gathered for a reception and dinner.  As the alums made their way upstairs for the dinner I peeled back for a moment to introduce myself to Ineke and Maria.  (I had noted their Dutch accents in passing.)

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Ineke is on a temporary work permit, lives in Hoboken, N.J., and has no intention of establishing residency in the U.S., while Maria is “on holiday” with her American-based friend.  I told them I was a Progressive Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.  Their response was hopeful, curious, and a bit skittish.

When I asked Ineke if she was a citizen, she quickly demurred, saying “I cannot vote for you, so I can be no help.”  I then handed her my campaign card and told her she could be a much greater help than she might imagine.  “Most Americans,” I added, “recognize that our nation has gone off track, and the fearless among us know that the only way to find our way back — to unite as Americans and as global citizens — is to stand up for what matters.”  

I didn’t have to say anything more.  Ineke and Maria smiled.  I smiled. And we parted on a hopeful note.  

The lesson for me?  My new ambassador friends from Holland want America to return to its responsible and forward-looking mission.  The stakes are far too high for any other outcome.

Today is Election Day 2005.  Act like it matters.  The World is waiting…

Today is also a tremendous opportuntiy to keep spreading the word about my pro-choice, -stem cell, -Iraq exit strategy, -living wage, -universal health care candidacy far and wide.  Anyone who shows at the polls today will almost certainly do so again for the May 2006 primary.  So please talk up my candidacy and our campaign — no matter where you live.  And put some literature in their hands and our e-mail address (chuck2006.com) in their minds.

As I continue to travel across Pennsylvania, my hopes soar daily that we are not only in the process of winning the Democratic Primary (May 16) and General Election (November 7), but we are also in the midst of retaking the Democratic Party, the U.S. Consitution, all three branches of the federal government, and US-Global relations.

All that stands between us and our worthy and winnable goals is believing.  It really is that simple.

Today is Election Day 2005.  Vote like it matters.  The World is waiting…

Yours in solidarity,

Chuck

Maybe our Democratic Party does have some fight in it after all.  Other than its unified position against the Bush-Santorum effort to destroy Social Security by way of “privatization,” the national Democratic Party has largely been AWOL on virtually every other political and policy question since 9/11.  Yesterday, however, came a positive signal that the leadership is not going to allow President Bush to change topics so easily — that is, shift the battleground away from debilitating topics such as Iraq, Katrina, rising energy prices/Big Oil profits, Harriet Miers, fund raising scandals, and the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and onto the more successful ground of right-wing pandering and sure-fire Culture Wars.

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Just over one day after Bush’s nomination of anti-choice 3rd Circuit Court Judge Samuel Alito to replace pro-choice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, Democratic Senators forced the Republican-controlled Senate into a rare secret session to criticize Bush’s use of intelligence in the run-up to the American War in Iraq.  

“Time and again, this Republican-controlled Congress has consistently chosen to put its political interests ahead of our national security,” said Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. “They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why.”

Much as the Democrats were taken aback by Bush’s early Monday morning Alito announcement, the Republicans appeared even more surprised by Minority Leader Harry Reid’s call.  And no wonder, since the Democratic challenge to Republican preeminence has been virtually non-existent since September 11, 2001.

With far more irony than he may ever realize, Republican leader Sen. Bill Frist said that the Senate “has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership.”  And with more truth than he may have intended, Frist charged that the Democrats, “have no conviction.  They have no principles.  They have no ideas.”

As everyone following my campaign knows by now, I am dedicated, first, to defeating Bob Casey, Jr., in the May 16, 2006 Democratic Primary, by waging an issue-by-issue and value-by-value campaign of full disclosure, and second, by repeating the same process in dismantling Rick Santorum on November 7, 2006.  Indeed, the only way to win back Pennsylvania’s junior Senate seat from the Virginia resident who masquerades as a Pennsylvanian during election years is to call him out on his hypocrisy, his bigotry, and his being owned by anti-American corporate interests.  Given my contrasting views with both candidates on an array of economic, social, and foreign policy issues, and the fact that I alone refuse to take corporate dollars, I invite you to support and participate in the unfolding of our winning strategy.

By now, I hope we can all agree that the only way national Democrats can win back control of the Senate and the House, the Presidency, and our federal courts is to fight like hell for the principles, policies, and democratic processes that are at the center of what makes America both a great and good nation.  For anyone paying even minimal attention to GOP politics over the last four years, it should be abundantly clear that the right-wing-dominated Republicans are not simply content with all power.  They want absolute power — at all levels of government — in conjunction with the New Empire-building neoconservatives, campaign-financing corporate and new-rich plutocrats, and socially-destructive radical-right theocrats.

In other words, since September 11th the GOP have been playing hard ball while the Democrats have been playing something akin to whiffle ball.  Perhaps yesterday’s Democratic effort to hold this Administration accountable for lying our nation into an Iraqi war that increasingly looks like the Vietnam quagmire of the sixties and seventies is a sign of hopeful days ahead.  Whether or not that becomes the reality in Washington, D.C., in the near-term, you can count on my campaign to continue modeling the winning ways of a progressive future — through grassroots/netroots organizing, hard-hitting messaging, and imaginative resourcing.

The run-up to Halloween 2005 is proving to be George W. Bush’s weakest week since he assumed office in January 2001.  This week marks the death of the 2000th American in the Iraq War quagmire, Harriet Miers’ withdrawal from Supreme Court consideration, scandalous earnings reports by Bush’s Big Oil buddies, and the indictment of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, in the CIA leak scandal.  Is this the beginning of the end for Bush’s strongest link, the radical right coalition of religious heads, talking heads, and GOP Party heads?

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With wing-nut church leaders sniping at one another, reactionary pundits scrambling to save their movement, Tom DeLay sidelined in the House, and Senator Sam Brownback pandering for early presidential points, the “pro-life” alliance seems poised to collapse.  But there are still larger concerns around our nation’s direction and leadership.

Where is our nation headed and how are we going to get there?  The Republican coalition is imploding at the same time that Democrats in Washington wait…and wait…and wait.  Wait for what?  For the same things that most Americans want from their elected representatives: clarity, conviction, and leadership.  At this moment, most Americans are highly dissatisfied with the GOP, but we are not happy with the Democrats either.  The waiting game is driving virtually everyone I meet along the campaign trail absolutely bonkers.

Citizen call and citizen response are one in the same: fight like hell for those things that matter — good jobs, health care, equal rights, a sane foreign policy — and we’ll be there with you every step of the way.  It’s one thing for Republicans to self-destruct; it’s another for Democrats to make the case that we can do better, that it’s time for change — real change.  

As an historian and citizen candidate for the U.S. Senate, I make the connection between Republican failure and (potential) Democratic success by highlighting the lives of three stalwart civil rights activists — Brown v. Board attorney Constance Baker Motley, MLK associate C. Dolores Tucker, and Montgomery bus boycott activist Rosa Parks — who recently left us in body but not in spirit.  

Motley, Tucker, and Parks, by their examples, inspire the continued movement for social justice, good government, and principled politics.  At the same time, these individuals first had to overcome the two-strike syndrome: they were women, and they were African-American.  So, to the mostly wealthy, white, male heads of the Democratic Party I say, fight like hell for the “least” of your constituents — the hungry, the homeless, the uninsured, the unemployed — for the most vulnerable of your constituents — the young, the old, the infirm, the parentless, the disabled — and for the struggling many among us — the workers, the single parents, the same-gender couples, women, minorities, and the teetering middle class.

Ultimately, the President’s week from hell and the damage to his right-wing base are in the hands of you, the reader, the activist, the party or non-party affiliate.  The Democratic Party is out of power for reasons we all must understand.  Unlike you, unlike me, the majority of Party heads are running scared, running after corporate dollars, running away from the fight they were elected to wage.  It’s on us to demand more of Democratic office holders and Party leaders and to exercise power as Motley, Tucker, and Parks did in their time.

If we fail to seize this opportunity, then the President’s week of weakness will be but a footnote in the right wing’s continued consolidation of power over America’s Constitution, economy, and social order.  When we act together — as I’m certain we will — in the name of social justice, good government, and principled politics, then we topple the radical right and reclaim the social contract that makes our society, once again, a beacon of hope for the world.