Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

Alan Sandals anounced his candidacy for United States Senator from Pennsylvania on Thursday. Have a look at Sandals’ campaign website here. You can read his press release on his website and I’ve also placed it in the extended entry.

For the record, I’m supporting Chuck Pennacchio in the Democratic primary, but I will always support contested primaries. The more contest, the better the democracy.

(Via PoliticsPhilly)

Alan Sandals’ announces he will run for the Democratic nomination to represent the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States Senate.

At Independence Hall on April 19, I addressed the challenges that face us and the failure of our political leaders to act with the courage necessary to protect our future. During these last twelve weeks, I’ve spoken with many Pennsylvanians, both friends and complete strangers, and both Democrats and Republicans, about these threats – the loss of good jobs and the decline of our economy as a global competitor, the destruction of our environment from global warming, a pension system in peril, health costs that are out of control, irresponsible tax cuts that needlessly favor the wealthy and hurt everyone in the long run, and hateful attacks on our freedom to make private choices in our personal lives. I’ve received strong encouragement to continue my effort to protect our future and the future of our children.

We are being tested. It’s clear to all of us that the crisis we face demands a different approach than politics as usual. We also know that Washington is stuck in the mud, and that if we continue to do things the same way and let conventional politicians continue to ignore the problems that threaten us, we have no hope of ever getting out of this. Unfortunately, wherever we look we see only the same short-sighted, “say and do as little as possible – just win the next election� mentality that got us here in the first place.

Like most of you, I believe that Pennsylvania Democrats, and all Pennsylvanians, deserve to have a choice about our political fate and the power to do what we know must be done. We can’t allow our future to be held hostage to more short-sighted thinking.

The easier path for me would be to hope that other people will do this work for our future and to just remain a private citizen, continuing my law practice and standing up for Pennsylvanians to protect their pension and medical benefits. But where are those other people who are as willing as I am to speak the truth about what we are facing and offer needed solutions? And so I have to make a choice – do nothing and keep silent, despite the heavy price that all of us are beginning to pay, or act to protect my own, my family’s and my country’s future.

I choose to protect our future. I have decided to become a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Not only to defeat Rick Santorum, the number three Republican in the Senate and an eager collaborator in the Bush administration’s deceit and policies that are destroying our future. But also to build our future, because the challenges we face are bigger and more serious than any particular candidate or election. And we are running out of precious time.

Most political professionals and pundits will scoff at my decision. If they had been stationed in London in 1776, they would have said the same thing about the amateurs who pledged their lives to bring us Independence. And political professionals scoffed at Lincoln, a relatively unknown Illinois lawyer, who decided in 1854 that he could not keep silent any longer about the consequences he foresaw for his country if slavery continued to spread, and so he began to lay out, clearly and methodically, what needed to be done.

It’s true that the odds are against me too. I’m not part of a political dynasty or a repeat office-seeker. But for the past 25 years, I’ve been representing Pennsylvanians in a different way, fighting in courtrooms instead of attending political fundraisers. So I’m used to speaking truth to power. I know how laws affect ordinary Americans and understand that political smokescreens and sweet speeches too often hide the fact that a page buried in a congressional bill can devastate working men and women, children and seniors. Who can better stand guard for Pennsylvanians than someone who has had this long experience in the real world in which we work, raise our families, and try to build a retirement that is secure and free from fear.

I’m not a typical candidate. And this will not be a typical campaign, because Americans are sick of them. Lately, we’ve seen candidates compete to raise more and more money to run endless TV ads that everyone despises. It’s predicted that the contenders in next fall’s Senate race will each spend as much as $ 20 million. This is obscene. The different means and methods of my campaign will become clear in the coming months.

This must be a different kind of campaign because as Pennsylvanians we have the good sense to know that extraordinary challenges can’t be overcome with ordinary behavior. Here in Pennsylvania, we’ve seen every turning point in our history. And we have to lead the way once again.

I will make a public appearance to expand on these points soon after Labor Day. In the meantime, I pledge to dedicate every ounce of my integrity and courage to do this work for our future.

Now, you too have a choice to make. Be a patriot and join me.

Alan Sandals
Written at Philadelphia
July 4 and 13, 2005

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 12:19 am and is filed under Philadelphia, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.