"My campaign for Congress wasn't doomed. It was merely improbable.
The District is filled with wonderful people who share common values and interest and may be persuadable on policies and politics, and who must never be written off. We must never, ever write ourselves off."
Joe Yetter, Democratic candidate for congress in 2022.
Retired army physician Joe Yetter wrote me a two-part description of his run for Congress in a bright red Congressional District. Yesterday he described the experience. Today he describes his motivation. He did not want a Trump-supporting, election-overthrowing GOP Representative to run for re-election without a vigorous opponent. No district should be conceded as beyond hope. Besides, he had issues to raise and policies to advocate. He did it earnestly and respectfully. He got himself on TV. Local newspapers interviewed him. He got to tell his story.
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| KOBI |
Guest Post by Joe Yetter
Let me state it baldly: the Republican agenda represents a mortal threat to democracy, the climate, and individual freedom, along with a flourishing, prosperous society.
Cliff Bentz, the current incumbent in CD2, is the poster-child of that threat. But he is merely emblematic of the Republican Party.
Bentz:***Voted to overturn American democracy. Trump’s fake-electors plot relied on nullifying free and fair elections; just hours after the January 6th insurrection, Cliff Bentz voted to nullify the election in Pennsylvania.***Opposes efforts to mitigate climate change. He opposed such efforts when he was in the Oregon State Senate, and he does so now, in Congress. Bentz voted for HR 1, an anti-climate bill that would further subsidize the fossil fuel industry and roll back the progress made by the Biden Administration.
***Supports extreme censorship of educational content. Bentz voted for HR 5, misnamed the "Parents Bill of Rights.” He cheered the overturning of Roe, and would support a national abortion ban. (I asked him at a town hall why he thought any government ought to be able to tell a woman what to do with her body. His answer was to the effect of, I don’t like to talk about my religion much, but it tells me that from the moment of conception…etc.)
***Voted against the Violence Against Women Act.
***Voted against lowering the price of prescription drugs.
***Voted against the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill.
Voted against the CHIPS Act.
***Betrayed veterans by voting against the PACT Act that enables the VA to care for uniformed service members injured by toxic burn pits, dumping of toxic chemicals, radiation injuries, and other hazards.
The list goes on.
The arguments for why Bentz should be defeated is long. And the argument is extended to other races, from the White House, to Congress, to every state legislature: look at what Republicans do when they are in control. They gerrymander, they remove judges and prosecutors, they ban books and personal bodily autonomy, they expel legislators and strip governors and attorneys general of their authority, and so on.
I ran in 2022 because of those reasons. I hope that every person here will consider running for office, encourage others to, and will engage actively now and every election.
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5 comments:
“Let me state it baldly: the Republican agenda represents a mortal threat to democracy, the climate, and individual freedom, along with a flourishing, prosperous society.”
Joe Yetter is stating a point that can’t be emphasized enough: By wholeheartedly embracing a Russian-backed psychopath and his attempted coup, Republicans have become an existential threat to our republic. By adamantly refusing to address climate change, they’ve become an existential threat to life as we know it.
Thank you for your service and for running for office.
Obviously there is a lot of anti-government sentiment in the US. Some is valid and some is paranoid and ridiculous. However, the Federal government should pro-actively launch an effort to make departments and agencies more accountable, transparent and user-friendly. People often start hating the government after having a bad experience. A lot needs to be done to improve the "customer experience" when dealing with the Federal government. Of course some people will never be satisfied.
As I recall, Al Gore was given the task of reforming the Federal government back in the 90s. There is much more work to be done. I also wonder if Federal employee unions do more harm than good.
There’s never enough free money for an Oregon democrat. 1 in 5 people in Malheur county live in poverty so Bentz doesn’t care about his own people while the avg family income in Walden’s home of hood river is almost $70k with only 1 in 10 people living in poverty so he didn’t care about his own people and now the good doctor wants more govt assistance for the people in a state that’s the poster child for govt assistance. Great plan Doc! This is exactly why we get the proliferation of great minds like JoRae Perkins winning primaries.
No one here wants to take responsibility for themselves so they take it out on themselves w bad voting decisions at the ballot box.
People who hate government want corporations to run the country. Do YOU really want Google calling the shots?
Conservatives want to "bleed the beast" by ruining our system of government. They are doing Russia's work.
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