I’ve lived in this area for over 21 years with my loving wife of 22 years, raising our autistic son in this area. In all the time that I’ve lived here jobs were never a problem to be found except for the past few years. In the past 6 to 8 years I’ve seen factories close, shops go out of business, stores laying off people, people forced to leave the area, family’s broken apart because of economic hardship and have seen people lose their homes due to financial hardships. It wasn’t because people didn’t want to work, it was because they could not find work in the area. I feel that it is the failed leadership and policies of Congress over the past several years that have led to such problems. We’re losing all sense of community in this country and I feel it is the cause of the failed vision and lack of sight in Congress. To change this we need new faces and fresh ideas on Capitol Hill. We cannot afford to keep sending the same people back who we have been electing in the past. We need people in office who actually understand the hardships that the average American person is going through during this difficult economic time. We need people in office who know what it is like to deal with these hardships on a day to day basis. We need people in office who are willing to work together for a better America and a better future for this nation.
The reason why I decided to run for this office is simple, I was watching CSPAN one day early in November of last year to see how the debate was going on creating jobs in this country. What I saw was shocking, here I wanted to see what our leaders were going to do to help jobs grow in this nation and instead I was seeing grown men act as if they were children on a playground fighting over toy. This is in no way how our leaders should act especially when there’s cameras on them. To watch them argue back and forth made me angry and I decided right then to try and make a difference by contacting the Florida Dept. of elections to have my name put on the active list of candidates for Congress. Since that time I’ve been talking with people and have heard many of them expressing the same outrage that I felt when I first turned on CSPAN that day in November. They, just like me do not see our capital working as it should. Many of them feel that those in office shouldn’t even be there at all, that the people there have no grasp of what it is like to actually be a normal, struggling American citizen. Many feel that those in Congress just cater to the rich and have forgotten about the middle class, the poor, small businesses and what it’s like to actually want to grow up in this nation. They feel just as I do that those in Congress have forgotten that it is their duty to look after the well being of the nation as a whole and not just a few select groups.
Another reason that I’m running is the fact that many of our elected officials have been in office for years on end when being a congressman was originally thought to be a temporary job that one would take to serve their country and community. Many who served in Congress in the early years of our nation we’re just ordinary citizens. Many were farmers, military, small business owners, teachers, tradesmen, and plain ordinary folk who wanted to serve their nation. They were a true sampling of what our nation had to offer in way of population. I myself am a tradesman, a commercial artist.
We need leaders and policies in place that will foster growth in small business and make sure that all those who live in this country are able to find employment. College is not the only way for a person to get a better job, but those in power and in big corporations have forgotten that fact. Many jobs and professions can be done through technical training or certification as well as apprenticeships and on the job experience. This is something that everyone even the government needs to be able to understand, people actually do want to work. When a person is working they’re contributing to the community that is around them, they make it better. When people are working there is less crime, and because of this property values increase. When people are working they buy goods from stores and shops which in turn creates the need for more jobs. Now who will take and fill those jobs, well the people in that community who are not currently working or those who were unable to find work in the past. If Congress were to actually foster job growth in the private sector instead of just concentrating on the corporate sector then we would see our economy turnaround for the better as well as see an increase in revenue, revenue that the government desperately needs right now. We also need to get a handle on the spending in Washington by getting rid of both the waste and fraud. Doing this will save the country a great deal of money without having to gut the social programs that we pay into and that many of seniors live and rely on. Programs that are supposed to be there for us as we get older.
I want to go to Washington to work for you. I want to be your representative and your voice on Capitol Hill so that what is needed in the district can be addressed as well as the needs throughout the rest of the country. We need to make sure that our school systems are well funded, up to date, well maintained and have teachers who are able to actually teach the students what they need to know instead of just teaching them how to take a test.
It is for this reason that I ask for you to write me in on election day, William Cleve Drummond II as your choice for U.S. House of Representative in Congress for district one. Together we will see the change that is necessary and needed for both our area and this nation of ours can prosper.