McClintock for Congress Blog

Thank you all very much. 

I’m reluctant to start making individual thank you’s because so many have done so much in this campaign – but I do want to say – first and foremost – a special thanks to my wife and family for all they have endured during this campaign.  At least I have the chance to fight back; they have to just sit there and take the abuse day in and day out. And then they have to put up with me when I get home at the end of a campaign day.  And yet they’ve been resilient and cheerful and kept me on an even keel.  I love you guys.

And then to my campaign team, so expertly led by John Feliz, goes my undying gratitude and respect.  This is the team that has been with me since the recall election, and our victory tonight is the result of their work.  John Feliz is unparalleled for his strategic vision; Igor Birman, our finance director, has been tireless in raising the money needed to keep our message out there; Jon Huey, our manager, kept the entire campaign on schedule on budget and on plan; Courtney Bienhoff and James Derouen who ran the headquarters and fielded one of the finest volunteer operations I’ve ever seen; our media team of Bill Criswell and Bill Bayne, Val Smith our pollster, Stan Devereux who handed the press.  They were the foundation of all.  And I also want to give a special thanks to the bloggers – Aaron and George Park, Ken Campbell, Tom Hudson and all the others who kept up our side of the debate in the blogosphere.

And to ALL OF YOU who manned the phones, wrote letters to the editor, called in to talk shows, wrote checks, walked precincts, this is YOUR victory – and it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

This has been a monumental victory for everyone – regardless of party – who believes our government is too big and costs too much.  We faced down $4.6 million – the second largest expenditure in a congressional primary in American history – and yet have won an overwhelming margin of victory.  

This election has been watched across the country as a bell-weather over the future direction of our party – and ultimately of our nation. 

Let the word go forth from the Fourth Congressional District of California that tonight, voters spoke unmistakably: they want to restore our traditional principles of constitutional government.  We want our freedoms back; we want our Constitution back.  

We expect our federal government to protect our borders, to protect our individual freedoms as Americans.  And beyond that, we want it out of our pockets, away from our families and out of our faces.   

And as we prepare to carry this message forward into the general election, I want to extend a warm and sincere invitation to the other campaigns – to the supporters of Doug Ose and Suzanne Jones and Ted Terbolizard.  Tonight, we are no longer rivals – now we are partners — in an historic struggle to restore our nation. As Lincoln said, with a full heart I repeat tonight:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”

This morning, Doug Ose was quoted as saying that it was now time to come together and re-unify, and I embrace that sentiment with all my heart.

Tonight, the differences among us as Republicans pale into insignificance with the differences between us and the direction the other party would take us.

They offer stifling central planning to manage every aspect of our lives, they offer higher and higher taxes and more and more costly regulations.  We offer freedom.

And that’s what’s really at stake in this election – freedom:

•    The freedom to enjoy the fruit of our own labor – without endless tax increases to feed the insatiable appetites of big government;

•    The freedom to work as hard as we want and go as far as our abilities and ambition take us – without an army of bureaucrats who seek to restrain, regulate and stultify every impulse of enterprise;

•    In short, the freedom to live our lives according to our own best judgment without having to get the permission of our government every day to do so.

Long ago, Ronald Reagan urged us to paint our positions in bold colors and not hide them in pale pastels.  Now is the time to come together; to unite around our traditional  Republican principles; and to take them to everyone who will listen — especially those legions of voters who have never thought of themselves as Republicans – but who believe as we believe and who share our values, our dreams and our vision for the future of our nation.

I have no doubt that the people of this district will rally to our platform of limited government, renewed personal freedom and the restoration of our constitution.  

I can say that with some confidence.  In the recall election in 2003, more than half of my votes came from NON-REPUBLICANS.  

In 2006, I received 36,000 more votes running for Lt. Governor IN THE FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT than Charlie Brown received running for Congress.

Ladies and gentlemen, What has happened to our country has happened on our generation’s watch, and it is our generation’s responsibility – and our generation’s destiny — to set things right.  And when history looks back upon this period, I believe it will record that just when it looked like America might be subsumed by the bureaucratic state, this generation of Americans rose to the defense of our liberties and when we were done, our Constitution and the God-given rights enshrined in it, had been revived, restored, and preserved inviolate for the generations that followed.