Scott Salmon, a local attorney running for Congress in NJ-07 against Leonard Lance

In 2009, I briefly worked for a United States Congressman on Capitol Hill. His name is Mike McMahon, and he had just been elected as a Democrat from a traditionally Republican district. Part of my job included answering phones when the lines were being flooded. I would listen to the caller and make a note if they were for or against a certain issue. That summer, the Affordable Care Act began to work its way through Congress. Naturally, our lines were flooded and I spent most of my time answering calls from constituents repeating lines about “Death Panels” and generally worried about how they were going to be hurt by Obamacare.

Fast forward to today. Every week, in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, there are rallies outside the office of Congressman Leonard Lance. Just a few weeks ago, I went to one of the rallies to talk to voters and hear their concerns. The primary issue was health care; people were terrified that they’re going to lose their insurance if Obamacare is repealed. One woman I spoke to told me about her two children, who both had severe cases of Crohn’s Disease. Her daughter’s treatments cost approximately $20,000 per month, and without coverage, which she was guaranteed to lose (and there was no way she’d be able to afford anything else), she would go bankrupt. More than that though, her daughter would not get the care she needed to live.

We’re ready to confront Donald Trump and his enablers, like Leonard Lance, every time they come to visit our district in Bedminster, NJ.

Since I announced that I’m running for Congress, I’ve spent most of the last few weeks in places like that rally: speaking with Indivisible groups, attending meet-and-greets with local parties in Westfield and Mt. Olive, and standing with demonstrators on the side of Lamington Road protesting Trump’s vacation at Bedminster. And each time, I’ve felt an energy among everyone I’ve talked to that is growing every day. It’s building on itself and putting us on the verge of something truly spectacular.

It’s made me think about what’s causing it, and where we end up as a result.

The cause is pretty easy to pin down: Donald Trump. It’s not surprising; there isn’t a group or a way of life that he hasn’t found some way to insult or injure, and he keeps coming up with new ways to do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re an immigrant, woman, sick, poor, you name it—every day, he’s made lives worse. That’s made a lot of people angry, and rightly so.

But I think there’s also anger at the fact we ever got to Trump. There’s anger and frustration with too many decades of elected officials who play for the sound bite, the spin machine, and the far out fringes of their party. That’s where “fake news” started. That’s where these attacks on the different and the less fortunate first found a foothold.

I think a big part of why people are angry right now is that we’re tired of being asked to expect so little, and of getting even less.

It hasn’t always been that way. We’ve had generations of leaders who inspired us, who asked us to come together and do big things, good things, important things. From Bobby Kennedy to Barbara Jordan to Paul Wellstone, these are the leaders I always looked up to.

I remember reading a book by Bill Bradley when I was a kid, where he said that he thought he could “best serve mankind as a politician.” Today, that sounds borderline ridiculous. But I believe we want that to be true again. I believe we want our politics to be something we can be proud of again—a place where our best selves come together, and we make an even better version of our whole.

That’s what we saw in 2008 with President Obama. He asked us to be better; to be a part of something far larger than any one of us. We all remember the electricity in the air that we saw at every rally and event he held. That came from hope, and what we need, what I think people are hungry for, is feeling that hope again.

I believe with every fiber of my being that we’re still capable of achieving great things, and that it’s simply time our leaders ask it of us. That’s why I decided to run, and that’s what I’m asking you to support.

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This great energy I’ve felt the last several weeks can go in a lot of different directions. If we aren’t careful, it can spin off into something ugly and just as bad as what we saw the Tea Party do the last 10 years. I’m asking you to help me guide that energy down a path where we look out for one another and do what we know is right.

There’s no better example of that than healthcare. Congressman Lance voted to repeal Obamacare 67 times. He voted 19 times to push Trumpcare through committee. He voted against an amendment that would have guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions. It is impossible to defend that, no matter how he tries to cover his tracks or weasel out of it.

I worked in Washington for a Congressman when Obamacare was introduced and I know what it was introduced to do. What I want to do is push to build on Obamacare’s successes. I support creating a public option: Medicare that anyone can buy into just like their private insurance. Long-term, I’d like to see us transition to a single-payer system. It works for every other advanced industrialized country in the world, and there’s absolutely no reason it can’t work here.

We also have a moral imperative to stop the acceleration of climate change. I don’t think it’s even a slight bit of hyperbole to say that addressing climate change is the defining challenge of my generation. And here’s the thing: answering that call to action can also modernize our economy and grow new jobs in areas that have been hit the hardest by outsourcing and automation. Folks who spent years on an assembly line in a factory that’s been shut down can put those skills to work building wind turbines and modernizing our power grid. Mountaintops that have been flattened in the search for coal make the perfect spot for new solar arrays . Investments in research and workforce training will do more than just save our planet: they will also save people who have been left behind for far too long.

None of this will be free. And unlike Congressman Lance, I don’t believe in waving a magic wand and pretending tax cuts for the ultra rich will solve all our economic woes. Instead, I want to get rid of things like the carried interest loophole for hedge funds and private equity firms, or inversion rules that let mega companies hide their money overseas. If we end the corporate welfare supported by President Trump and Congressman Lance, we can pay for investments in healthcare and the environment without burdening the middle class.

We're going to have be willing to meet with anyone, anywhere, and earn their vote, one-by-one. I'm up for the challenge, and I'm counting on your support. Thank you.

Bill Clinton once said, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” I know we all see plenty that’s wrong out in the world right now. But the people who have been showing up to protest and to march for what they believe in—this is what’s right with America, and together, we can start making things right again, for all of us.

Thank you, and I hope I can count on your support.

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