Dwight Fullingim
United State Congress
District 19
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Dwight
Fullingim
Democrat for
United States Congress
Congressional District 19
of Texas
Announcement
Remarks
Lubbock Club (Thursday, December 27, 2007,
10:00 am)
Abilene Country Club (Thursday, December 27, 2007,
3:00 pm)
Good morning to you all:
Many
of you in this room know me, and some of you are meeting me for the first
time. My name is Dwight Fullingim, and I am running for the Congress
of the United States. The goal of this campaign is to convince the voters
of the 19th Congressional District of Texas that I’m the right
candidate to win the March 4th Democratic Primary and then to prove to
all the voters that a Democrat can exhibit the so-called republican virtues
of hard work, thrift and decent values without saying “no” to
everything that benefits the public come next November.
My family has been on the South Plains since the 1890s and always has
been closely connected with people throughout this district. We’ve
had cotton farmers, lawyers, a bank president, a county sheriff and a
county clerk, a hotel owner, insurance agents, several preachers, school
teachers, lots and lots of Sunday school teachers, singers, entertainers
and even a rodeo star or two. We might have had a champion baseball player,
but Uncle Coke Fullingim, a cotton farmer over in Petersburg, told his
son Johnny that he’d just as soon raise a horse thief as a baseball
player—and that put an end to that line of work in the family.
I don’t know what my uncle would have said about Congress, but
I believe that the people of this district need and deserve better representation
in Washington than they’ve been getting. This district is known
for big cotton, big education and big medicine—and we’ve
got a representative who does not support our major engines of economic
growth—much less the new growth that could come from better development
of water resources, renewable energy research and expanded medical insurance.
This district sends millions in tax revenues to Washington yet gets its
aspirations ignored by a narrow group of interests clustered around the
White House. We can do better.
Now a few words about me. I graduated from Lubbock High School when it
was one of the top schools in the state, and from Texas Tech when its
reputation was beginning a steady climb. I served two years on active
duty as an Army officer and then began a career in corporate communications
and public affairs that has spanned more than 35 years. I have held professional
and executive positions with publicly traded energy corporations, and
most recently completed a 15-year stint overseas with Aramco, the world’s
largest oil company. Currently I am a public affairs consultant to international
clients and provide pro bono communications counsel to non-profit
organizations. And in November I hope to be checking in with the House
of Representatives in Washington to find out what my office assignment
is. I am optimistic that this will happen because:
District 19 needs a Congressman who will support
farm legislation. Cotton and other crops have paid
the bills in this region for a long time, and without a good
farm bill there is a risk of increasing economic woe and a massive
sell-off of devalued farm assets should we have an unprotected
downturn in crop prices. The farm vote itself is not large, but
the economic impact of farming is huge in this area. It is a
blunder of colossal proportions for our congressional representative
not to have understood this.
District 19 needs a Congressman who will champion Federal
participation in regional economic development. Let’s
not forget that the South Plains region is a creation of the Federal
government, from making the area safe from Indian raids in the 1880s
to providing a vast grid of 160-acre farms for homesteading in the
1890s. That federal program brought a South-Plains land rush equal
to California’s Gold Rush. Other government initiatives brought
the railroad and highway infrastructure that opened the area for development—and
the fact is, we still need a vigorous public-private partnership to
reach our full potential. The 19th District will benefit greatly from
Democratic representation that speaks the language of the majority
party in the House of Representatives.
District 19 needs a Congressman who will hold the line
on taxes and spending and make real progress on balancing the budget. The
Republicans promise fiscal restraint but have been spending tax money
like drunken sailors on shore leave and are using a similar level of
judgment on the military strategies they have adopted. We’re
running the government on a credit card, and the bills are starting
to come in for our children to pay. My corporate experience will come
in handy in cutting through the worn-out justifications for useless
programs that benefit only old pals of the White House. George Mahon
was one of those gifted politicians who could be progressive but conservative
with the public purse at the same time, and I’d like to return
that quality of stewardship to Congress.
District 19 needs a Congressman who will look for sensible
ideas to solve the difficult social, cultural and foreign policy issues
that face the nation.On hot-button issues that people
talk about at the barber shop, I will say this: I respect my constituents’ viewpoints
and will be guided by them — as long as they make sense. I have
seen much of this big, wide world, and there is much of value to be
learned and embraced—and probably just as much to be avoided.
Our religious, social and cultural values are quite conservative and
well known to me—and there is both wisdom and survival value
in them.
I grew up in small-town Texas and have also lived in the state’s
two largest cities. I can tell you for sure there is a deep split between
big-city values and small-town values. I believe I can be a useful
go-between as our region develops and remind our urban friends just
how extreme some of their notions can be. The voters of District 19
can be comfortable with a Democratic representative who will push for
economic development and yet not allow anyone in Washington to disregard
their deepest held values and beliefs.
In closing, let me say that I will run the best campaign I can with
the resources available. Politicians have been in an ugly mood for
several years now and seemingly have lost the knack of working together.
That’s
a shame because no one politician or no one party has all the answers.
We have to work hard to convince each other of the value of our ideas.
I want to go to Washington with a friendly disposition to work with politicians
of every stripe, but also with black-belt skills in persuasion.
My call to action for the voters of the 19th District is this: Think
about the future and consider whether you want to close your eyes and
hope for the best from a party that has brought you an endless and ghastly
expensive war that we didn’t absolutely have to fight—and
lopsided economic growth that favors a handful of groups and ignores
the aspirations of everyone else. Or whether you would prefer balanced
budgets, military engagements that are few and effective, and a Congressman
who will fight for your economic future. I am asking for your vote and
support for Dwight Fullingim to be the next elected United States Representative
from the 19th District of Texas.
Thank you
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