Uprising on the Plantation
Our country does not guarantee you success—but liberty guarantees you the opportunity to succeed.
—Deneen Borelli
I thought getting delayed when the buckles on my shoes set off the metal detector was the most drama I’d experience on May 25, 2011. But the fireworks had only just begun.
That was the day that all of my years of hard work and experience paid off. That’s the day I sent myself a little mental note that read, “One person can make a difference.” That’s the day I confirmed for myself that what I do is important and that I’m speaking and writing and protesting and being an advocate because I believe in America and liberty and the people of this nation. I am doing it all and I’m representing the people while I’m doing it. May 25 was confirmation.
This is the part in my book—after you’ve heard all the things I am frustrated with in this country—where I show how we can and are making a difference. The Tea Party, National Center for Public Policy Research, Project 21, and FreedomWorks—we’re changing things. We’re fixing the way this country does business. We’re making it better. One step at a time. And the message you should take from this: You can be a part of this movement too. You can make a difference too.
On that day in May, I had the opportunity to testify before the full U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources about the inordinate financial hardship that Obama’s war on fossil fuels imposes on poor and middle-class American households. (My testimony appears in Appendix 1.)
Me. Former model, track star, and kid from a regular family. The first person in my family to graduate from college. I was testifying in our nation’s Capitol. My congressional testimony was presented as part of the “Harnessing American Resources to Create Jobs and Address Rising Gasoline Prices—Part III: Impacts on Seniors, Working Families and Memorial Day Vacations” oversight hearing. I considered this day a culmination of all my ambition and I drew upon my work as a shareholder advocate to ensure I made an impact.
I like to call my transition from political agnostic to activist an evolution, not a revolution. I had very little interest in politics and now I’m a very visible spokesperson for liberty. When you are finished reading my book I want you to know and believe I’m not just a talker. I’m taking action. I’m challenging the people I think are looting us of liberty and working very hard to keep us on the government plantation. I’m not just ending the book by writing about all of these characters and CEOs partnering with the president. I have gone head-to-head with these guys.
I will back up a little at this point because I want to share with you the path of advocacy that landed me in front of that panel in Washington that day in May.
In 2005, my husband, Tom, cofounded the Free Enterprise Action Fund—a shareholder activist mutual fund that used its shareholder standing to challenge progressive CEOs and their business strategies. In addition to selling the fund to investors, Tom did the trading and attended the majority of shareholder meetings for the fund, where he presented shareholder proposals and aggressively confronted CEOs about the basis of their decisions. I cut my teeth in shareholder activism initially by attending some meetings with Tom as part of his role as a portfolio manager. Over time, I moved from a spectator at shareholder meetings to an outright activist. My goal: to challenge CEOs who built business strategies on the growth of government, such as trying to profit from cap-and-trade legislation or in other cases where the CEO’s personal agenda interfered with sound business practices. After the market crashed in 2008, the Free Enterprise Action Fund merged with another mutual fund and Tom left the financial services industry. However, Tom is continuing his shareholder activism work at the National Center for Public Policy Research, where he serves as director of the Free Enterprise Project.
I dipped my toes into challenging crony capitalism alongside Tom very early on, before it was all the rage. I was green when I began, but as I reflect on the successes and the impact we’ve made on the corporate landscape, I can really say the challenge has been worth the effort.
Facing CEOs on their home turf was challenging but truly rewarding. One of my first efforts in challenging a chief executive was in 2007 when I took on then–Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens over his support of cap-and-trade legislation during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. From our perspective, a CEO selling to the construction industry shouldn’t lobby for legislation that would raise energy prices, as this would have a negative impact on the construction industry. It doesn’t make any business sense. He was shooting his industry in the foot.
So at the meeting, where he was surrounded by the support of both shareholders and employees, I asked a simple question: Did you do a cost-benefit analysis regarding the impact of cap-and-trade on your business? He tried ducking the question but I persisted—and guess what? Eventually he said no. So here’s a major corporation, blindly lobbying for legislation that would change the nation, without having run the numbers on the impact the effort would have on the company’s bottom line. Amazing. It was gratifying for me because I was able to drag the truth out of him. I was able to expose the recklessness of his lobbying efforts.
We continued our campaign against companies lobbying for cap-and-trade in 2010, when Tom and I attended the John Deere shareholder meeting. It was a very cold day in February in Moline, Illinois, as I recall, and once again we found ourselves in the middle of enemy territory—the meeting was at the company’s headquarters and it was the first meeting for the company’s new CEO, Samuel Allen. The same paradox existed with this company too: Deere was part of a lobbying coalition pursuing cap-and-trade, despite the fact that its customers in the agriculture industry were opposed to the legislation. So I challenged Allen about the company’s support of the legislation and I expressed my concern that the company was contributing to a green bubble.
After the meeting the National Center for Public Policy Research—our employers—initiated an advertising campaign in partnership with FreedomWorks, which I also serve as a Fellow. We ran cable TV ads in cities where Deere is headquartered and where the company manufactures its products. The ad urged employees to call Deere’s Human Resources Department hotline regarding the company’s support of legislation that could result in their jobs being shipped overseas.
In the wake of our ad campaign, Deere decided to leave the United States Climate Action Partnership—the coalition lobbying for cap-and-trade. Caterpillar left it in 2009 after it discovered the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill was going to harm its business. Gee—what a shocker!
Fresh off those victories, our biggest target was still GE CEO Jeff Immelt—Obama’s partner and the king of crony capitalism. Challenging Immelt has now become almost a yearly affair for me. In 2009 in Orlando, Florida, Tom and I played a critical role in the shareholder meeting and generated national news coverage of it. We weren’t the only ones frustrated. A number of shareholders challenged Immelt on a variety of issues, including the sagging stock price, Immelt’s enduring support of cap-and-trade, constant concerns about MSNBC hurting GE’s image, and the selling of infrastructure equipment to Iran. When I got my chance at the microphone I asked Immelt about news stories that claimed he tried to silence his business network CNBC’s criticism of President Obama. At some point during our dialogue my microphone was cut off—talk about silencing! The incident made national news and was posted on the Drudge Report.
During the 2011 GE shareholder meeting we had one of our biggest successes of all. The National Center partnered with FreedomWorks again, this time on a public opinion poll of conservative voters about the favorability of General Electric and Johnson & Johnson—two companies that are supportive of Obama’s policy objectives. GE’s favorability plummeted from 51 percent to 20 percent when the respondents heard of the company’s support of the Obama agenda.1
Armed with that information and the fact that petroleum company ConocoPhillips’ CEO Jim Mulva was a GE board member, we traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, in May 2011 to attend the meeting. Before it, though, we participated in the protest against crony capitalism and then we carried our activism inside the meeting. Tom and I were joined that day by David Ridenour, the vice president of the National Center, and by Kristina Ribali, FreedomWorks’ media campaign coordinator.
Ridenour asked Immelt about the potential conflict of interest posed by Immelt’s role as chairman of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness while he simultaneously serves as CEO of GE. Tom, using our poll as ammunition, asked Immelt about the reputational risk for the company because GE is so aligned with Obama and his policies. It was Ribali’s first shareholder meeting and she sarcastically congratulated Immelt for doing something amazing—Immelt’s ability to unify the political left and right in opposition to his performance as CEO. In 2011, MoveOn.org launched a campaign to have Immelt removed from Obama’s jobs panel because GE did not pay any taxes in 2010. That day I asked Immelt if his support for pricing carbon—that is, making fossil fuel prices more expensive through legislation—had the full support of his board of directors. Since Immelt danced around my question I remained persistent and he said he had the full support of the board. I quickly followed up by asking about Mulva’s support since taxing carbon would be bad for his business, a fact that would also be true for another board member, James Tisch, president and CEO of Loews Corporation, which owns a large stake of Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc., one of the largest offshore oil drilling companies in the world.
Immelt did not back down about having board support.
Well, a few days later during a speech at MIT Immelt said he had “lost interest in calling on the United States to develop a more comprehensive energy policy.”2 Additionally, a Reuters story said, “His [Immelt’s] prior calls that the nation adopt regulations that put a price on carbon raised the hackles of some shareholders.”3
Immelt’s comment suggests he is backing off of his plan to push for cap-and-trade legislation. While we may never know why he felt the need to back off, I have a feeling that following the shareholder meeting, a few board members might have challenged Immelt, because of his effort to raise the price that would reduce demand for their fossil fuel products. We take his move as a sign of the success of our pressure that day.
So back to the big day in May, which was paved by my grassroots shareholder-activism work. I spoke of Obama’s fossil fuel initiatives and how at odds I believe he is with the mood of American voters, the majority of whom think we should be drilling and mining more and developing our own gas, oil, and coal resources. Voters believe we’re not doing enough as a nation to develop and become energy independent. The biggest crime, which I pointed out in my testimony, is that while the elites profit, the low-and fixed-income households pay a larger chunk of their household budget to energy. Simply put, it’s a transfer of wealth—robbing the poor to pay the rich. For those families on the edge, this could push them to government dependency, which leads to more plantation politics.
I had prepared hard for that day of testimony. I opened by telling them, “In my work I promote the importance of limited government and personal responsibility as the key to personal success and social advancement.” I had drafted my words carefully the weekend before and had Tom grill me because I knew questions would be challenging and I had to be ready. But honestly, the grilling at the dining room table was different from what I was about to experience that day.
Before I was up to speak, I tried to take the experience in. I was standing near the back of the room (which was nice by the way—my tax dollars at work) trying to focus on my surroundings, but I kept running my words through my head, prepping. Stepping into Room 1324 inside the Longworth House Office Building was a little like being in a Broadway theater awaiting the rising of the curtain. But this time, I was a part of the show.
I did take a moment to scan the room between being lost in my thoughts. I remember seeing Jon Runyan from New Jersey. “I know him,” I thought to myself—he’s the former offensive tackle drafted by the once Houston, now Tennessee, Titans and helped the team reach the Super Bowl in 2000. He also played with the Philadelphia Eagles, where he helped lead the team to a 2004 Super Bowl appearance. Like me, going from citizen to activist, he too had changed gears from NFL star to politician.
And then suddenly while I was lost in my thoughts—it was showtime. I opened the show as the first of four witnesses to testify. My testimony—full of facts—focused on President Obama’s war on fossil fuels. I identified GE’s Immelt as an elite who was going to be a winner of Obama’s policy at the expense of hardworking Americans. And that’s when sparks started flying.
It seemed obvious to me, but apparently not to Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey, that Immelt is in bed with Obama so he can walk away with profit. Plain and simple. But Markey started twisting the conversation and pounding me repeatedly with a question about my opinion on subsidies for big oil. Markey hammered me hard—repeating the same question over and over, but leaving little room for response. “Yes or no,” he quipped, “Yes or no.” Markey came at me—full assault—and didn’t let me completely answer his question. He took the opportunity simply to grandstand and beat up on the oil industry, rambling on about subsidies to that sector. Mr. Markey—if you’ve listened to me at all, you’d know I’m anti-subsidy. I don’t think the government should be giving money to any industry. That’s a command-and-control strategy, which gives the government the power of the purse to pick winners and losers. Markey clouded the issue by redefining regular business tax deductions many companies get as subsidies.
What we really need is major tax reform that will eliminate special deals and the lobbyists who get paid to manipulate the tax code, but he really didn’t care about an answer. He just wanted to steal the stage and quiet me, and the truth was revealing. And talk about a camera hog. It was drama.
I fielded many questions during the two-and-a-half-hour hearing—and in most other instances I was actually allowed to respond! Once the hearing was over, several Republican congressional members came over to me to shake my hand and told me I had done a great job. I have to tell you, I was motivated by the experience. I was moved by the fact that I was representing the thousands of Tea Party activists who have cheered me on during my rally speeches that challenged Obama’s toxic energy policy. Ironically, I was the representative of the people; not all members of Congress that day can say the same.
While I really do see my day of testimony as a marker along the route of how far I’ve come, it’s not the finish line in the race by any means. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, and the Tea Party, National Center for Public Policy Research, and FreedomWorks still have a lot of work to do. On our current path, this country is in trouble. Our government is spending too much money it does not have on things it does not do well—things like bailing out banks and running car companies that our Constitution doesn’t even allow for. The left clamors for ever more taxes to pay for all these things without ever once asking: Does so much government actually work?
The Department of Energy was created to make our country energy independent. How’s that working out? Since the creation of the federal Department of Education, the cost of government-run schools has skyrocketed while the basic reading and math skills of our children have consistently declined, particularly for black kids in inner-city schools. Welfare programs intended to be temporary help have locked poor Americans in a cycle of dependency. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were all complicit in a housing bubble that left many Americans paying mortgages they could not afford, or forced them into bankruptcy.
The list goes on and on. And on.
The answer is that much of our government does not work, it actually hurts people it claims to help, and it is putting a huge burden on our economy and our ability to grow and work as a nation. More worrisome is the current trend to use the government’s Federal Reserve Bank to create new money and credit to paper over our addiction to spending and borrowing. That’s a hidden tax on wage earners: folks like you and me who fill up our cars with gas to get to work and buy groceries to feed our families every week.
The men and women of the Tea Party say enough is enough! FreedomWorks’ platform would be a good start to putting our road on the path to a “do-over.” We need to shutter the government plantation, once and for all. Our nation’s spending is out of hand and fiscally unsustainable. FreedomWorks and the National Center for Public Policy Research are intellectually grounded and helped me shape my views of liberty and limited government. I think their ideas could be the fix the country needs. I want to take you through some of them now.
If we hope to leave a legacy of opportunity and freedom to our children and grandchildren, the debt must stop here. We need to put all failing “discretionary” spending on the chopping block. We simply can’t afford it.
And that’s just part of the solution. Numbers out of the Congressional Budget Office show a growing dependency of Americans on the government plantation when you compare stats from 1970 to 2010 and 2035. In 1970, 31 percent of the budget went to entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These are so-called mandatory programs that grow on autopilot regardless of our ability to pay the bills. By 2010, the share of budget spent on the entitlement programs had ballooned to 42 percent. Combine that $2.03 trillion spent on entitlements with the $209 billion spent on interest payments alone, and that is almost half of our 2010 budget. If that doesn’t hurt you enough, projections for 2035 have us paying a whopping 25 percent in interest payments and a staggering 49 percent of our budget to entitlement spending. That means about 75 percent of our budget will be dedicated to entitlements and interest, leaving the remainder of our money going to discretionary funding such as defense and highways.4
Critical to our nation’s success is rethinking entitlement spending. Long term, FreedomWorks proposes a real Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that includes both a spending limitation and a supermajority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.5 The best Balanced Budget Amendment legislation has been introduced by Tea Party freshman Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who replaced Republican Senator Robert Bennett. He has already gotten the entire Republican Senate caucus to cosponsor this important reform.
The Tea Party has played a huge role in shifting the budget debate in Washington. The Tea Party’s impact was seen during the debt ceiling debate in the summer of 2011. The government “right” of raising the debt level was transformed into a huge political debate. We are now focusing on spending cuts and a reduction in government services. The move is significant and due to the 2010 election, which was driven by the Tea Party movement. Medicare, Medicaid, and even Social Security spending are critical elements in the budget and debt battle. The public needs to be persuaded that these things can be run more efficiently without dramatic negative impact. It’s possible.
To achieve that limited government, we need to address not only our spending, but also our tax code. FreedomWorks advocates an initiative called “Scrap the Code,” which points out the flaws of the current system. I agree our code is too big and too complex, and accordingly it’s become an orgy of profit for tax lawyers and accountants who earn a living helping individuals and corporations avoid paying taxes.
The one and only purpose of the tax code is to raise the money to fund the legitimate role of government. But our code has become a politicized monster that attempts to socially engineer human behavior, with carve-outs and special treatment for politically favored special interests. In and of itself, the name of our tax code—a progressive tax—should have been a clue that it’s doomed to fail. It’s based on the notion that the more you make the more you should pay in taxes. The goal of the wealthy paying more than those who don’t have wealth is not the problem—the trouble arises in how that goal is achieved. Without a doubt our current progressive tax system produces significant inequalities and distortions. For example, for the 2010 tax year almost half the country did not pay any federal income tax. My point here is not to create reverse class warfare of rich against poor—clearly, many wealthy individuals and corporations take advantage of the tax code to reduce their tax liabilities. My goal is simply to point out that our tax code is failing all of us.
The best system is a fair and simple one within which every citizen has some skin in the game. That’s why I support the flat-rate tax system or flat tax. All taxpayers will pay the same flat rate. Here’s how it works. The flat tax would replace the current burdensome tax system by simplifying the tax code with a single tax rate of about 17 percent. Almost all Americans except those making very little income would be paying into the system. In fact, many Eastern European countries including Russia are using a flat tax. Think of the additional costs savings that go into the process of taxes. A flat tax would essentially eliminate the IRS, and the huge fees from tax lawyers and accountants. Think of the economic productivity that could be generated if those great minds currently dedicated to avoiding paying taxes were focused on creating wealth through innovation and not loopholes designed by special interests.
I have to confess that I was sold on the flat tax when I was at CORE hosting our radio program, The CORE Hour, and I had the opportunity to interview Steve Forbes, who had just written his book Flat Tax Revolution. In addition to being an extremely nice and intelligent man, Forbes told our audience of the numerous advantages of the flat tax for our nation.6
FreedomWorks is clear on its position: repeal. Full repeal. The group is confident that with a GOP win in 2012, by 2013 ObamaCare will be a thing of the past. ObamaCare is not only a job killer for America, it will bankrupt the country. Costs will soar and the rationing of care will destroy the system. A patient-centered approach with choice is the only option.
FreedomWorks has a replacement solution though. First, participation in tax-subsidized plans will need to be both voluntary and portable. The playing field between what’s offered from an employer and from individually purchased plans needs to be leveled. Second, high-risk pools need to be fully funded. Medicaid and Medicare pricing needs to come down and there needs to be both transparency and competition for each. And that’s where choice comes in too: Medicare should be converted into a defined-contribution program with participation being voluntary. Price controls have to end for Medicare as well to reduce the rationing element. Another key replacement element: Health savings accounts should be promoted as a way to liberate families from government dependence. People should be able to control their choice and their spending on health care. Finally, states should be encouraged to lower costs and up competition through the reduction of competitive restrictions, malpractice reform, and mandated rating. The mantra that FreedomWorks hopes to use to generate enthusiasm is “Whose health care is it, anyway?”
One plan, proposed by Representative Jeff Flake, offers a bold alternative to the status quo, for both health care and our entitlement crisis: namely, personal ownership and control. His plan allows folks the option of saving their own hard-earned money currently taken in payroll taxes. Here’s how that would work: People could choose to swap out their one-size-fits-all government retirement and Medicare health benefits for personal accounts and use this money to fund either need in retirement. This is what virtually all private sector companies have done by moving from a defined-benefit pension system to a defined-contribution system. These plans are portable and are controlled by the worker, not the company. You own it, you control it. The financial transition is the challenge, of course, because our government spends all of the payroll tax revenue that was supposedly being saved in a “trust fund.” Maybe a phased-in program might be the best option for overcoming that hurdle.
The dirty secret is how unfair our bloated entitlement state is to blacks. Black men, in particular, pay payroll taxes into the government system their entire lives, but don’t own or control those assets in retirement. Here’s the problem: The average life expectancy of black men is about age sixty-nine—the same year Social Security and Medicare benefits kick in. So a life of “savings” disappears, spent by government on some other person or special interest. Real entitlement reform is based on freedom. It would allow every black man and woman to accumulate wealth that they control and could leave to their spouses and children when they pass away.
The left, of course, is adamantly opposed to such a plan. Makes you wonder what their real motive is, doesn’t it? Here’s a hint: It’s about control and power.
FreedomWorks feels strongly that the regulatory zeal of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needs to be curbed. Everyone wants a clean environment but the EPA’s aggressive war against fossil fuels is harming economic growth and reducing the standard of living of Americans. Congress must step up and use its power to rein in the EPA. The agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases must be stopped and the EPA’s costly energy regulations of utility emissions must be dramatically scaled back. Too many of these regulations are being used as a weapon to reduce the use of fossil fuels without having a meaningful impact on health. Instead of the government restricting the development of our fossil fuel natural resources, we need a pro-growth energy policy that will allow the business community to invest in our country, keeping jobs in America, and generating much-needed tax revenue with the goal of making America an energy exporter—not an importer. Free markets, not crony capitalism, must dominate our economy. Failing CEOs like GE’s Jeff Immelt should not be allowed to feed off the government and our tax dollars like a parasite and fuel government dependency by the rest of the country.
Who gets hit hardest by the high energy prices caused by radical environmentalism? Hardworking Americans and most of all low-and fixed-income households.
Frankly, I’m amazed at how I arrived at this point in my life. A nationally known figure who took significant risks getting to this point. After working in corporate America I found myself not knowing what my next career move should be.
But I wasn’t the only risk taker in this venture.
Giovanna Cugnasca, a friend, introduced me to Niger Innis, spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, one of the oldest civil rights organizations. I volunteered my time learning about public policy as producer and cohost of the organization’s weekly Internet radio talk show, The CORE Hour. Being involved with the talk show helped me learn and understand the issues so that I could discuss them on air live.
My experiences at CORE led to an opportunity to get involved with Project 21, an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research. Amy and David Ridenour, president and vice president, respectively, took a chance by hiring me as a full-time Project 21 Fellow. Part of the arrangement was for me to fund-raise for my fellowship—an activity I’m still executing. My concern early on was, who would give money to someone who is unknown and inexperienced?
My anxiety over fund-raising was quickly diminished while attending a Cato Institute event in Arizona. I had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman from California who was very intrigued with me and my personal story. I explained to him my new role with Project 21 and that I had to fund-raise for my salary and the very next day, he presented me with a personal check for one thousand dollars. My first donation! I wish all fund-raising were as easy as my first donor was. The nonprofit world is very competitive and it is difficult to fund-raise, especially when I spend most of my time engaged in activism. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have support from a very small—you can count them on one hand—but generous donors. Even to this day my salary at Project 21 is about 20 percent less than what I was making at Philip Morris in 2004.
Another concern I had as a Fellow was that one of my roles involved writing commentaries, and I must admit that in the beginning I was very intimidated with that part of the job. Coming from the corporate world, the most I had written at length were memos, letters, and e-mails, not eight-hundred-plus words for a commentary! What I learned was that the more I wrote the better I got. To date, I have written numerous commentaries that have been published in major newspapers across the country. And, well, you’re reading what’s come out of that experience.
President and CEO of FreedomWorks Matt Kibbe and his team took a tremendous risk in putting together the 9/12 March on Washington DC in 2009. At that time, the prevailing wisdom was that “conservatives” don’t do rallies—that’s something the left does. Yet, despite this great uncertainty, FreedomWorks took a big leap and organized, partnering with dozens of other Tea Party leaders, the overwhelmingly successful 9/12 rally, which can easily be considered the conservative Woodstock.
FreedomWorks is now recognized as a leader in supporting, facilitating, and educating local Tea Party leaders all over the country.
In addition to not knowing if anyone would show up, FreedomWorks took another risk—they asked ME to be a prime-time speaker. I’ve known the FreedomWorks team for years and they are familiar with my views through my commentaries but they never heard me give a speech, especially before a crowd of almost a million people. Heck, the biggest crowd I addressed prior to this monumental day was probably no more than a hundred people!
One Friday evening in 2009 I was contacted by Terry Kibbe (Matt’s wife) to see if I would be interested in speaking at their upcoming rally. I didn’t give the offer a second thought. I was all in. What the heck, you only live once!
I wrote the speech a week before and prepared for the event at a friend’s apartment using an ironing board as a podium, trying to visualize the possible surroundings and how I would deliver my speech the next day.
The night before the rally Tom and I had a sense that something big was up. We noticed cars and buses from around the country and there was that buzz in the air that something big was happening. It’s the same feeling you get before a huge sporting event, whether it’s a Stanley Cup Finals game or a college football national championship game—there’s a lot of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm. My thoughts were validated driving from my friend’s apartment in Virginia into the District early in the morning on September 12, 2009. Turns out we left just in time. As we pulled into Union Station to park, buses were rolling in so fast that it took a few minutes to get through the lot. Teems of people were walking around in their patriotic attire. T-shirts, head scarves, banners, flags, and everyone was friendly and smiling—just glad to be in the mix.
We took the short walk over to the Capitol, where we faced our biggest challenge. We didn’t have our credentials to gain access to the stage. There was a momentary panic about what would happen if I couldn’t get to the stage. So we took a chance by walking through the crowds, trying to find our way toward the front. As fate and luck would have it, we ran into Wayne Brough of FreedomWorks and a board member of the organization, C. Boyden Gray, who had credentials, making their way through the crowd. There were so many people sitting on lawn chairs or blankets and standing around waiting for something, anything, to happen. Happily, the crowd was very helpful and accommodating. All I had to say was that I was a speaker and like the scene in the movie The Ten Commandments, the crowds parted and we were on our way.
This major rally was the largest audience I ever spoke to before and was my introduction to patriotic Americans. God was with me that day. I delivered the speech of my life, which I have included in Appendix 2. I’m certainly no introvert, but people who know me know that my demeanor is calm and poised—after all, I was trained as a runway model. However, that day I had the passion of a Baptist minister. One of the opening lines I shouted during my speech, “We the People have had enough,” resounded throughout the crowd and is featured in several inspirational YouTube clips and in the movie Fire from the Heartland, a documentary about conservative women in which I’m interviewed. Even family members were shocked and surprised at my delivery. My sister who was watching the event on television sent me a text after I spoke saying, “I barely recognized you! Where did that come from?” Some of the FreedomWorks staff whom I’ve known for years were also surprised.
The bold idea to give me a speaking opportunity that day and indeed the idea of the 9/12 rally was born from Brendan Steinhauser, a staffer at FreedomWorks. Brendan has long studied the left and he felt the political momentum surging to the right. I really felt that momentum that day.
Just before the event was closing out, we decided to get a head start out of the crowd. Being a veteran of football games at the old Giants Stadium, I’m very familiar with crowds and beating traffic. At this point in the day, I witnessed the most amazing experience of my life. For crowd-control purposes, Tom and I had to walk through areas that were fenced off, separating the crowd from the stage area. While walking past throngs of people—young, old, and from all over the country—I received an overwhelmingly amazing response. People were waving, screaming for me to come over to them to take pictures with me. They wanted to shake my hand and thank me for my bravery for taking on black leaders who are failing America. I signed autographs. There were hugs and kisses from these smiling patriots. There were tears. They thanked me for my message. It was a real rock star moment. I even got a marriage proposal! So much for claims of racism in the Tea Party movement. Fortunately, Tom caught this moment on video and to this day I still watch it with tears in my eyes.
A sound bite of my speech was included in the NBC News’ coverage of the 9/12 rally and the following week I was interviewed on MSNBC and on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto. My appearance on Cavuto led to a meeting with Fox News Channel Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. Mr. Ailes, like many before him, took a risk with me and signed me on as a Fox News contributor. Prior to that week, I really had not participated in that many television interviews and when I did it was on the local news channels. My involvement with Fox News has been an amazing and rewarding experience.
Clearly, my evolution from a corporate employee to a nationally recognized figure demonstrates that the United States of America is truly an exceptional country, where if you’re persistent, there will be people who will support you in many different capacities as long as you are willing to first help yourself.
I truly believe the people joining forces with the Tea Party movement have one huge thing in common that makes the movement a success: They are trying. They are simply trying to look at politics and the country with a fresh set of eyes. They are generating enthusiasm from otherwise non– politically active people because they are bringing new ideas into the fold. They are hoping to make the country a better place to live. And you know, they’re succeeding. You can succeed by trying too.
It’s not easy, don’t get me wrong. Life, as I mentioned above, is like a marathon—only a few people run a marathon because it’s work—true, legitimate work. A marathon requires a strong mind and body. Anyone considering running one needs stamina, endurance, and a clear set of goals. The same applies to life. We need to take small steps to accomplish large goals. That’s what grassroots activism is about, but that is also what success in general is all about.
Get involved, take care of yourself, work hard, and you’ll succeed at making a difference. At the very least, just try. Try to step out of that place in life that you feel isn’t right for you. Try to speak your mind or be a force in your community. Try to better yourself because nobody is going to do it for you. I did. The way I see it, we all have the obligation to stand tall and fight for liberty. We are standing on the shoulders of untold numbers of military heroes who fought and died so that we can enjoy our freedom that, unfortunately, too many take for granted. Anyone who has served in the military, or is currently serving, deserves not only our thanks and respect but also a commitment from us to do our part to ensure their efforts were not in vain. I’m often moved and inspired by reading about and watching World War II movies about the sacrifices made by the greatest generation and I’m awed at the courage everyday Americans showed to preserve liberty. The best trip Tom and I ever took was to Normandy, France, touring the invasion beaches on the French coast in 2001, a month before September 11th. Being on Omaha and Utah Beaches, walking through the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, viewing the height of Pointe du Hoc, reading about the many battles at the various museums in the various towns in the region, was truly an amazing experience. The ingenuity and bravery of those men were awesome.
Thinking of what they did and what others have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else keeps my challenges in perspective. Would I rather be a paratrooper jumping behind enemy lines, running out of a landing craft, walking through a Middle Eastern desert, or waking up at 4:00 a.m. to debate a progressive political operative?
Easy choice, right?
I’m committed to using my God-given talents to fight for liberty so the next generation will have every opportunity to pursue their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.