Opinions Worth Roping -

TO: MY FELLOW MONTANA DEMOCRATS

FROM: DIANE CLAYTON, CHAIR, SWEET GRASS DEMOCRATS

RE: GOING TO BOSTON TO REPRESENT MONTANA AS A DELEGATE
[printable]

I’m here BECAUSE of the great primary candidates who woke me up and asked me to step up, not step back and to help change America. And BECAUSE shopping therapy just isn’t cutting it anymore.

I’m here FOR for Bill Moyers, who for many of us is our first choice for President and the “candle-holder-in chief” of the Progressive movement. Last June at the “Take Back America Conference”, Moyers called for citizens to stand up and fight like the people of the plains did a little over a hundred years ago.

I’m here FOR my father who served during World War II and FOR my parents who went on to help build the greatest middle class the world has ever seen which is now in danger of disappearing to be replaced by the very rich and the very poor. Jim Hightower says “The poor and the rich you have with us always. But nowhere does it mention the middle class.” The middle class is under assault and we have to fight to preserve it. In June, Congress tried to raise the rate of student loans so it will cost more to borrow for college than buy a house! Looks like the powerful want serfs, not partners in the working class.

I’m here FOR my state and my county that got left out of the party in the Nineties. Working nationally this year became increasingly discouraging for me. Washington looks and acts a lot like Hollywood. It’s not about Passion, but about Power. It’s who you know, not what you know. But there is a sea change that is happening because of Dean campaign. Real grass roots movements are starting to sprout up all over. As I witnessed in Washington D.C. last week at the Take Back America convention, the progressive movement is alive and energized. So that’s where my passion and energy is going to get put, right back in my community and my state.

I am a proud passionate progressive pragmatist who is as comfortable in the Entertainment Industry as I am checking our heifers on a cold February night. I love the big cities and the quiet of the country. I’m a product of small country schools and large public universities. I am solidly middle class and am proud of it. Raised in the Midwest, I’ve lived all over this fine country of ours and am glad to have finally settled in Montana. I bring the perspective of someone who has lived all over this country and traveled all over the world. Yet, I am continually being challenged by my 3 rd generation Montana husband whose common sense and herd of cows keeps me humble.

And finally, I’m here FOR Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King whose dreams have not yet been fulfilled. As Jim Hightower says, “Never has there been a time when so few have done so much for so few.” I believe, like Bobby, that “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.”

Why Boston - Cover Letter