Speech of O. Max Gardner III Cleveland County Obama Get-Out-the-Vote Rally
Palmer Park, Shelby May 3, 2008

Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. I appreciate all of you coming out on this Saturday morning. Yes we can! That’s right, yes we can

First of all I would like to express my thanks to Matthew Krieker and to all of the Obama Campaign Staffers for all of their hard work in putting this event together. I also want to thank all of the elected officials, local precinct officers, and other party officials who are with us this morning. Thank you all. And, I want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time out of your Saturday to be here with us today to get out the vote and to show your support for Barack Obama.

As the Senator says, “Yes We Can. Yes We Can.” We can win this race in North Carolina and by doing so we can send Barack Obama to Washington as the next President of the United States of America. North Carolina has turned in to one of the deciding primaries in this election process. So, I want to thank all of you for your support and your votes. As Lyndon Johnson used to say, I want you all to vote and vote often!

Of course we all know that it is way past time to send George Bush back to Texas. We don’t want him anymore. Poor old George was born with a silver spoon stuck in his mouth. It is time for Barack Obama to use one of George’s gold-tipped cowboy boots and kick his scrawny little ass back to Texas and as far south of the Rio Grande River as possible. If he loves Crawford that much, let’s send him home.

You know I have some real good news for you this morning. I checked my calendar this morning and counted the days and we only have to deal with George Bush for 261 more days. But, the real good news is that in 261 days Barack Obama will be sworn in as the next President of the United States. And, I want all of you to be there with me when that happens. We can do it! We can make it happen! Yes we can!

John McCain, God Bless him, wants us to have 8 more years of George Bush. We can’t take 8 more years. We can barely stand 261 more days. And, I must admit that poor old John’s mind just does not appear to the sharpest pencil in the box these days. Maybe he suffered a little brain damage when his “Straight-Talk-Express Bus” ran off the road of truth and into the ditch of deceit. I don’t know. But, are we going to let this happen? Are we going to give McCain the right to be George Bush III until 2016? I don’t think so. There is no way we can let this happen. Not on our watch. We want our America back and Barack Obama will get it back for all of us. It is our America and we want to reclaim it on January 20th of 2009!

You know I am a big country music fan. One of my favorite singers was the late Waylon Jennings. Waylon had a song called “Sick and Tired of Getting Up Sick and Tired!” I always liked that song but I must tell you that I don’t like it so much anymore because I am sick and tired of getting up every day with the Bush Administration.

I am sick and tired of politics as usual.

I am sick and tired of having a fool for a President.

It is time for a change. And I mean a radical change. We need a new face and new blood in Washington. We need Barack Obama.

Have you had enough of the same old same old?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of business as usual in Washington!

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of broken promises and false ideas!

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of failed leadership!

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of politicians protecting Wall Street and not Main Street!

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of a war we should never have started and can never win!

Yes you have and so have I. The fact of the matter is that Sunnis and Shias were fighting for one thousand years before Jesus Christ was born and they will be fighting when Jesus comes back. And there is not one thing we can do about it. Democracy for Iraq makes as much sense right now as Democracy for North Korea. It will just not work. I’m sorry but these factions will never live together in peace. You cannot force democracy on the unwilling. People have to want it and fight for it and these people will do neither.

Have you had enough of sending billions and billons of dollars to Iraq when we desperately need the money right here at home?

Yes you have and so have I. Can you believe that Bush just asked the Congress this past Wednesday for another $70 billion dollars for the war? I don’t know how much money that is because I can’t count that high. But, trust me, it’s a lot! But what are we getting for this money? We bomb homes in Bagdad and then use our own money to rebuild them and then we bomb them all over again. At the same time, thousands and thousands of American families are losing their homes to foreclosure. Does this make sense to anybody? Does this make sense to you?

Have you had enough of the “can’t do, wont’ do, won’t even try to do the right thing” type of government?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of the tax breaks for the big oil companies and super rich with nothing but bad breaks for the average American?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of the view that government can’t solve our problems and that we should just do the best we can on our own?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of no healthcare for 50 million Americans, including 30 million of our children?

Yes you have and so have I. And, even if you have healthcare, many public and private hospitals will not even admit you as an in-patient unless you have the cash money up front to cover the non-insured part of your care. You got to show them the money to get in. Is this right? Is this the way we should treat the sick in America?

Have you had enough of George Bush’s Every Child Left Behind law?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of Bush’s “No Bank Left Behind Law” and “No Bank to Big to Fail Law”?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of the $4.00 per gallon gas prices and the billions and billions of windfall profits for the big oil companies?

Yes you have and so have I. Exxon just announced $11 billion in net profits for the first three months of this year. And did you see Hillary’s commercial about having to spend $50.00 for gas? She must have filmed that one back in January because when I filled up yesterday it was almost $80.00! The American people cannot stand these prices. And, what will we do when he have to buy heating oil this winter? What will we do when the price of gas tops $5.00 per gallon?

Have you had enough of the thousands and thousands of home foreclosures with no help from Washington?

Yes you have and so have I. You know Bush says the “markets” can work all of this out. Well, the only thing they are working out is the homeowners right out of their homes. The number of foreclosures in March of this year were 112% higher than in March of 2007 and the March of 2007 foreclosures were the highest since the Great Depression!

Have you had enough of the outsourcing of American jobs to China and India?

Yes you have and so have I.

Have you had enough of wages going down and food prices going up and up and up?

Yes you have and so have I. You know that you can go to the grocery store and if you fill up the cart half way you are talking about $100. If you fill it all the way and add some good red meat, then you are talking about your entire pay check! This has got to stop. The American people are suffering and we new leadership and we need it now!

You know my Grandfather, O. Max Gardner, was governor of North Carolina during the years of the Great Depression. So, my family knows a little something about hard times. The leadership of Governor Gardner during those years saved this State from financial ruin. Governor Gardner took over the roads, took over the public schools, consolidated the university system, enacted a worker’s compensation act, and raised taxes on the corporations. I am very proud of him for what he did during those extremely difficult years. But, many historians have forgotten that he ran for governor in 1920 and lost to Cameron Morrison of Charlotte. And he lost for two reasons. He supported the constitutional right of women to vote in 1919 when he served as Lt. Governor and he supported the right of African Americans to be allowed to register to vote. In fact, he personally registered over 1,000 African-Americans right here in Cleveland County. And, notwithstanding the fact that these were not popular positions in 1920, he stuck to his principals and never wavered in his support for women and blacks. I am as proud of his stand in 1920 as I am of his later accomplishments.

Speaking of the Great Depression, you know that in 1929 shortly after the stock market crashed President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, made this statement: “This is a temporary problem, a bad little financial patch.” He then got the Congress to pass a small tax refund to help out the American people. Of course, it did not help a bit. Well, just this past week President Bush said: “We are not in a recession. We have just hit a bad little financial patch.” Now, I don’t know about you but this sure scared the hell out of me! And, what does George think we are going to do with his $300.00 tax refund? You can’t even make a car payment, much less a mortgage payment, with this money. And, if you’re lucky, then you might be able to fill up your truck three times!

Governor Gardner called the Hoover tax plan “a bunch of quack remedies by magical medicine men.” He also criticized Hoover for “a general attitude of too little and too late” and for “hesitating to lead.” If he was standing here today, he could say the same thing about the Bush Administration and it would ring as true today as it did in 1929.

And, if the Governor was here, it would be him and not me speaking in support of Barack Obama.

In 1931, Governor Gardner wrote a letter to the Governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt, and stated that “we are in the day of a new deal,” and that “the old way of doing things must be thrown out.”

Well, speaking for the Governor, I am here today to tell you that it is time for Another New Deal! It is time for us to sop the old way of doing things and throw the old leadership out.

We need a New Deal that will give us a bold new leader with a new voice for the people.

We need a New Deal on the war in Iraq.

We need a New Deal on the foreclosure mess.

We need a New Deal on the price of gas.

We need a New Deal on the price of food.

We need a New Deal on the taxes on the big corporations and oil companies and their super-rich CEO’s.

We need a New Deal on healthcare for all Americans.

We need change and we need it now. We cannot wait another 8 years. We cannot wait another moment. As Barack Obama says, we must be driven by the “fierce urgency of now.”

There is but one candidate that fits this bill. And that one candidate is Barack Obama.

Obama will stop favoring special interests.

Obama will stop the foreclosure crisis

Obama will regulate the Wall Street Investment Banks.

Obama will guarantee that each American will do better because all of us can do better

Obama will end this war in Iraq and bring our brave troops home.

Obama will stop the endless tax breaks for the wealthy.

Obama will cut costs to make healthcare available to all Americans.

Can we do it? Yes We Can. Will we do it? Yes We Will. Will you help us do it? Yes You Will.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all so much. Remember to vote and get everyone you know to vote for Barack. North Carolina could close the deal and we need to close it now.

May God Bless all of you and May God Bless America.