Dr. Richard Curtis Announces His Independent Run for the U.S. Senate

Declare Your Independence -- From the Two-Party System! 

Here is the video and full-text of Dr. Curtis's campaign kick-off press conference





Because of changes to WA election law, in particular a new primary system, it is actually possible for an Independent to do well, even win since that top-two primary eliminates the spoiler issue (since one of the people a voter tollerates will be in the general election). The game has changed in Washington State and this is the year for independents.

Full text of speech:

In 1964, Malcolm X said the following (from “The Ballot or the Bullet”):

In this present administration they have in the House of Representatives 257 Democrats to only 177 Republicans. They control two-thirds of the House vote. Why can’t they pass something that will help you and me? In the Senate, there are 67 senators who are of the Democratic Party. Only 33 of them are Republicans. Why, the Democrats have got the government sewed up, and you’re the one who sewed it up for them. And what have they given you for it? Four years in office, and just now getting around to some civil-rights legislation. Just now, after everything else is gone, out of the way, they’re going to sit down now and play with you all summer long—the same old giant con game that they call filibuster. All those are in cahoots together.

What has changed in 46 years?

According to royal family legend a new wife of Henry 14th, when learning of the plight of the peasants during one of many famines, said, “Let them eat cake.” The phrase is usually attributed to Marie Antoinette, but most historians agree Jean-Jacques Rousseau was mistaken to attribute it to her. The point is an illustration of elite indifference to suffering. The masses of the French people could starve and the aristocracy was so oblivious that they thought if people didn’t have bread they must have just run out and so they should have some cake instead. At the time 40% of the average French peasant’s earnings went to buy bread.

Some economists estimate that the mal-distribution of wealth in the United States will resemble that of Mexico by 2040. For those of you busy writing and not doing math in your heads that is a mere 30 years from now. How many of you, members of the press gathered here today, are prepared to live in dirt floor shanties like the peasants of Mexico? It is an insult to human dignity everywhere that anyone should have to live that way anywhere.

What do these historical references have in common?

Both involve social change. In the case of America in the 1960’s we achieved some measure of change and the situation did not devolve into armed conflict – though it very well could have, was Malcolm’s point. In the case of France in the 1700’s, things went differently. Revolutionary France was a blood bath, it was horrible and violent, murderous and callous, and yet it produced some semblance of democracy.
Democracy is a fragile thing. It does not survive a populace that is uneducated. It does not survive a populace that has no time keep up with current events. It does not survive extreme differentials in wealth, either. Though France was actually going through the equivalent of our Revolution the context was very different because in France the peasants revolted not just bourgeois intellectuals, as happened here.

Why do I mention all this? Because we are heading down that road, the road of self destruction. Our political culture is broken having been mangled and abused by decades of official indifference. What is most insulting is not just that this indifference is indifference to suffering, which it is, no this indifference appears to this man of letters as an indifference to reason. Democracy is about a conversation, a reasoned conversation in which all the people decide complicated issues. We do not have a democracy in this country, though we like to pretend we do. We do not have a democracy because we do not have conversations. The Republicans and Democrats are not competent to converse because they do not base their policies in reason, let alone sound science. They are not competent to govern because they do not know what it means to govern democratically. The people must decide the weighty issues of the day and sometimes they decide differently than any particular might like, but that is democracy.

There is hope though, not the empty hope of lies about change. The hope is the American people. As in 1964, the American people in 2010 are expressing their frustration and outrage. They, we, have had enough of the two-party, business as usual theatrics that pass for an exercise in democracy. We deserve better, we deserve politicians who are honest enough to recognize when they are in the minority and have the integrity to live with that. We deserve a political culture based on democratic participation and democratic decision making, not spin doctors, talking points, and horse-races that masquerade as elections.
We were promised a democracy and we want it, now!

The possibility of real change exists here and now in way it has not before. The people of Washington State have decided to conduct a new experiment in primary elections. To that end we passed a Top-Two Primary system. This was challenged and eventually upheld by the Supreme Court and this year we will try it out for the very first time in a U.S. Senate election.

It will not work quite as voters and proponents expected though. The two corporate parties have moved their conventions to June and will “endorse” their candidates then. Of the dozen or so names floating around this race, only two of us are not trying to get the Republican endorsement, the incumbent and me. One of those Republicans could decide to run without party endorsement but that is political suicide so it seems unlikely.

This primary will probably be a three person race for the top-two slots. This is radically different from how elections have worked in the past. It is possible for an Independent to win in this system. Before this change that would be a practical impossibility, but now there is no spoiler issue. The voters of Washington can vote their values, as we all should in a democracy, and the top two will go on to the general election. I intend to be among the top two and believe that in a head to head race with the incumbent that I will easily best any Democrat – because the people have had enough of politics as usual.

Finally, let me note that today the government of El Salvador will for the first time recognize the crime that was the assassination of Arch Bishop Oscar Romero, SJ, who said these words mere seconds before the US paid assassin put a bullet through his heart:

May this Body immolated and this Blood sacrificed for humanity nourish us also, that we may give our body and our blood over to suffering and pain, like Christ — not for Self, but to give harvests of peace and justice to our People.

This year things start to really change.

Thank you.


Learn more at RichardCurtis4Senate.org