On a rainy Saturday morning, a gathering of about 700 activists (confirmed by the Fairfax County Republican Committee) filtered into the Annandale Fire Hall to rally around Bob McDonnell as he officially kicked off his run for Governor. This enthusiastic crowd was pumped to welcome the McDonnell/Bolling team to town, as they held signs that said, "Bob 4 Jobs," "Welcome Back Bob!," and "Maureen 4 1st Lady."
The event started off with Rep. Tom Davis, who was the emcee. Davis discussed how the Republican party will regain the statewide offices, as well as retaining the majority in the House of Delegates. Davis introduced Rep. Frank Wolf, who discussed how McDonnell will work to improve the transportation in Northern Virginia, and how McDonnell is a strong leader in passing legislation on strengthening internet safety. After Wolf delivered his remarks, he introduced Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who is seeking re-election. Touching on themes of improving the economy, transportation, and protecting Virginia's status as a Right-to-Work state, Bolling delivered a strong speech that helped motivate the crowd. Bolling said that both he and McDonnell are working towards a better Virginia as a team.
After Bolling ended, he introduced Army 1st Lieutenant Jeanine McDonnell. Jeanine introduced her father to the audience, who said her father always instilled in her the dedication to serving others. She gave an amazing introduction. Then, Bob McDonnell took the stage. He spoke to an energized crowd about the needs to improve the economy in Virginia, increase jobs, improve education by increasing charter education and promoting school choice, while improving the public education system, addressed lowering taxes, standing strong for the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the born and unborn, and standing strong for our 2
Amendment rights. Below is the text of the speech.
McDonnell also emphasized his strong ties to Northern Virginia. He mentioned to the audience that he met his wife, Maureen about two miles from the venue event. Additionally, he talked about how he and his wife both grew up in Fairfax County. It was definitely a great homecoming for both Bob and Maureen McDonnell.
Overall, the Kickoff event shows the strength of the Republican Party. The audience was fired up and ready to go out to help the McDonnell/Bolling team. No doubt, this event was a success and the momentum will continue to strengthen as we get the message of limited government and lower taxes to the people of Virginia.
Today is an exciting day.
Today I formally announce my candidacy for Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia!
I’m ready to lead, if you are ready to win!
There are many ways you can get involved. Here’s one. Please take
out your cell phone and text VA to 46262 - That’s VA to GOBOB or
46262. Now you’re on board with our campaign.
The top priority for the next Governor is clear: Bring people
together to solve problems, get our economy moving again and create new
jobs and opportunity in our Commonwealth.
Today, we face difficult challenges.
All of us have been impacted by this economic downturn.
Many Virginians are hurting and anxious about the future.
Life savings diminish, while our cost of living is going up.
Our home values are going down, while our property tax rates are going up.
It’s harder to get your children into Virginia’s great universities,
and more expensive to pay their tuition and buy their textbooks when
they get there.
Whether I’m in Leesburg or Lee County, there is not a day that goes
by where I don’t see the pain and anxiety this economy is causing.
As your next Governor, I will make the top priority bringing jobs and opportunity to every region of Virginia.
To every Virginian who has lost their job
To every small business owner trying to make payroll
To every retiree afraid to look at their retirement account
To every homeowner struggling to make the next mortgage payment
To every parent writing that next tuition check
This campaign is for you. This campaign is about you!
To bring new jobs and greater opportunity to every region of
Virginia we must first lay a firm foundation for economic recovery and
for sustained economic growth.
I want my children and your children to live in a Virginia where
there are boundless opportunities, great jobs, a clean environment and
safe neighborhoods in which they can pursue the American dream.
A Virginia where the displaced Circuit City worker and all those
seniors graduating from Virginia Tech, UVa, George Mason University,
VCU and all our great colleges and universities in the spring are able
to find that all-important job!
A Virginia that creates great stories like Vellie Dietrich-Hall who
grew up in the Phillipinnes selling vegetables and firewood from a
basket on her head. She immigrated here 28 years ago. And today she
runs her own defense contracting business.
We need new policies to create those new jobs and produce those new success stories.
The days when we could rest on our laurels and just point to our rankings are past.
Our Vision for Virginia must be bold and big.
In the words of business writers James Collins and Jerry Porras we must set “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”.
A Virginia economic revival starts with one simple question: Do our
policies make starting or relocating a business and creating jobs
easier, or harder?
My first goal will be to make Virginia the best state in America to start and grow a small business.
So we will cut out red tape to ensure Virginians can start a business in 48 hours.
Virginia should be the top state in America for tourism and film production.
We will set a goal of developing the top commercial space port in the country at Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore.
We have the unprecedented opportunity to be the leading energy
producing state on the East Coast and I will spend four years making
that happen.
I support drilling for oil and gas 50 miles off our coast. Virginia
has the opportunity to become the first state on the eastern seaboard
to allow for offshore exploration and drilling. It is environmentally
safe and will create thousands of jobs and tens of billions in
investment, and hundreds of millions in tax revenues.
Let’s put ideology aside, and be comprehensive when it comes to our
energy future - Yes, we must develop new technologies for wind, solar,
biomass, and other renewables. But we also need oil and natural gas,
and to speed up the approval and permitting process for nuclear and
clean-coal plants. I will be a Governor who develops all of Virginia’s
energy resources to make life better for all of our citizens.
We will make it easier for entrepreneurs to protect our environment,
while creating good jobs. We will establish “Green JOBZ” tax free zones
to incentivize renewable energy technologies.
To ensure that new jobs continue to come to Virginia we must defend
our pro-free enterprise, Right to Work Law, the cornerstone of our
economic prosperity. But Right to Work is under attack in Congress with
the job-killing Card Check legislation pushed by big national unions.
The job of the Governor is to put the people of Virginia and their
job opportunities first. All three of my opponents recently stood in
union picket lines in Northern Virginia and now will not oppose the job
killing card check bill!
I will defend our Right to Work law; oppose Card Check and fight to
keep Virginia the best place in America to do business! We can’t let
big national unions turn Virginia into southern Michigan!
Our transportation challenges are clear. To attract business and
jobs to Virginia, we need to make it easier for citizens to get to
work, and for goods to get to the market.
In Northern Virginia, we need to complete rail to Dulles and widen 66 inside the beltway!
In Hampton Roads we need to upgrade Route 460 to interstate quality
to improve our great port and hurricane evacuation, and support our
military. To ensure our port is the best on the east coast, I will
strongly support the expansion of Craney Island.
In the Valley and Southwest, we need a wider, safer Interstate 81.
I want to lay the foundations to get high speed passenger rail from Northern Virginia to Richmond to Hampton Roads.
There’s another important component. When I was growing up the TV
slogan was “to get a good job, you need a good education.” It’s even
truer today.
I want Virginia to have the most innovative incentives to create the best school system in America.
President Obama was right when he called for real merit pay to
retain and reward teachers, and more Charter Schools in our communities.
We will create an incentive program for principals and teacherswho
increase student achievement. And I’ll put more of the money we spend
on education into the one place it does the most good: the classroom.
We will not tolerate failing schools that do a disservice to our most
vulnerable young people in struggling communities. I will strongly
defend the rights of parents to home school their children.
Virginia has some of the best universities and community colleges in the country.
We will forge new regional partnerships for workforce training and
economic development, expand the role of our community colleges, create
new opportunities for vocational and technical training, and support
job-creating research and development in green technology at our
universities.
I will ask every principal and college president to create new
opportunities in the fields of science, technology, engineering, math,
nursing and medicine, and other crucial job shortage areas in Virginia.
We must inspire confidence in the honesty, openness, frugality and efficiency of our government.
Right now we have nearly 1000 people dedicated to collecting your
taxes. We have one person dedicated to making sure you don’t get
overcharged…...that’s a ratio that will change when I’m governor! It’s
your government, and it’s time we made it act like it!
It’s also time to conduct a thorough audit of how your tax dollars
are spent. The Virginia budget has doubled over the last 10 years,
growing 30% faster than the rate of growth in population and inflation.
We need select independent audits of major state agencies, and a
greater level of budget transparency throughout state government. The
state budget is nearly 80 billion dollars and you need to know exactly
what you are getting for that.
I will work to make life simpler for Virginians by making government more efficient and user friendly.
Ronald Reagan reminded us that often government can be part of the
problem. We need to make government work better and act less like
monopoly to make life easier for the hard-working families of Virginia.
We have good state employees but our systems can be more user-friendly
with better customer service.
We have 23 different programs, across 9 different agencies that are
supposed to provide workforce development. We need to make this
simpler and more effective. I will provide a clear and focused mission
for our workforce development programs - create jobs, not hassle and
bureaucracy.
To all the mothers with us today: I understand some of what you
face, because I see what my wife Maureen goes through every day! You
balance children, home, work and everything else in a daily race
against the clock. You need a Governor who understands this, and who
looks for solutions to make your life easier.
Do we really need so many permits, licenses, stickers, decals,
registrations, and certificates with each requiring you to go somewhere
to wait in line, fill out a form, and pay a fee? Every mom is a working
mom and we need a working mom government simplicity task force!
I want Virginia to be the friendliest state for veterans and
retirees to live in. I want your wisdom, your talent and your money to
stay right here in Virginia!
We have come a long way in fighting crime in Virginia to make our
communities safer. But I want to make Virginia the worst state in the
United States for gang members and drug dealers to operate, and the
best place in the United States to transition prisoners back to society
so they won’t create new victims.
We need greater partnerships and coordination between government and
civic and faith-based organizations. I will bring the private and
public sectors together to improve the lives of Virginia’s citizens,
like we did at the Attorney General’s office with our Legal Food Frenzy.
We have to remember always that the measure of the character of any
society is how it cares for the least of its citizens. I will encourage
private citizens and companies to renew a spirit of generosity and
compassion to care for others especially in this tough time.
In his first inaugural address, Washington told our young nation,
“The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that
disregards the external rules of order and right which Heaven itself
has ordained.”
Values matter.
Jefferson wrote that we are endowed by our Creator with certain
unalienable rights—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I
believe this great truth applies to every American - born and unborn,
and as Governor I will defend innocent human life.
In forming our Constitution the founders expressly protected the
rights of Americans to own firearms, and as Governor I will protect the
2nd Amendment.
Our founders understood that the “pursuit of happiness” meant the
right to own property, and as Governor I will continue to strengthen
the private property rights of Virginians.
My personal faith in God has provided the foundation for my life.
My faith gives strong purpose, hope for the future, and an optimism for
what tomorrow holds. I know we can make Virginia better. I know that
because throughout my life I have seen the amazing results that can be
achieved when people come together for the common good.
I was raised in Fairfax County by a dad who was a World War II
veteran and a mom who balanced family and work. Growing up in Northern
Virginia, I learned from them the values that have lasted a lifetime.
My dad told me as a kid, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”
And he was right.
I learned that playing football, studying, and running track at
Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria. That hard work paid off.
During 21 years in the Army, active and reserve, I learned the value
of sacrifice and teamwork and the satisfaction that comes from being
part of an enterprise that’s far bigger than oneself.
While serving in Germany in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, I learned the value of freedom.
Going to school at night for three years while in the Army to get a Masters degree, I learned the value of education.
As a manager for a Fortune 500 company, I saw the productive power
that is unleashed when we empower hard working people to work and save,
to invest and create, to compete vigorously and to give generously.
As a prosecutor in Virginia Beach, I saw victims who were not being
treated fairly and criminals who were getting out of jail too early.
And I decided to do something about it.
I ran for the House of Delegates, and won.
Four years ago you gave me the honor of serving as your Attorney General.
Working together we established a 25-year minimum sentence for sex
offenders who commit violent crimes against children, and cracked down
on drug dealers and gang violence.
We became a national leader fighting Internet Crimes Against Children and identity theft.
Each of these accomplishments represented not only a promise made at election-time, but a promise kept at governing-time.
92 of our 105 legislative proposals became law with broad bipartisan support.
It is with this record, and because of these experiences, that I launch my campaign for Governor!
We must dream big, act nobly, and get results.
I believe in Virginia anything is possible. This is a state full of opportunities, not guarantees.
I grew up in a middle-class family in a middle-class neighborhood in
Fairfax County. Thanks to the United States Army I got the education
that has taken me farther than I ever imagined.
And now, I stand before you, a candidate for Governor of the greatest state in the greatest country the world has ever known.
Thank you and God Bless Virginia!