First, I’d like to thank you all for coming to this meeting and putting your trust in me.   The Arizona Republican Liberty Caucus is alive, and we are just starting and there is much for us all to do.

I, like many Americans have been going to work, paying my taxes, trying to stay current with the news and have been watching what has been going on.    Over the years our side has won elections and lost elections, but never have we lost an election like we lost the last one.

We took a community organizer from the ghettos of Chicago who was a follower of Jeremiah Wright and a friend of domestic terrorists from the 1960’s and made him the President of the United States because he spoke nicely, smiled at us on TV, and promised us a change.    Some of us saw it coming.   Most didn’t.    Many thought that the things being said about his true philosophy couldn’t be true.

What’s the term?  A wolf in sheep’s clothing.    America elected the Trojan Horse President because many of our neighbors who voted for this man didn’t bother to pay attention, to do their homework, to understand.

Freedom is fragile and there are countless historical examples of how people have allowed it to slip away.     It has been slipping away in this country for years while many of us sat and watched the Wildcats or Cardinals or American Idol.     Our entertainment became more important than our responsibility to read, to listen, to know the things important to us.    We as a country became fat and happy.    We all did, it was the natural outgrowth of a nation that worked well, was free, afforded opportunity to be or do anything we wanted.   Most Americans had jobs, ate three square each day, had cable TV, a microwave, and a car. 

Life was good and when we saw somebody who was struggling we lent a helping hand, directly or through our church or favorite charity.    We were – are – a good people.

 Far too many of us took our great life for granted.    Far too many of us still do.

 We don’t.   And that’s what brings us here today.  Barak Obama may have actually have done us all a favor by waking us up.    Some of you in this room have been in the trenches for a long time.   And as people wake up, more and more of us join you in the trenches.

Today in America – we have a media largely run by people of the left persuasion that suppresses information, selectively reports, filters the news and limits true intellectual debate on the substance of the challenges we face to two minute segments wrought with thirty second sound bites delivered effectively to make a point, not explain it, in time for the commercial break so we can have someone yell at us about a SHAM WOW.

 Today in America – we have a government composed of elected officials who have become addicted to and dependent on political polls.   They pay big bucks to find out what we want to hear and then they say it to us, knowing that they are the Pied Piper and we will follow them anywhere.    No longer do we elect leaders, we elect people who look good on TV, sound nice, and we thing we agree with.    We have replaced backbone with poll analysis and talking points.

Today in America – we have officials from both parties who assume high positions and assume that they know, and we don’t.    Well, we do know.

We know that the government is too big.    We know that the power corrupts and when that happens we lose.    We know that we are not getting our money’s worth for the taxes we pay.    We know that we are tired of people lying to us.   We know that we are tired of people looking down their snouts at us.

We know that our constitution makes us the boss, not them.    We know that we have a responsibility to engage those who supposedly work for us and clearly tell them what we want them to do and what we don’t want them to do.  

We do not want the government to own companies.   We do not want the government to run our health care.  We do not want the government to demonize hard working Americans and the companies that employ them.  We do not want our Director of Homeland Security telling us that tea party-ers are potential domestic terrorists because they exercise their first amendment rights to protest the government.

We do not want what Obama is selling.

We want freedom.   We want a government that understands that it works for us and whose primary responsibility is to keep us safe.  We want a government that punishes those who would attack us, not give them the same rights we have died for.   We want a government that is honest.   We want a government that understands that economic freedom is the way to create opportunity and jobs.    We want a government that doesn’t tell us how to live or what to eat.

This is why we are here.  Our Liberty Caucus will be a beacon here in Arizona for the freedom loving people of this state.   Skip the labels – let’s just call it common sense.    The Republican Party brand has been damaged because of those who have compromised and sold out in ways that have put the concerns of government ahead of the concerns of the people.

We believe in the two party system, but when those whom we have put in office go along to get along, the hard working, taxpaying residents of Arizona are betrayed.   We are sick and tired of being smiled at and taken for granted by professional politicians who tell us what we want to hear when they need our vote and then turn their backs on us when they assume their position.  We are sick and tired of our elected officials, regardless of party, eroding the basic principles of economic opportunity and freedom.   We are Reagan Republicans and we are the conscience of the party.   Republicans in name only need not apply.

All of us may not agree on every issue, but on the big ones we do and we must stand together, stand tough and be strong.   If we do that our collective faith in our fellow Americans will be restored as they too come join with us.   They may not have been paying attention as we slid down into the political abyss that has given us Obama-Pelosi and Reid but more and more are paying attention now.

You have entrusted me with this position.   God has given me the ability to speak.  You get me in front of people and I will get them to join with us.   We are in this together, for together we must save our freedom, here in Tucson, here in Arizona, and everywhere our flag flies. 

Thank you.