Kelli Ward

Campaign speech in Santa Cruz - Feb. 18, 2016

Kelli Ward
February 18, 2016— Sonoita, Arizona
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Thank you so much for having me. It is wonderful to be here. And I’m Dr. Kelli Ward. I am a military wife, I am the mom of three awesome kids, I’m a family physician, I’m a former Arizona state senator, and I happen to be running for the United States Senate.

Now, I love seeing all of your smiling faces out here. And I know a lot of you are here because this is your normal meeting. But I hope that like me you’re also here because you know Arizona deserves a BFF in Washington D. C. and I don’t mean a best friend forever, I mean a bold, fresh, fearless voice, representing you, and I can be that voice.

You all tell me if you disagree, I don’t think Washington is working. It cannot get out of its own way. And I am running to change Washington. But we can’t change Washington if we don’t change the people we send there. Unfortunately, over 30 years in Washington, D.C., have changed Senator McCain. If it were not the case, I would not be taking on this task. Because I have all the respect in the world for Senator McCain, and his service to our country. But he is not the conservative he claims to be. Especially during election time. Respectfully, I think it’s time to retire Senator McCain.

I’m going to borrow a famous phrase and I’m going to give you a little bit of straight talk about senator McCain’s records, just over the past few years. In the last few years, Senator McCain has voted for tax hikes, for bailouts, for massive new spending, for amnesty, for liberal judges. He mocked the very conservatives that wanted to do everything in their very power to stop Obamacare, calling Senator Lee and Senator Paul, and Senator Cruz, wacko-birds. He has voted 15 times to increase the debt ceiling. Kicking the can further and further down the road from us, and our kids, and our grandkids, and our great grandchildren and on and on and on. He supports policies to allow the NSA to spy on law abiding American citizens, without an individualized warrant, and he refused to go the distance to defund Planned Parenthood. Even after we found out that organization is harvesting, and selling baby body parts. So the list goes on and on and on.

Now, politically there’s a few things too that concern me. Chuck Schumer, you all know Chuck Schumer right? He was asked which republicans across the aisle would help you get things done, who can you work with? And he named Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham and our very own John McCain. Bernie Sanders, feel the Bern Bernie, he’s getting so much momentum, scarily, among our youth especially. Bernie Sanders was asked in one of the Democratic forums, “who’s your guy on the other side? Who helps you get things done?” Who does he name? John McCain.

I think the most telling is that Hillary Clinton named John McCain as her favorite Republican. I will make you a promise right here, right now tonight, send me to Washington, D.C., and Hillary will never say that about me.

On a more serious note, this is going to be a hard fought battle. It is going to take money, it is going to take people, it’s going to take blood, sweat and tears. It is definitely a David and Goliath battle. But if you guys recall, David won that one, and we can too. We can too.

The stakes are just too high to sit idly by. As a physician, I have seen the ravages that Obamacare has had on our health care system. I still work. You know, I used to call myself a Senator who works, because I work in the Emergency Departments in Rural Arizona in Kingman and Lake Havasu. And since Obamacare went into play, the emergency rooms where I work are overcrowded, and overwhelmed, and people’s premiums and deductibles are sky high.

As an Arizona State Senator, I worked hard, I worked against annual spending, I worked to reform healthcare, I said no to higher taxes and bloated budgets, even when it wasn’t popular. As in Arizona, like you all experience every single day, being so close to the border, I have seen the toll that this fourth quarter and illegal immigration have had on every aspect of our society. From health care, to education, public safety, to corrections to the economy, and it has got to stop.

As a military wife, my husband Mike and I have been married 20 years, and he’s been in the military for 32. I say that he shows no sign of getting out, but I think he’s getting out not this June, but the next June. Then we’ll have a new President, so Barack Obama will not be the person signing his orders to get out. Which we are very happy about.

But, as a Military Wife, I have learned the importance of keeping promises to our veterans, and making sure that we take care of them once their service ends. We are falling down on that job. As a mom of those three awesome kids, Kate, Cameron and Nick, I never want them to say that I didn’t do everything in my power to maintain the liberty and freedom that make this country so great.

Those are just some of the reasons why I’m running. Why I’m running for the United States Senate. But I’m also running for you. I’m not running for a title or a parking space, or a great corner office in Washington D.C. When I get there, I don’t think I’m going to get that, for taking on the establishment the way that I am. I’m running for you, because Arizona deserves a republican senator that represents their values. Our values. And we are not getting it.

Now I will tell you, I hope that you will join with me, and thousands of our fellow Arizonians, because we make a difference. We have such a huge opportunity. We can double or triple or quadruple our vote, and I don’t mean the Chicago way. I mean the conservative way, the republican way. We can take a friend, a neighbor, a family member, somebody from church with us to the polls with us during the primary.

You all may not realize it, but only 18-24% of the people who are registered to vote, go to vote in the primaries. So we are letting 9-14% of the people make our decisions for us. We have got to stop it. We can make a difference.

So I hope you will join with me, join with those other Arizonans, send your BFF to Washington D.C., and I do mean your friend, because everybody deserves that friend in Washington. Not just the rich, not just the powerful, not just the connected, all of us.

But also remember that you’re going to send your bold, fresh, fearless voice, one that listens to you, and then speaks for you in Washington. So join with me. Together we can win, and together we can shake up D.C. Thank you, and I welcome questions.

Speech from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzWp3VUJXJY.