On The Record: Tom Love

On The Record: Tom Love

For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Tom Love, the Democratic candidate for U.S. House District 24 for the 2008 election. (for ACT Blue)

What prompted you to run for public office?

I am a UT Alumni, a working man, concerned husband, father, and grandfather who has seen the American Dream slowly turning into the American Nightmare. We have become a nation that has far too long ignored its working peoples’ needs and rewarded powerful special interests. Homeowners and Texans who pay their taxes are penalized while multimillionaires get special tax breaks. We cannot become a nation that builds bridges to nowhere, yet constructs no pathway to our children's future.

I have always been interested in politics from an early age. My maternal grandmother fell and broke her hip, yet she voted from a wheel chair in the 1960 Presidential Year elections. She had been born in the 1870s in Illinois and remembered not being allowed to vote as a young woman because she was female. “I will never forfeit a right that I worked so hard to obtain, “she told me. “ Never allow democracy to vanish because it is not convenient to vote, or you will never get it back, “she warned.

My paternal grandfather was a Lamar County Judge and that also had instilled an interest in politics that my father past on to me. I volunteered to work in several political campaigns while in college and afterward. I found a love for history and political science. I graduated with a government degree from UT Austin.

It was after I saw the Republicans redistricting of Texas and the undermining of the working men and women of America that I renewed my political interest and I became more politically active. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, inadequate or barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.

I recently block walked in an area of finely manicured lawns and well constructed houses. They were houses that were vacant due to loss of income and predatory lending. They stand as victims of credit manipulation and greed, the unfortunate signs of our times. We need the commitment and backbone of the American people to solve this latest fiscal disaster that was created and allowed to flourish in a time of excess and greed.



What would you say are the primary issues concerning your area?

I am calling for the creation of a “Fair Deal” for the working men and women of Texas who pay their taxes in an era where multimillionaires get unfair tax breaks and there is outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries and over $3 per gallon gasoline. The Texas Legislative and Congressional districts were redrawn in a non-census year to represent ideology and not the Texas communities that their elected officials had tried to represent. The Republicans basically told Texans they did not have enough sense to choose their own elected officials, so they would change the districts and overruled local representation for ideological partisan concerns. This meant that Texans no longer had control over local issues, but became pawns in the political board game of ideological Blue states verses Red states that American politics has degenerated to.

Texans and Americans need to address the healthcare needs that have allowed 47 million Americans to go without healthcare. Policies that allow chronic illnesses and unsafe nurse-to- patient ratios weaken our hospitals ability to treat patients without private insurance intervention. Texans need to be able to build a pathway for their children’s futures not build bridges to nowhere as the Republicans have done. Teachers must receive better pay and be allowed to teach.

I pledge that I will work between the aisles and in whatever venue necessary to represent my district and its needs and concerns.

What are your qualifications for the position for which you are running?

I have real experience dealing with the real life problems of Texans. As a Small Business owner, a Financial Services Worker with the Texas Department of Human Services, and now as a Financial Services Supervisor with my present financial services company. I have experienced firsthand the problems and difficulties of Texans who struggle to pay their bills, maintain their homes, feed and cloth their children, and teach American family values to the next generation.

I believe that I can send a message that working people of this state are tired of having partisan ideological differences and a Culture of Corruption that keep Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives from solving issues fairly and without the crippling debt that requires massive borrowing from China to finance ill advised ventures. I am a social progressive that believes in sound fiscal values.


How do politics affect your family?

We, like most other Texas families, have to work to provide the economic livelihood necessary to pay mortgages, car notes, credit cards to maintain credit worthiness, and care for our families. I fully believe that the wage earners of America are under assault from outsourcing, unfair taxes, barely affordable healthcare, and high energy costs that undermine our economic well being.

We have allowed pollution of our air and streams to cause global warming issues that must be addressed or mean certain disaster for future generations. Additionally, we are spending by one study $720 million dollars a day for a war in Iraq that we have already “won”, but keep an occupation in place without an exit strategy while our American National Guard troops and families suffer with repeated call-ups, extensions, redeployment, and post traumatic stress disorder without adequate medical care and try to survive in the face of predatory lenders and extreme economic hardship.

All these problems are causing a massive and crushing debt. Additionally, we are under threat by our dependence on foreign oil. The Republicans, since Nixon, have promised to eliminate, but have instead rewarded, the status quo at the expense of our own citizens. It is time we solved these problems. We can. We will.


Who are the important political figures that inspired you to become active in politics?

I grew up in Paris, Lamar County, Texas in an era that had Speaker Sam Rayburn of Bonham on the west, Representative Wright Patman of Texarkana to the east, and future Speaker Jim Wright to the south. All were Texans that served in the Congress for over 34 years. The people in these communities had no need to question where these representatives stood. They stood for their districts, their state, and their country period. Sam Rayburn once said he was a Democrat without prefix, without suffixes, and without apology.

In school at UT, I studied John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. I also admire Al Gore and his battle to make the world aware of global warming issues that threaten worldwide catastrophe. I admire all the great and future pioneers who are not afraid or be deterred from solving America’s problems and enabling our uniquely American Spirit of fair trade, free enterprise, a judicial integrity to flourish and endure.


What is your biggest hope for Texas?

I hope and believe that; despite the perils that face us, and the crushing debt that has caused every single American to owe more that $30000 to the national deficit, we can rise above the ideological quagmire that has engulfed us and bring a new and greater shinning path to us and our posterity. We need not be in fear or dislike government, for we are the government. And by the people, for the people, and with the American public, we will triumph over adversity. The uniquely American and Texan experiment that our forefathers created we must now protect, serve, and defend and; with God’s help, solve the issues of our time and create new direction for future generations.

I speak as a UT Alumni and a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your help as I know this, will be a long difficult journey. I am under no illusion that I can take this path alone. With my wife of thirty two years, Marilyn, I take this journey. We need Americans to register to vote and vote for America. Vote to end the politics of division, lies and deceit. Vote to end the politics of disrespect and humiliation. Vote for clean air and the right to breathe free. Vote for the right to have affordable and available heath care for a better and healthier America with employment and wages that enable an economically safer and sound America.

If you give us your vote and we will pledge to serve, protect, and defend our Great Land. And if you give us your vote, my heart will be your heart, my hand will be your hand, our voice will be your voice, and your dream will be our reality. I speak today as a working man who loves his country and loves his God, who asks for your vote, requests your help, and thanks you for listening.