PETER CAMEJO INTRODUCES MATT GONZALEZ

PETER CAMEJO INTRODUCES MATT GONZALEZ
AT SUNDAY'S SAN FRANCISCO UNIVERSITY ADDRESS

(Other introducers were: Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Chris Daly, and Supervisor Jake McGoldrick.)


PETER CAMEJO:

"Matt Gonzalez is going to be elected Mayor Tuesday.

The reason he is going to be elected has to do with the people of San Francisco and the youth of San Francisco.

There is an understanding that is starting to develop in our Nation, throughout the whole country --- but where it has much more strength is here --- that something is going wrong, and we need to do something about it. And, it’s not just something that has come today or in this campaign.

This campaign would not exist if not for Chris Daly and all the other supervisors who have really pioneered the way. I admire very much Tom Ammiano and all the others.

There is something happening in America. We love our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. We believe in the Rule of Law and Democracy, and we see it’s being destroyed. We see things like the Patriot Act. We see the announcement that Hilary Clinton made today that we should send more troops until we totally dominate Iraq. She actually used the word “dominate,” calling for more troops. We know that that’s not right, that we are not going to cure the problems of the world by militarism and by occupying other nations, and that there have been a whole series of problems in the world in which our government thinks that it is correct for it to do things that support Osama Bin Laden or don’t support Sadam Hussein.

We don’t agree with that. We have a totally different vision --- the Progressives in the community, and the overwhelming majority in San Francisco.

I announced on Channel 11 that here is going to be a surprise Monday. There’s a secret mission, and Tony Blair and George Bush are going to show up here and endorse Newsom.

I started thinking how, you know, this third party issue. This a great moment for a Third Party. I’m talking about the Republicans here in San Francisco. They have the first chance that they’ve ever had to get someone elected who was actually on their voter slate when George Bush ran for President. How often does that happen? How often do they have in San Francisco to elect somebody Mayor who actually donated money to Bush’s campaign? That’s tough! Now they are flying every Democratic Party leader in here except Harry S. Truman to say, ‘You know, you have to vote for Newsom.’

Well, the truth is, we still have elections in America. They are not perfect. (I guess some of you know my position on that.)

It would be nice for America to discover what the rest of the world is doing. You can bet yourself one thing. If there are elections ever held in Iraq, they will not be in the American style because everybody would realize that is totally undemocratic. There will be runoffs, and there will proportional representation, as the rest of the world has or is moving to. We’re the last country that denies people honest representation.

Do you know the courage that it took for a person like Gonzalez to join the Green Party when he was running? Do you know the courage it needs in terms of commitment?

What Matt exudes is honesty. What Newsom exudes is ambition. That’s the difference between the two. One is committed to ideals and ideas. One is committed to a career, and the people who finance that career, and he has made a commitment to them, and he will live up to his commitment --- the corruption that exists in our political system, which takes many different forms.

There is a group now, on the Board of Supervisors --- this is really a team that has come together to change the course of events and set an example in our nation of how a city should be run and the ideals and the values it should have.

Matt represents all those Supervisors. It’s really all of them. We are electing them all to become the government of this City and to protect it, because if Matt should lose, they will go after all of them.

They will try to crush you, the people of this City who have had the courage to stand up for peace in the world, for social justice, and for all those values."


(Transcribed by Carol Harvey, almost verbatim. Minor words obscured by loud clapping and cheering.)