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July 17th. Sending the child okay. I'm glad to be participating in the Democratic telethon again this year. I think this is a positive form of political endeavour. You know, so many of our problems in the past have come out of the campaign financing the millions of thousands of dollar bills in suitcases.

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And I think this is what has caused people to have such a distrust of government and hear what we're about in this is we're trying to broaden the base and we're trying to allow everybody an opportunity to participate. And we're trying to make it where a party or a candidate isn't obligated to any person because of large contributions.

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And therefore you don't have to be worried about special favors being given. This is a chance for you to be able to participate. And for you to be able to carry out your duty as a citizen in our elective form of government, I hope you will participate.

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Yeah, A lot of times people have asked me what is the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party? Sometimes that's kind of hard to answer, but I think one of the differences that I've always felt was that I've always thought that the Democratic Party was the People's Party and that we were.

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We were more interested in people and their problems, and we were and sort of institutions or and and and something in wealth or special interest. But how do we become the people's party? We only really can become that and stay that if we have the participation in the interest of the people.

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And that's why I'm delighted to have a chance to participate in this telephone tonight because I think this is what we're about. We're about trying to make this people's party by trying to get a broad scale participation so that there won't be a favored few that are the ones that put up the contributions and therefore they're the ones that can expect the favors.

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You know, if you look at our form of government, the rationale upon which we say that this form our democracy is to work is that seems to be to me to be that we say that the majority of the people properly informed will make the right decision.

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We think the people will make the right decision more than a king or more than an autocrat or more than a dictator or anyone else. But, you know, there are a couple of premises to that. It takes the majority of the people and they have to be properly informed.

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And when you look at the number of people that have been registering and voting lately in our elections, you see that I think we're approaching a danger point that we we really don't have that that rationale that we talked about of the majority of the people and we don't have the people properly informed.

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And so how do we get back to that Trying to have a representative form of government? We have to have participation. And yet the problem on the other side of that is that people say I don't have confidence in my government. I don't think I as an individual count anymore.

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No one listens to what I have to say, So I'm not going to participate, and we've been sort of on the horns of that dilemma. Therefore, a lot of people say I won't go into politics, and so we're not maybe getting the cream of people seeking politics, and then the people say, Well, we don't trust the ones that are in there.

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Well, some way we got to unravel that and we've got to get it started back on the right track. And I think one of the ways to do it is to take a to restore that confidence is to have the people feel like again they are participating and that the system belongs to them and that they are the ones that have the say so, uh and and therefore should be able to express their voice.

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And the best way to do that is to have contributions come in and and by large numbers of people giving small amounts. And gosh is a candidate. I can tell you the worst problem I've ever had in politics is going to someone and asking them for money and having to treat somebody different from others or feeling myself doing that, whether I wanted to or not, because that person was a big giver.

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This is your opportunity to have a stake in the system, to have a voice in the system and to be the kind of person that the system owes its allegiance to, because if we can identify and have large, large numbers of people give a medium and small amounts of money.

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Then we can get this away from the back room. We can get it away from the special favors, and we can start on that path towards having a truly representative government that that does represent people. It doesn't represent special interests. I urge you to take this opportunity to participate and then make your voice heard about everything that you're interested in in government.