Editor’s note: Below are excerpts from remarks by West Virginia US Senate candidate Paula Jean Swearengin and Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker during an Oct. 10 online rally for Swearengin’s campaign. Booker came close to winning the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Kentucky earlier this year in an effort to challenge Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Paula Jean Swearengin: We need a diverse economy. We need long-term solutions to the addiction epidemic. Everybody deserves healthcare. And we were begging for those things prior to this pandemic. This is about having people that are actually going to serve us. We have seen a movement of ordinary people running for office across the country, because we wanted a government that serves us, of the people by the people, for the people. The bulk of our incumbents are servants to corporations.
Charles Booker: Paula Jean, although I didn’t win at the ballot box, my victory is seeing you stand up and speak the truth. You speak for folks that don’t get listened to. . . .We’re being hit hard, especially all across Appalachia where infrastructure was already crumbling. Folks were already hanging on by a thread. . . .In Kentucky, similar to West Virginia, we have a lot of health issues. . . .and we need that relief [that the Senate has refused to pass] so that we can get through this time and then do the deeper work, because we’ve still got a lot of poverty. . .
Swearengin: The people in pain should be in front of the power. . . . We have a whole slate of candidates from the local level here to the federal level. . . . We’re just ordinary people. And this is a long game for all of us, no matter what happens with this election, we keep on changing the conversation, changing the political dynamic, and making sure we put the government back into the hands of the people.
Booker: That’s right. We’re doing the work to make democracy mean something. . . .We’re not asking for much, we just want. . . .
Swearengin: Basic human rights from the hood to the holler.
Booker: From the hood to the holler. That’s right.
Speakers included Cori Bush, Nina Turner, Amy Vilela, Kaylen Barker, Mary Ann Claytor, Andrew Yang and others.
