I made a post in December warning that we would give the GOP several unopposed Congressional seats, among many others. Among the Districts without opposition was the 9th Congressional District, which is currently held by Robert Pittenger.
You all know this guy, but just to jog your memory here’s a few of his recent musings:
On Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act...
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have countered that Planned Parenthood does more than provide abortions. Well, let’s take a look at the facts. According to Planned Parenthood’s own 2014-2015 annual report, cancer screenings are down 27 percent, family planning and contraceptive services are down 18 percent, STD prevention and treatments are down 6 percent. H.R. 3762 defunds Planned Parenthood and shifts those same taxpayer dollars to the much larger network of Community Health Clinics, which do not provide abortions. H.R. 3762 also defunds the unmitigated disaster known as Obamacare. Americans deserve the freedom to choose the health plan that’s right for them, not the one selected by President Obama.
...and then there’s this...
The President’s ill-conceived forays into foreign policy are not only lacking in moral depth but are grievously insulting and offensive to millions of people who have experienced repression and torture from diabolical tyrants around the globe. The American people stand with Israel and are outraged by the Ayatollah’s comments and by this administration’s continued commitment to legitimizing and enabling Iran, a U.S.-designated state-sponsor of terrorism.
Yep, that’s Pittenger linking President Obama to the Holocaust in an official Press Release. And to think we were going to let this guy keep his seat without a fight...
Enter Christian Cano.
Christian Cano is a hotel manager and aspiring business owner from Charlotte. Christian is a champion for the oftentimes ignored Hispanic communities in the region. He has fought for LGBT equality in Charlotte, including publicly showing support for Charlotte’s LGBT Nondiscrimination Ordinance last year. In addition, Christian has worked with the local Democratic Party to elect people such as Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts. He constantly shows support for Progressive values, whether its standing with postal workers to protect their union, fighting for the LGBT community, or working to replace DINOs with Progressive Democrats on Charlotte’s City Council.
If elected, Christian would be the first Hispanic person elected to Congress from the South!
Assuming that Hillary would run for President in 2016, Christian bought the rights for the web domain “hillary2016.org”. He did this to prevent someone from the GOP or other groups in opposition to Hillary from grabbing this valuable address. Christian planned to use this address to post support for the former Secretary of State.
Over the last several months, however, Christian learned about Bernie Sanders and his plan for a better America, and today is proud to “Feel The Bern!”
I had a chance to sit down with Christian and talk about his District and his plan to “bring neighbors together”:
What is “bringing neighbors together” about?
People are frustrated with the divisiveness in politics. We can see it with why people are not supporting the establishment candidates. People are so disenfranchised with what’s going on in our country in general. I think this is a result of mainly the Republican party, but partly the Democratic party too. People are ready to come back together.
People look at you if you say you are a Democrat or a Republican and think you came from a different country. I feel like many people treat these words as “dirty words” at this point because we have become so polarized. I’ve had people walk up to me and ask me if I was a Democrat or Republican. When I said “Democrat” their faces would turn and they would have these looks like I was a member of ISIS... We need to get away from that.
When you walk outside and you see your neighbor and you say hello, it doesn’t matter if they are a Democrat or a Republican. They are your neighbors!
“Bringing neighbors together” is what I think Bernie is doing where we are trying to bring people back together to get back to the issues.
That is not just good politics, that is good business. This animosity towards each other has started to impact our business, our government where we have magistrates and others who are paid by taxpayers who refuse to do their jobs. We need to stop this before it gets to that point.
What are the major issues facing folks in District 9?
District 9 needs a candidate who listens to them
I knew that most of what we need to do is listen to what people have to say. Too often we have politicians that stand up and tell you what they want to do, and not listen to what people actually want.
Fixing our crumbling infrastructure
We need to address our aging infrastructure. If we don’t address this we will have a national security issue if the enemy knows they can target our bridges and easily affect our economy in a negative manner.
Gun issues
A lot of people ask me where I stand on the Second Amendment. They aren’t necessarily asking me if I am “pro gun” but asking if I am trying to take rights away from them. I have said that yes, I support that Amendment, and in fact I support ALL of the Amendments. I believe that with any right that we also have a responsibility to see if we can work to make it work for everyone.
We need to expand background checks to make sure that people who are mentally ill can’t easily get a hold of a weapon.
About gun shows and the need to close the gun show “loophole”:
A lot of people are using guns as currency. They buy a bunch of guns, then will go to the gun shows and sell them back to cover their bills. They are almost like stocks, but of course in the form of weapons.
We need to close the gun show loophole because as a hotelier some of my hotels hosted gun shows. When I would walk outside of these hotels people would try to sell me a gun unofficially in the parking lot. I realized that some folks were using these gun shows as a venue to find potential buyers for guns outside the event to get around the screenings.
The law says you have to make a “good faith effort” to ask for identification, so if you ask, and the buyer says “I don’t have it with me/I lost it” and you sell them a gun, you’re legally in the clear.
If we close the gun show loophole, I believe that this will actually increase sales at legitimate gun dealers at these events, because we will cut out this “back door economy” that exists outside of these shows. We will also increase our tax revenue with a higher volume in legal gun sales so that we fund our teachers & schools again.
Jobs
Jobs is always one of the top 3 things that people ask me about. We need to get past this idea that the government’s responsibility is to create jobs. The government’s responsibility, in my view, is to provide infrastructure, opportunity, and ease of access for people that want to start businesses. There are a lot of elected officials, especially at the federal level, that say they can create jobs, but an elected official cannot directly create a job. What they should be saying instead of “I will create jobs” is “I want to create an environment that makes it easier to create jobs in the private market.” This is partly why I am using the hashtag #buyNC09, because I want to promote commerce in my local area.
We have to make sure that we have a good educated selection of neighbors that can actually qualify for those jobs, which means we need better education. We can create a bunch of living wage jobs, but they will not improve the area if the people can’t qualify for those jobs.
The thing about Bernie that has most impressed me if that he looked at our education system and is saying that our K-12 education system needs to be expanded. I believe that we do need to have a K-14 or K-16 system. We need to also help people who are going into a trade, so we need to expand our community colleges & apprenticeship options. People used to have two tracks in high school: if they were going to college they would take the academic route, and if they wanted to become carpenters or other trades persons then they would go into shop or apprenticeships.
The role of government
We have to remind people that government isn’t some shadowy “other”. Government is US. We should be realistic about what our expectations are.
Social Security. We have Social Security for a reason because we had seniors literally dying from a lack of funds. It is part of the role of a candidate and elected official to continue to explain what our role in the government is. We do this in the private sector. When we hire someone we give them a job description and they know exactly what they do in the organization. We all know about someone who was hired based on a certain job description but act as if they are the CEO. The same thing happens in government. You have a whole lot of people who get elected to Congress or the Senate and then turn right around and try to become President. We need people who will do good with the jobs that they have and THEN try to aim for higher level jobs instead of just using Congress as a springboard.
You are not electing me to be Pastor. You are not electing me to be ambassador. You are electing me to represent you and represent your district. That means I will vote in a way that improves this area. To show how disconnected Robert is, last night (2/28) he posted on Facebook about meeting constituents in Robeson as if they are his constituents. The new maps haven’t even been approved yet! He is assuming that he is going to win the nomination and that these folks will be his constituents, while areas like Statesville are left alone. This really highlights that Robert thinks this job is all about him, when it really should be about the people who live in the district and making their lives better.
This is a Presidential election year, which means that the radio and TV airwaves will be flooded with ads concerning that race. How do you plan to break through this “media firewall” and get your message across to voters in your District?
We decided that we were not going to run a traditional campaign. We have to face the reality that we can’t compete against the GOP opponent on a money standpoint. So we made a point to try a different strategy. About 70% of a typical campaign’s budget goes to advertising, especially TV advertising. If we ran ads we would be able to do one or two at most and end up wedged between a bunch of other ads and have a low effect on the race.
We decided to work on magazines, social media, and other media that will not only allow us to save money, but also reach demographics that we don't typically reach. We are seeing a really good return on investment using social media and other digital strategies.
Unfortunately Canvassing is not going to benefit us as well as a compact district like the 12th where we can visit a apartment complex and talk to 100 people.
I don’t ever want the competition to know exactly what we do. Because we are running a non traditional campaign, it is hard for them to see where we are coming from. In politics, sports, etc. it is beneficial to keep the opponents guessing where you are coming from, compared to the traditional campaign where you raise X amount of money to buy X amount of staff and X amount of ads. For them a campaign is run like a business. They actually spend very little money on directly asking you to vote for them. A lot of Robert’s money is being used to pay off his debt from 2012 and 2014! About 60 cents of every dollar going his way is going towards debt.
The PACs are donating money to him to help him reimburse himself, compared to my campaign which uses funds to cover the bare necessities. We are the only Congressional campaign that I know of with an all volunteer staff that are helping because they care about this race. So when you hear from one of my volunteers they are not doing this because of a paycheck but because they care about the message.
That’s the way politics should be. It should be about people getting involved in government on a volunteer/service basis, but too many treat it like a business or investment. They see that you ccan go into Congess and come out as a millionaire in two to three years. I was asked by the YDs of Iredell County “all people say that want to do something, but go to Congress and don’t do any of it.” My answer is to fight for term limits. I will limit myself to four or six years because I believe that the founding fathers wanted representatives to go to service for a few years and then come back instead of having the job be a career path like it is now.
Out and about in the 9th
From a WBTV story about the election of the Speaker of the House last October:
Democrat Christian Cano announced on Columbus Day, he wants current Republican Congressman Robert Pittenger's seat.
"Just as a citizen it's concerning that we've given them the House and we've given them the Senate and they can't pass a budget and then they want us to give them the Presidency," Cano said, "I know Congressman Pittenger was a huge supporter of the house speaker. I attended every single town hall meeting over the last two years. So I know the push back he's gotten from the extreme members of his party."
Christian hosts a bi-weekly “Breakfast with Neighbors” event where he invites citizens to discuss their issues over coffee. Christian’s schedule is filling up fast, having a presence at many community events and candidate forums like this one in Statesville.
So what will happen to “hillary2016.org”?
Christian is taking the “high road” and leaving a basic template up where visitors can choose to click into Hillary or Bernie’s official pages. Much like Bernie Sanders, Christian doesn’t want to attack other Democrats and is instead focusing on building a campaign to overcome the Republicans’ advantages in his District.
More Info
Website: canoforcongress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cano-For-Congress-NC09-1503944689920319/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cano4congressnc
Get Involved
Donate to Christian’s campaign (via ActBlue)
Unfortunately, Christian and other competitors in Republican-leaning districts can’t count on support from the state or national Democratic organizations. He will need help to not only fund the campaign essentials like flyers and yard signs, but also to effectively advertise in the district. With a Presidential race sucking up all of the TV ad time, funding for Christian will go towards efficient advertising to reach the most voters without breaking the bank. Every dollar helps!
Sanders Democrats is an ongoing series highlighting candidates in this election who are supporting Bernie Sanders. I will continue to report on up-and-coming Progressive leaders in my state and across the nation who are building Bernie’s “political revolution.” Bernie can’t change our nation alone, and that’s why hundreds of people are running at all levels of government to spread his message.
Previous Sanders Democrats posts:
Here’s Bernie’s Revolution: Introducing “Sanders Democrats”
Lula Dualeh — A new voice for Mecklenburg County, NC
Peter Norris for NC House District 104