The next Huey Long

[claypool4prez]

Roy Carter retired after forty years of teaching high school science and coaching football.

He built his own house four times. He lives on a farm

He is now running for U.S. Congress...

because he has over 20 former students serving in Iraq, and we wants to bring them home now. Safely, in one piece, and not in a body bag.


www.roycarterforcongress.com

As a progressive in the reddest district in North Carolina - In fact the county he just retired in has never voted for a Democrat for president, ever, even voted for Lincoln - Roy was written off long ago. But not any more, as his has pulled nearly even in the polls and now has the best shot of retaking a House seat in NC

But Carter is turning heads and making headway.

Roy has been endorsed by the Democracy for America, National Education Association, the unions, and the environmental groups.

He gave an emotional speech at a university anti-war rally that brought the crowd to tears.

He visited some of those same students, when they held a sit-in to protest their university's use of sweatshop labor to produce apparel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFoHNJ7mX6Y

He has pledged not to accept Congressional healthcare, until EVERY American citizen is satisfied with their own coverage.

He has made a commitment to never accept money from corporate Pacs or lobbyists

He is against Mountaintop-removal, even though his entire district gets it's power from coal mining.

He was opposed to the BOTH wars from the beginning.

He wants to reform NAFTA! And tax companies that ship our jobs overseas.

He will go straight from the classroom to Congress, and has pledged to end No Child Left Behind come hell or high water. And replace it with a fully funded program developed by leading educators to ensure that every child in America has a fantastic public education.

He wants to bring in green jobs to rebuild his community's economy.

He supports funding for P.A.R.T. to help rural workers commute to their jobs.

He wants to expand and enhance the Head Start program.

Roy wants to expand and increase funding for Pell Grants, and reduce interest rates on need-based federal student loans.

Roy wants to expand and fully fund SCHIP to reduce the anxiety placed on working families due to health related issues.



He will fight tooth and nail to cap interest rates on emergency loans.


His opponent, Rep. Foxx voted against giving aid to Katrina victims. Against the Voting Rights Act. And says the war is over, and that the economy couldn't be better. She is in for a shock, the shock of her life, when Roy nails her hide to the barn door.




http://www.yesweekly.com/article-691-mayberry-style-progressive-takes-on-arch-conservative.html#commAjax


--

When he strode into the club after arriving from the grand opening of the Stokes County Democratic headquarters, the 64-year-old Carter looked like a beefy version of Andy Griffith, silvery hair glistening in the soft light of the lounge.

He conferred frequently with his wife Pat and campaign director Ryan Eller, a young ordained Baptist minister who has counseled marines preparing to deploy for Iraq at Camp Lejeune.

Just before Obama’s speech, Carter, Hagan and Jules Federle, the Obama campaign’s regional field director for northwest North Carolina, lined up along one side of the big screen. Federle vainly contended against the television background noise to command the crowd’s attention. Hagan didn’t do much better when the television went mute. Moments after Carter took the microphone the crowd was whistling and hollering, drowning his lines in applause.

“This is the most historic election, as we all know, in the whole history of the United States,” he said. “Who would have thought just four or five years ago that a rural country boy, ex-schoolteacher/football coach could be in this position, running proudly with Barack Obama?” His speaking voice evoked a little bit of former Sen. John Edwards’ populist cadence, but without the suburban sheen. It reached back to an earlier age, taking on the thundering, brawling quality exemplified by depression-era Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. He was every bit the rural woodworking teacher and gridiron coach, assuming the tone of a man accustomed to threatening, inspiring and humoring his charges to hold their attention.

---

Help us prove that a poor farmer, who dedicated his life to teaching kids, can still win make it to Congress.

http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18412

[claypool4prez]

1. Oh...

And his opponent kissed Bush after the State of the Union two years in a row. She practically jumped over seats and nearly knocked down a couple other female Congresswomen just to get near Shrub.

[claypool4prez]

2. Oh...

And his opponent kissed Bush after the State of the Union two years in a row. She practically jumped over seats and nearly knocked down a couple other female Congresswomen just to get near Shrub.

[claypool4prez]

3. And

And his former students, like myself, are volunteering in droves. Knocking on doors, going down dirt roads, and doing everything they can to get their role model and hero elected.

[AllieB]

4. KICK

[claypool4prez]

5. is this

is this someone you would like to see in Congress?

Is this the type of Democrat we need to be electing in the South and heartland?


Show of hands?

[claypool4prez]

6. Pics of a real fighter

filing

[claypool4prez]

7. last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8awKCyZdyc

[crickets]

8. Good for Roy Carter!

I hope he wins; we need more like him in Congress.

[claypool4prez]

9. We sure do.

His commitment to not accepting money from corporations, and to not accept Congressional healthcare is pretty impressive. Him and Dennis will make a great team up there. Just picturing the two, they would kind of look Gilligan and the Skipper (in appearance only). But boy they would make a great tandem.

Just think of Dennis' ideas coming out of the mouth of a guy who looks and sounds like a cross between John Madden and Andy Griffith. They won't be able to ignore Roy Carter that's for sure.


There's a story about him, back when we was a coach. His team was playing the worst team in the conference, and they were getting whooped in the first half. No effort. Roy drags them into the locker room at halftime, stands them in front of the mirror and says, "all you care about is how you look, and what the girls think of you in them nice uniforms, well look at this," and he throws a chair into the mirror, but it doesn't break. So walks over to the wall and punches the mirror with his fist and it cracks and shatters to the ground. He then storms out and walks out alone. His team tramples over the broken glass as they leave the locker room and proceed to score on the first five plays they ran in the second half, and ended up winning big.

I'd like to see Roy punch some Congressional republicans like that.

[onethatcares]

10. can't afford to donate much but $10.00 to him sounded like a

great idea.

[claypool4prez]

11. thankyou

I wasn't involved in politics at first.


Then when they passed the Military Commissions Act, I quit as a journalist and began volunteering for the local Dems.

Which eventually led me to an internship with Democracy for America, and the Dean family.


The work up there in Vermont was great. We got a new governor elected in Kentucky, and backed progressives across the country.

But the whole time I was up there I worried about back home. A piece of the Bible Belt if there ever was one.

Every week I would call home to our democrat state senator or someone else on the inside, to find out if anybody was going to run for U.S. Congress against right-wing extremist Rep. Virginia Foxx. And every week I got a "no." No mayor, or county commissioner, or judge, or lawyer, or municipal council member would step up to the challenge.

I got discouraged, that I had done all of that work, that sincere push for a better and more progressive country, and had gained the skills to spread it but without an opportunity to do so back home.

My last day in Burlington, Vermont, up on the third story office of DFA - formerly the Dean for America headquarters - I said my goodbyes to my coworkers, all now cherished friends, whom I'd admired for their commitment to sacrifice pay or recognition to fight the good fight. As the day ended I gazed out of my window over Lake Champlain, and thought what I would do going back to college for one last year. Back to North Carolina. Where we had never voted for a Democrat for president, ever, my home county even voted for Lincoln.

The staff had already thrown me a going away party, and now I was down to packing away my things, clearing the desk, and ending the best summer of my life.

As I was finishing Jim Dean walked by, in his infamous short shorts and high socks, naturally, and noticed me finishing up. He thanked me for my work and wished me luck carrying on the fight back home. I told him that all we ever elected were Blue Dogs back home, that is, if we somehow voted in a Democrat, and that no cause back in the tucked away mountains of North Western North Carolina, would really fit what America needed. I expressively noted my concern that no Democrat had even come forward to challenge a woman who voted against giving aid to Katrina victims. He told me, and I will never forget this, "somebody will come forward, somebody will step up, and if they even remotely match your purpose and your ideals, then you go and work for them and get them elected no matter the odds."

I tried to crack a couple last minuted jokes in as I secretly tried to soak in what he was trying to say.

Soon after I was back at Appalachian State University - thirty minutes and one county over from my home town- the local politics were fine it being a "liberal" college town and all. But the town was a small oasis in a twelve county district that produced Andy Griffith, Nascar, Lowe's Hardware, and was most famous for moonshine running and Richard Burr.

That fall I went back to work for the campus newspaper, the same one that had fired my a couple years ago for being cocky. Now with some more experience under my belt including interviews with: Chuck D, Dead Prez, Rep. Ellison, Rev. Yearwood, Saul Williams, Kevin Barrett, Bob Bowman, CIA department director Mel Goodman, Primus, The Wu-Tang Clan, Russell Simmons, Mike Patton, Mike Gravel, etc...I guess I was expecting too much trust. The first story I took, eventually turned into an investigation into BOT corruption, that forced the chancellor to personally have me fired to cover it up.

Betrayed by the school, and newspaper who cut me loose to protect their image. I was out of work. Fed up with reporting. And pondering whether I should go back to that passion I had so not so long ago wielded.

Two days later I picked up a local newspaper and read a small blip brief about an area farmer who had , out of nowhere, declared a bid for Congress. One paragraph now I glanced over the candidates name with utter shock, "Roy Carter, who will retire from teaching in the Winter, to run for Virginia Foxx's seat." That was my Roy Carter!!!!

He had been my own teacher four years prior, back when I was in high school. I remembered him calling out fellow coaches in the lunchroom, while at the table, over their blind support for an invasion of Iraq. Roy was fiery back then, and knew his stuff, although he explained the facts with the style of Knut Rockne rather than Adlai Stevenson. He was more common sense than pure idealism. He took every issue in stride. It was like Huey Long was walking our halls teaching science and giving "don't ever give up" speeches in our lockerooms. It hard to argue that he didn't instill something in me, but I thought of him little after graduation.

After all, it's not like a man who was been a high school teacher for 36 years already is ever gonna amount to anything more.

The next day I called him at his office at North Wilkes High School. I was the first to do so. I told him that I was unprepared to come to terms with the irony or implications of me coming on to work for him, but I pledged that I would stick with him no matter what. So I tried to finish up a sprig semester and help win a primary while defending Roy's progressive stances on issues to crowds who had never heard that type of "talk."

Roy came out against Mountain-top Removal, hardcore. So much so that Duke Power donated treasure chests of safety money to the republican incumbent Foxx as soon as they read the press release.

Sure enough I ended up skipping too many classes because I made attending forums and Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinners a higher priority than dropping in for some elective courses, especially when I had already finished my major in journalism, and minor in political science. What happened? I failed a couple classes. But we won the primary.

And then it was on to un-intended summer school, with geology by day and phone-banking by night.

Then the polls came out. And our "nobody coach" had jumped in the polls. When I finished my last semester of summer school I was left with four credits left to graduate. But the county where my university was located was the strongest one for us in our 12 county district. So I decided to move back home, to the front lines. Now I wake up at 5:30 in the morning to catch a bus up the mountain to school; doing phone-banking in between classes, and canvassing every dirt road and forgotten trailer park I can during evenings and weekends. I am meeting the folks who live just miles from where I grew up, and hearing their stories of getting laid off, or that the bills are too high, or that they have to choose between groceries and medicine. Veterans who've been neglected. Former grade school classmates who can't find work.

My last semester of college was supposed to be filled with parties and tailgates. But, when not in class, most of my time is spent in rooms or on doorsteps listening to the grievances of poor forgotten souls that had been laid off from work before my parents even met.

It's worth it though. Jim Dean was right. His brother's 50-state-strategy is working.

And that unique voice from the wilderness, who rescued the trouble makers and high risk kids from dropping out, who mentored, who taught, who declared that the attack on Iraq was an illegal preemptive strike the second the first bomb fell, is on the verge of history.

Roy retired this year after forty years in the same profession, teaching high school science. His was preaching Global Warming in class before Al Gore even ran for Senate.

Half of his students make starting salaries, out of college, higher than the one he retied with.

Cynics say this can't happen.

Poor folks aren't supposed to get elected to national office.

Folks, help me prove them wrong.


http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18412

www.roycarterforcongress.com