Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [53]
LindaBeach
@jamesjamesjames There’s a volunteer forum at taft2012.com! Come join us. #Taft #2012election
IanTheArtist
@SamFromChicago666 Did you know Taft was the president who had the Oval Office built in the first place? #Taft
SamFromChicago666
@IanTheArtist I did not know that.
“The president can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power in the Constitution or in an act of Congress. There is no vague extra power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.”
—William Howard Taft, speech to the Delaware Taft Party, Feb. 22, 2012
“Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken without developing new evils requiring new remedies. Look at modern agriculture—companies like Fulsom have delivered affordable foodstuffs in huge quantities that can feed Americans bountifully no matter their income, yet the food is not good; it makes me queasy both digestively and morally.”
—William Howard Taft, speech to the West Virginia Taft Party, Feb. 25, 2012
“I am in favor of helping the prosperity of all countries because, when we are all prosperous, the trade with each becomes more valuable to the other.”
—William Howard Taft, speech to the Kansas Taft Party, March 2, 2012
“Don’t worry over what the newspapers say. I don’t; why should anyone else?”
—William Howard Taft, speech to the Wyoming Taft Party, March 5, 2012
Transcript, Raw Talk with Pauline Craig, broadcast Feb. 16, 2012
PAULINE CRAIG: Welcome to Raw Talk. I’m Pauline Craig, and today I’ll be talking with some outspoken supporters of William Howard Taft’s historic reentry into presidential politics. Joining me first via satellite is Frank Lommel, former president of the United Food and Factory Workers Local 15 in Colorado and now the Midwest coordinator for the Taft Party USA. Mr. Lommel, tell us how your friends in the union have responded to the Taft Party throwing its hat into the ring for the 2012 election.
FRANK LOMMEL: Hi, Pauline, thanks for having me. Obviously, I don’t speak for the Local 15 anymore, but I’ve heard from a lot of workers who say they’re awfully interested in the Taft Party. They understand how abso-friggin’ great it is that a candidate who’s got such an incredible record of going after big, monopolistic businesses is being taken seriously by voters all across the country.
PAULINE CRAIG: Let’s talk about that. When President Taft was in the White House a hundred years ago, breaking up monopolies—busting trusts, as they called it then—was his number-one priority. But is that really the issue that faces the workforce today? Health-care costs, huge unemployment rates, no respect from the liberal elite for enrolling students in good, solid vocational training—aren’t those the workforce problems any president will have to deal with?
FRANK LOMMEL: Pauline, it all comes back to giant conglomerates that think they can act any darn way they please. If you look at the meat-processing industry, for instance, you see that there are huge numbers of low-paid immigrant workers being employed in the slaughterhouses and rendering facilities who haven’t had the freedom to unionize because all the big protein companies are specifically looking to keep wages low across the board. It’s not like these poor guys can go across the street and apply for a job at a more enlightened poultry producer. So the companies are collectively engaged in the sorts of behavior that monopolies can get away with, even though they’re not technically monopolies. That’s the sort of thing we Tafties know that William Howard Taft would never stand for—not a guy who’s proven himself willing to tackle the toughest conglomerates in the nation.
PAULINE CRAIG: Big Labor. A demographic that always votes Democrat. And Frank Lommel is here on Raw Talk to say that a 155-year-old Republican-turned-third-party independent has at least one ex-union leader’s support. That’s something you