Marta Jorgensen
Marta Jorgensen stunned long-time political activists in June 2008 when she defeated politically established candidates. That year’s Democratic Primary for the 24th Congressional District saw the well-known Mary Pallant and Jill Martinez overwhelmed by the political unknown.
In the November 2008 General Election, she came within percentage points of victory. A remarkable feat considering her Republican opponent Elton Gallegly’s 22 years of incumbency.
Everyone takes Marta Jorgensen seriously now. What she may have lacked in savvy, she made up with success. And, she’s running for Congress again.
With 27 years experience as a vocational nurse Jorgensen sees health care delivery as “out of control.” She supports HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, as well as California’s SB 810. Both bills call for a “single payer” government administered health care system. In her words, “With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are under insured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care.”
As a stanch environmentalist for decades, and combining her experience in business, she supports energy efficiency measures as vital. “I believe energy is the critical and central issue to many other problems and that solving our energy dilemma will have a huge ripple effect on everything,” she said.
Standing against trends to support new oil drilling off Santa Barbara’s coast Jorgensen draws the line. She cites the historic 1969 oil spill, adverse impacts on tourism, and localized pollution near new wells as critical to the issue.
Bringing together her central issues she said, “Health care reform, developing renewable alternative energy sources, and a solid commitment to improve our public educational institutions are key elements in restoring our economy.”
What political insiders have learned is that plain and to the point campaigning still works. The diminutive Marta invokes trust in her sincerity, even from her critics. Soft spoken and direct her voice draws attention. “Compassion must be the basis for the decisions we make, the bills we create,” as she often says. “When we keep in mind the welfare of people, the welfare of our social structures and the welfare of the natural world, we know instinctively what is right."
Comments
This time she is going to be crushed by Democrat Tim Allison. He has the support of just about every Democratic club President, the whole team who worked on the Obama campaign and is running a great campaign so far. I think he'll be able to beat Gallegly.
She's going to have a hard time if she's quoting statistics that even President Obama doesn't support anymore. The latest number, if she had been listening to the President's speech in between "Franki Valli screams", is now 30 million uninsured Americans. This is the White House's own filtering of non-citizens from the metric.
If she's got the support of the Obama campaign team (though the ACORN busts may be reducing that number), she really should use the same numbers as them.
Gallegly is going to kick her butt. He's going to beat whatever Democrat challenges him if they support state-controlled healthcare. All he has to do is say "I am against the state taking over healthcare" over and over again and he'll win. Every single poll shows that.
Any moron who makes comments like this: "Compassion must be the basis for the decisions we make, the bills we create" shouldn't be allowed anywhere near public office. Let me translate that statement: "I want to expand the state to control every aspect of everyone's lives because I know what their 'best interests' are better than they do."
Anyone who says "LIBERTY must be the basis for the decisions we make, the bills we create" will get my vote.
I like Marta. It's time we get people who aren't consummate politicians running for office. Tim Allison is a total party insider who didn't even live inside of the district, but moved there so he could run because the party insiders don't like Marta.
Gallegly said he wouldn't become a career politician, but that's exactly what's happened. And, seriously, compassion does not equal "government take-over of everyone's lives". Compassion means not screwing people at every turn, having respect for people's difference, being able to walk in someone else's shoes, and knowing that we're all in this together. There's a difference, and one that we should take note of during this election.
Yes, that is the dictionary definition of compassion. What you fail to realize is that it is impossible for the State to act in a compassionate manner.
State-run "compassion" basically works like this: those at the top "walk in other people's shoes" and balkanize the populace into various groups. Then the state weighs these groups against eachother and the ones deserving of the most "compassion" are determined. Resources are then doled out to those favored groups.
Of course, the State does not own resources since it is not a producer, ergo it confiscates all of its resources from the producers - the citizens. Through excessive taxation and eminent domain, this is usually done against the will of those being stolen from. Thus, every penny the state gives out in the name of "compassion" has been taken from an unwilling producer. That is the definition of oppression.
I like Marta too. She is a terrible campaigner though. I wish she wouldn't run again. She is going to get embarassed again, either in the primary or the general. Surely she sees that.
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