May 1, 2010- Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.- Jay Townsend formally announced his bid to unseat longtime U.S. Senator Charles Schumer at a news conference today at Donahue Memorial Park in his hometown of Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.

With the Hudson River at his back, Townsend denounced Schumer’s record in the Senate and vowed to provide better leadership for New York. To download the full text of his announcement, click here.

The following is the full text from his announcement:

“My name is Jay Townsend.

I am a business owner … the father of fine young men …. the lucky husband of a wonderful woman, who, like me and millions before us, immigrated to New York seeking opportunity and all the promise this state has to offer.

And with your help, I am the man who will give Senator Chuck Schumer the race of his life.

With my family beside me, with your support and prayers, and with the gale-force winds of change at our back, I proudly announce my candidacy for the United States Senate.

God willing, we will force a man who has spent nearly four decades on the public payroll to experience the joys of making a living in the private sector.

I begin this campaign with a word to many good Democrats in this community and across New York.

When I was a boy growing up on an Indiana farm, my political hero was a New York Senator named Robert Francis Kennedy.  I loved Robert Kennedy.    I admired his courage.  I revered the passion he devoted to his cause and the energy he gave to his crusade.

Senator Kennedy woke a nation to problems it needed to confront–malnourished children in Mississippi; people of color who suffered from the sting of discrimination; orphans living in filthy ghettos; an ill-strategized war that had cost 58,000 Americans their lives.  To me, he was the epitome of what a public servant should be — grounded in strongly held beliefs; ever willing to abide his principles; fearless in the face of adversity.

Robert Kennedy also cautioned that a bigger, colder federal government was not the solution to every problem.  He believed in the power and dignity of the individual over the state.  He warned that no federal bureaucracy could ever be a substitute for individual responsibility.

Those are not the words of a statist.  Quite the opposite. They are profoundly conservative.  In fact at one point, Ronald Reagan joked that Bobby Kennedy was stealing his ideas.

On a bright June morning in my thirteenth year, I was asleep in my bedroom when my mother quietly opened the door and sat down on the edge of the bed.  It was from her that I learned that my childhood hero had been shot in Los Angeles.   I turned my head, refusing to let my mother see me cry.

Like my father, who was raised in the Great Depression and looked to his party to protect the family farm, I too was once a Democrat. In fact, I once worked for a man who later held Kennedy’s seat, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Pat Moynihan was a man of ideas and intellect.  He never apologized for being an American.

Senator Moynihan would not have quietly tolerated ANY President who dared to treat Israel as an adversary and Iran as an ally.

He was a fierce advocate for New York and never believed that climbing the leadership ladder inside the U.S. Senate should come at the expense of his own state.

The Democratic Party of my father, Robert Kennedy, and Pat Moynihan is not the party of Nancy Pelosi, Dave Patterson, or Chuck Schumer.

My father’s Democratic Party sought to lift people off their knees.  The party of Chuck Schumer is forcing people to their knees, prostrate in service to the state.

My father’s Democratic Party would never have substituted the judgment of unelected bureaucrats for the individual wisdom of freedom loving people.

My father’s Democratic Party believed that American ingenuity deserved to be celebrated, American greatness venerated, American exceptionalism exalted.

My father’s Democratic Party sought not to emulate the socialist failures of Europe, but to stand as a different model for all the world, the shining city on the hill, an example of what a nation could achieve – not by placing limits on success, but by allowing all of its citizens to realize their full potential.

My father is 84 today, and still a stubborn Democrat.  Bless his heart; he says he’s too old to leave it.  But my father’s son is not so stubborn.  I left the Democratic Party in my early 30′s when it left me.  And I think many New Yorkers are beginning to understand that the Democratic Party has left them too.

So as I begin my campaign for the United States Senate, I make a conscious appeal to good Democrats and independents across New York who are being left behind.

Join me.

Join us.

This is your fight too.

You have an opportunity to send a message to the ruling elites in Washington – that theirs is no longer the party of working people, or the party of small business people, or the party of those who create the jobs, or the party of a struggling middle class now straining under the burden imposed upon them by the likes of Pelosi, Schumer and Reid.

It was my 32nd year when I found a new intellectual home in the conservative movement of the Reagan years.  My heroes became Thatcher, Churchill, Reagan, Buckley, stalwart spirits all; unafraid to sail against the prevailing winds of their time.

While I have worked in hundreds of political campaigns, my favorite candidates were those who shared my passion for challenging the establishment and the established order. I didn’t always agree with everything they said – but I was attracted to their courage, the strength of their convictions, their willingness to speak truth to power, and their zeal to win hearts and minds in the marketplace of ideas on democracy’s great stage.

I share that passion now as I launch this campaign.

I stand here for one reason.  I believe the direction Washington is headed will destroy the greatest nation the world has ever known, and the greatest force for good that humanity has ever seen.  None of us can afford to remain silent or stand indolently on the sidelines of history.

We are now governed by a President and a Congress that want to Europeanize the United States.  I’ve visited many countries in Western Europe.  Pretty places all, but I do not want to live like the Europeans, where government confiscates more than half the income of those who earn it, where bureaucrats determine what doctors people are allowed to see and the quality of the care they are allowed to receive, where children are told at an early age what universities they shall be allowed to attend, where people are told how many hours a week they shall be allowed to work.

That is Europe.  But it is not the United States of America.

Our country charted a different course that has spawned more innovation, more wealth, more miracle drugs, more inventions, more advances in the human condition, the finest universities the world has known, the greatest and most generous foundations the world has seen.  We have lifted more people out of poverty, and afforded the people of this nation the highest standard of living known to mankind.  We are what we are not because we limit what people can achieve; we are what we are because we refuse to place any limit on human potential and because we do believe in something called American exceptionalism.

There is a lesson in history that escapes Senator Schumer and the governing elite in Washington. The British Empire, the French Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Roman Empire, now lie in history’s dustbin because they reached beyond their means; squandered the resources of their people; borrowed beyond reason, devalued their currency and relegated their middle class to subservience to the state. In the process they starved their once mighty armies and ceded their place on the world stage.

The United States has liberated more people from tyranny than any other nation on earth. We have proudly crossed oceans and braved desert sands for the cause of liberty, and freed the oppressed so that they too are able enjoy in some small measure the freedoms we too often take for granted. All we have ever asked of any ally is a plot of land in which to bury the brave American soldiers who died on foreign soil.   We have been able to do these good deeds only because we are the mightiest military power on earth.

I am not ready to see this nation cede its place at the head of the democracy’s table.

I am not ready to see the sun set on American exceptionalism.

This is what is at stake in this election.  It is about the kind of nation we shall be.  It is about the kind of New York we shall know.  It is about the kind of lives we shall live and the kind of nation, state and communities we shall bequeath to our children and grandchildren.

The ruling elite in Washington believe they know better than you how to spend your money, how to raise your family, how to grow your business, how to manage your budget, how to protect your home, how to determine your health care.

One person, more than any other, stands as a stark symbol of what is wrong with Washington.  Chuck Schumer is considered the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill.  He is the head financier, the architect, the enabler, the avatar, the cheerleader-in-chief of an Imperial Congress that turns a deaf ear to those begging to be heard; the back of a hand to those who dare disagree.

We thought that Senator Schumer would hear the message when Massachusetts sent Scott Brown to the Senate. Obviously Washington has a hearing problem. So let’s do this. Retire Chuck Schumer. Let’s see if that blows the wax out of their ears.

Mr. Schumer just rammed through the Senate a mammoth health care scheme that will swell the ranks of the jobless, raise taxes on those who can least afford them, cause health insurance premiums to skyrocket, and place federal bureaucrats between doctors and their patients.

That is not right for our nation.  And it is not right for New York.

Senator Schumer is supporting a cap and tax bill that will increase the cost of nearly everything we buy, drive, eat or sell … reduce our capacity to increase domestic energy supplies … retard economic growth in New York … increase our dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels … and spike the price of gasoline, fuel oil and electricity.

That is not right for our nation.  And it is not right for New York.

Senator Schumer’s spending spree is about to drown the next generation in a tsunami of red ink … new entitlements that will force this nation to borrow 10 trillion dollars over the next decade … force the devaluation of our currency … or cede to the Chinese control over our money supply and the power to raise interest rates on cars, credit cards and home mortgages.

That is not right for our nation.  And it is not right for New York.

For every dollar in federal tax payments New Yorkers send to Washington, we get less than 80 cents back. Thanks to Senator Schumer, billions of dollars are annually drained out of New York’s economy—money that could be put to better use here at home to cut state taxes, fix our roads, bridges, highways and aging mass transit system. And yet it is Senator Schumer who now with indignant belligerence proclaims that in the interest of fairness, we must allow the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire.

That is not right for our nation. And it is not right for New York.

We are now told that in order to pay for the Schumer spending spree Americans will soon be saddled with a European style Value Added Tax.   A new 20% levy on everything we buy, a massive tax increase on all Americans that will stall our economic growth, destroy our military might and make a mockery of President Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

That is not right for our nation.  And it is not right for New York.

Why would New York’s Senior Senator so punish his own people and his own state; casting votes that are bankrupting businesses; votes that have cost half a million New Yorkers their jobs; swelled the ranks of the jobless; policies that have forced 1.5 million New Yorkers to pack their bags, sell their homes and leave this once great state?

The answer is a dirty little secret in New York and well-known fact in Washington.  Senator Schumer is more interested in being Majority Leader than fighting for New York.

His 22 million dollar war chest may impress the lobbyists and the insiders in Washington.   It does not impress me.  It should not impress you.

Because all it means is this.  Since being reelected 6 years ago, Senator Schumer has raised more than 3 million dollars year, 300,000 dollars a month, 70,000 dollars a week, 10,000 dollars each and every day.  Any Senator who spends that much time raising that kind of money is either ignoring the people he represents or selling out the state that sent him to Washington.

Mr. Schumer’s war chest may be enough to buy the votes of his fellow Senators when he runs for Majority Leader, but he’ll never have enough money to buy ours.

For no one, no matter their money, no matter their status, no matter their power, is entitled to govern with absolute arrogance, or to live by a different standard than that imposed on those they govern, or to long ignore the heartfelt concerns of their constituents.

When fiscal watchdogs were complaining about all the pork in a recent stimulus bill, Senator Schumer said – and I quote — “Let me say this to all the chattering classes that so much focus on those little, tiny, yes porky amendments.  The American people really don’t care.”

Senator Schumer, I think you are going to find that we do take exception to an 800 billion dollar pork laden stimulus bill that has not netted this nation or this state a single new private sector job.

When told to turn off his cell phone by a female flight attendant, Senator Schumer berated her with a five-letter word that begins with b. It seems he was angry that he had been asked to comply with federal law.

Senator, you too, must abide the laws you impose on the rest of us.

Mr. Schumer would like to censor or silence his critics on radio and television who dare disagree with his agenda; imposing what he calls the Fairness Doctrine than is anything but fair.

Senator Schumer, you have no right to tell us what we are allowed to hear, write, think or say.

Senator Schumer has even invented a family named the Baileys that he says he consults about what is best for New York.  This is an actual quote from our senior Senator — “Though they are imaginary, I frequently talk to them.”

Senator, instead of inventing a family that does not exist, perhaps you could find some time to listen to real New York families that are struggling to make ends meet, put their kids through school and pay the taxes and fees you impose upon them from your throne on Capitol Hill.

Senator Schumer has recently held press conferences to express outrage about airplane baggage fees … how Facebook handles its data … and the salt content of cheeseburgers.    Yet he is speechless about New York’s 10 billion dollar deficit, a state budget that is now 31 days late and a dysfunctional government that is the laughingstock of the Northeast.

I love New York.   I met this state at the age of 17.  As a teenager I won a statewide speech contest in my home state of Indiana, and the reward was a trip to New York City.  I knew the minute I stepped off that bus that New York would someday be my home.

I could feel the energy in my feet. I inhaled the culture and the diversity and the sea of humanity around me; the arts, the music, the commerce, a place that seemed to be a magnet for the best and the brightest. I looked around and thought, yes, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

I lived upstate as a Cornell University graduate student. I lived in the city and slept on an office couch during the early years of my career. I’ve lived in the bucolic Hudson Valley in the picturesque Village of Cornwall on Hudson for more than 20 years. I may be an immigrant to New York.  But I am no stranger to New York, or its people.

I want New York to again be what it once was.  A magnet for the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the creators, the thinkers, the writers, the artists, the hub of commerce and manufacturing with factories that thrive and a place where people who want to work can find a good job that pays a good wage; the place where someone who is willing to work and ply their talents can go for the brass ring; a place where those on the lower rung of the economic ladder are allowed to advance as far and as fast as they care to go.

I want for you what you want.  Safe communities with schools that work … colleges and universities with affordable tuition … an economy that allows people to save, invest and enjoy the fruits of their labors absent fear of living old impoverished.  That has always been the promise of America.  It is up to us to preserve that promise for the next generation.

To you I offer a simple set of beliefs and values that will guide this campaign and my votes on your behalf as your next United States Senator.

I believe that money left in the hands of taxpayers will spur more jobs, more innovation, and more creativity than government programs ever will.

I believe that capitalism and the free market have done more to lift people from poverty than socialism ever will.

I believe that freeing entrepreneurs from overregulation and over taxation will lead to breathtaking inventions, more miracle drugs, and medical devices that have given the United States the finest health care the world has ever seen.

I believe that the best public schools are those forced to compete with private and charter schools.  Show me a community that allows private schools and charter schools to flourish – and I will show you a community with flourishing public schools.

I believe in spending restraint, for one simple reason.  Every dollar a government takes from you to spend on your behalf is a dollar you no longer have to save or invest or spend more wisely.

I believe in a strong military for I regard military weakness as a provocation. Those who have risked life and limb to defend this nation are entitled to the full measure of our gratitude and generosity.

I believe in the inherent dignity of the individual; that no state and no government has the right to decree what we are allowed to hear, or say, or think, or write.

When I was a boy, my father was elected to the Indiana state legislature.

Sometimes he would have to go to the capital, leaving me with the responsibility of making sure the livestock was fed, or the corn picked, or the garden hoed.

It was at the age of nine when I learned one of life’s great lessons.  It was a cold and miserable day in February of 1963.  Dad was gone, and I decided I did not want to do the chores in the pouring rain after school.

I was in bed that evening when I heard my mother answer the phone.  She shortly appeared at the door with a message from Dad.  Said she, Your father says if you have not done your chores you need to get your fanny out of bed right now and hop to.

So in the pitch black of night, drenching wet, flashlight in hand, I walked down the road to the barn to feed the livestock, water the pigs, and lay fresh straw in the pens. At the time I did not fully appreciate the lesson I was being taught—but it was this. The survival of that farm and our livelihood required that everybody do their part to keep it together.  That lesson I learned about responsibility and accountability lives with me to this day.

Responsibility and accountability starts with us. This is the greatest country in the world and it is up to us to keep it. This was once the greatest state in the union and it is up to us to lift it off its knees. We live in the world’s greatest democracy and it is up to us to use our God-given right at the ballot box to prove that it can work.

Other that life itself, the greatest gift any of us have ever received is to have been born an American, and it is up to us to ensure that this nation we love, these freedoms we cherish, these liberties we enjoy are preserved for future generations.

In 1778, a great chain was laid across this Hudson River at West Point to stop the British from advancing north toward Albany.  Let it someday be said that 232 years later, in the year 2010, in a nearby Village known as Cornwall on Hudson, was born a new crusade that relit the lamp of freedom and rekindled the great promise of this, and greatest democracy the world has ever known.

God bless you.  God bless New York.  And God bless the United States of America.”

7 Comments for this entry

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  Rob, May 1st, 2010 on 12:54 pm

  Finally, a candidate for Senate who gets it! Good luck, Jay. Thanks for standing up against Schumer and stepping forward for us.
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  gerri sovak, May 2nd, 2010 on 11:33 am

  Great speech Jay. I will pass it on to everyone and ask them to pass it on to all the New Yorkers. God be with you and your family.
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  Stephen Cea, May 2nd, 2010 on 2:57 pm

  Thank you for joining the fight to save America , your words and convictions are a breath if fresh air ! You have my full support and I look forward to seeing Schumer become a private citizen ! Thank you !!
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  Joe and Lorraine Cusimano, May 4th, 2010 on 12:33 pm

  Good Luck to Jay Townsend…a true American and a true Patriot. He’s like having one of the founding fathers return from the past. God Bless You!!!
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  Allen Roth, May 5th, 2010 on 4:25 pm

  Amen to the above comments. I am a native New Yorker who has been cursed with having Chuck Schumer as my Assemblyman, Congressman, and U.S. Senator. I have campaigned against him all my life and I am prepared to do it one more time. Not for me, but for our beloved nation. Mr. Townsend’s speech hits all the right notes and we should be thankful that a man of his talents is willing to take on the likes of Schumer.
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  JIM, May 8th, 2010 on 10:14 pm

  AHHH, finally a reason to go vote! Schumer can take his millions and shove them. Mr. Townsend you can put my family and I down for 8 votes and they won’t cost you a cent. I’ve been praying someone of integrity would run against the NYC idiot! GOOD LUCK
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  Diane Polites, May 9th, 2010 on 6:49 pm

  Good luck Mr. Townsend, I don’t live in New York, but I have friends that do and I will pass this speech to them. Thank you for a speech that explains our present situations in plain language. God bless you and God bless America.

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