Kentucky Politics / Kentuckians for Gatewood Galbraith
Gatewood for Governor, Kentucky
Category: News and Politics
Gatewood for Governor, Kentucky
By Gatewood Galbraith
From the Upcoming Special Activist Issue of Cannabis Culture Magazine, March-April, #65.
Howdy Folks! My name is Gatewood Galbraith.
My running mate Mark Wireman and I are candidates for the May 2007 Democratic Party Primary; I’m seeking nomination for Governor of Kentucky, and he for Lieutenant Governor. Of course, the winner of the battle between Democrats then faces a Republican in the Fall 2007 Kentucky General Election.
I have run for Governor of Kentucky three times. Twice, in the Democratic Primaries in 1991 and 1995, the Party froze me out because I championed cannabis as a cash crop for our farmers. In 1999, I ran as the Reform Party candidate in the November General Election and received 15.3 percent of the vote – after Jesse Ventura, Ross Perot, and Bernie Sanders, it was the best showing of any third Party candidate in America for the past 50 years. My last statewide race was in 2003 as an Independent for Attorney General. I received 110,00 votes (10 percent) despite the fact that I only went to 12 of our 120 counties and spent less then $20,000. (That’s 40 percent of the votes I need to win this 2007 Primary.) Everyone who heard our message of personal privacy, education, and self-determination supported it, but we simply weren’t able to adequately fund the effort. We must not allow that to happen this time.
I rejoined the Democratic Party in 2006 because the current Republican Governor has been such a disappointment (he was indicted!) that the smart money says the Democrat nominee will be the next Governor. The leadership of Kentucky’s Democratic Party is up in the air given the failures of the past, so should Mark and I win this Primary, we would resurrect the Democratic Party to once again be the voice of the People.
Ours is a multi-issue campaign focusing on Issues and Solutions. The "Issues" in Kentucky are poverty and illiteracy. In the past six years, Kentucky has gone from being the 10th poorest state to being 6th poorest. We have lost $2,100 in median income during those same six years ($36,400 annual average to $34,300). That’s going backwards, folks! But it’s not hard to see why: in 1991, over 68 percent of our state budget was for Education; in 2006, it was 60 percent. At the same time, we have added thousands of prison cells throughout the state and call it "growing the economy". Our politicians would rather imprison us than educate us! What farce this War on Drugs has been!
We have "Solutions" for these problems. Immediately, and until the laws are changed, cannabis should be the lowest priority of law enforcement with no arrests for possession. As soon as possible, I would like to see it decriminalized. Citizens arrested for "hard" drugs should be treated for their addiction, not imprisoned. We must educate our children – not only in the scholastic sense, but also about their freedoms and their duties as citizens to defend them. Our nation is being "dumbed down" about how the American Revolution sought to give individuals the tools of a Constitutional form of government to allow them to remain free. We need to re-ignite the American Revolution by taking the reins of government from the hands of the special interests and returning them to We, the People.
To encourage education I propose the Commonwealth Incentive, whereby every High School graduate in Kentucky gets a $5,000 voucher for books, tuition and fees at any institution of further learning within Kentucky – be it truck-driving school, cosmetology, electronics training, vocational training, community colleges or the University of Kentucky. No spending on pizza, rent, beer or other creature comforts; money is only spent when the student decides what they want to learn, and where they want to learn it, encouraging young people to stay in school. This should also attract vocational schools to the state. We also believe it should be mandatory that students in grades 4 through 12 should take mandatory civics and American Government courses – the current system is failing to truly educate out youth about our US history, rights, voting, politicians, and democracy! As for the environment, which our young people also need: we support tax incentives for our existing state industries to establish and maintain state-of-the-art environmental compliance with all regulations.
These and other facets of our platform and positions are expressed in my autobiography, The Last Free Man in America: Meets The Synthetic Subversion, available online at Amazon.com or by contacting us. It recounts my efforts over the past 35 years to change the cannabis laws and my friendships with Jack Herer, Marc Emery, and Willie Nelson (among many others). Willie has done three benefit concerts for me; he and I appeared on the front and back covers of the January 1991 issue of High Times. That was when I introduced Willie to biofuels. I drove my hemp oil fueled Mercedes across Kentucky as part of my campaign, the first time in 50 years that an automobile powered by hemp oil had traveled on a US highway. Now Willie is leading the biofuel pack with WN biodiesel. What a guy! I tell you all this because freedom loving people everywhere – and particularly my favorites, the cannabis community – should be aware that my election in this year’s campaign would be a giant step toward positive change not only in Kentucky where the benefits will be immediate, but nationwide as the effects of our changes become apparent.
Because the two largest newspapers and various other media in Kentucky have boycotted me in the past, we anticipate that they will do so again in this race. Therefore, we must raise sufficient finances to air our message by traditional means, to mount a winning campaign. We ask for your support in the form of a contribution; $100 is less than the court costs of speeding tickets in many states, so $100 spent towards actually changing laws is money well directed. If you can send $1,000 (the maximum allowable), we will be greatly honored, as we will be by donations of any amount. We can’t accept cash, but please send your check or money order to: Galbraith for Governor, P.O. Box 1438, Lexington, Kentucky 40588. We need your name, address, occupation and telephone number. You can also contribute online at Gatewood.com. (Election laws prevent Canadians or other foreigners from making donations to American campaigns so, unfortunately, we can only accept money from US citizens.)
Folks, I know you are aware of others who may have run for public office on the cannabis issue alone, but this campaign is much more extensive than that. Cannabis is a forefront matter in this race because it is interwoven with other real issues Americans and Kentuckians face in modern day-to-day life. No other candidate of our persuasion has more command of these other issues than I do, which makes me qualified to be Governor. All we lack right now is the funding and public support, and I’m asking you to please pitch in. God Bless You All.
s
Sheree Krider
http://ky.usmjparty.org
Louisville, KY
Email: ShereeKrider@usmjparty.org
KENTUCKY MARIJUANA PARTY 