Already, without missing a beat, my Republican opponent
@DonJBacon is retreating to a TALKING POINT he will continually use in the general election.
He is calling me a "socialist."
But of course this smear has a LONG history in our politics.
. Want to learn about it?
In response to FDR's New Deal programs, wealthy businessmen supported Al Smith. In a speech, Smith said:
“There can be only one Capital — Washington or Moscow. There can be only one flag, the Stars and Stripes, or the red flag of the godless union of the Soviet."
In 1945, President Harry Truman proposed a national health insurance program. In response, the American Medical Association condemned it as “socialized medicine” and labeled Truman’s White House staffers “followers of the Moscow party line.”
In 1960, Barry Goldwater wrote LBJ urging him NOT be JFK's VP:
"It is difficult to imagine a person like you running in a second spot to a weaker man, but it is even more incredible to try to understand how you are going to try to embrace the socialist platform of your party.”
In 1950, Nixon ran against Rep. Helen Gahagan. Nixon’s entire campaign involved calling her a communist. He labeled her the “Pink Lady” (pink being the color of those who were sympathetic to Red communists) who was “pink down to her underwear.”
When Democratic politicians BEGAN discussing Medicare, the AMA hired the then-actor Ronald Reagan to make a record about how SCARY and "socialist" Medicare was.
Reagan also wrote a letter comparing President John F. Kennedy to author Karl Marx.
Can you guess what conservative segregationists in the South called civil rights activists? Yep. "Socialists" and "Communists." They also claimed that the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, which banned school segregation, was the product of communist influence.
So @DonJBacon. We SEE YOU. This isn't going to work this time my friend. We know what PLAYBOOK you're taking from.
See you in November Don.
Shahid Buttar for Congress on Twitter: "@SpeakerPelosi Prefer universal healthcare to "Let them eat cake"?