I was invited to speak to this group on 8/8/22 Here's what I said:
I am Barry Lee Wendell, the Democratic Party candidate in West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. The District is rated R +30, so a hard race to win. As a 72-year old Jew in a same-gender marriage, I may not be the best person to run for this office. Two of us stepped up, and I won the primary.
I had a scare Friday. A friend, a recently retired high school science teacher in Long Beach, California, a friend of at least thirty years, was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was born and raised. His father had just died at 90 and they conducted a shiva minyan, a Jewish prayer service held every day for a week after a death, from the assisted living facility where his father had lived. Jonathan is married to a Mexican-American man who has a PhD. In early childhood education for children who lack language skills in both English and Spanish. George teaches elementary school in Long Beach. Jonathan and George have an adopted son who just graduated from high school this year. Jonathan’s father was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931. A Polish family hid him and his parents during World War II. They all survived, but were not permitted to stay in Poland. They settled in Canada.
Candidates in the United States have flirted with Nazi ideas, most closely, Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania, who has a Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro. In our own state, Delegate Danielle Walker has faced threats, including from a man wearing Nazi paraphernalia when she was at a Black Lives Matter rally in Preston County.
The attacks on women’s rights, starting with the Supreme Court’s majority vote overturning Roe vs.Wade, is a prelude to worse things. I attended the so-called hearing on HB 302 in Charleston two weeks ago. While Justice Alito said this doesn’t mean they will try to overturn same-gender marriage, Justice Thomas said it very well might. Ruth Rowan, a delegate from Hampshire County who introduced an anti-abortion amendment last year in the Legislature said “West Virginia is a Christian state” as her reason for introducing the bill. I wrote to her and told her there is no established religion in this country. I worry about people like Jonathan and George and their apparently happy and well-adjusted son, Jimmy.
I make it clear in my campaign that “Mountaineers are always free” and that we are all entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I always say I am pro-choice, a religious Jew, and married to a man, Morgantown’s Rabbi Joe. People often tell me I’m brave. The truth is that my father died at 69 and my mother at 75. I’ll be 73 by Election Day and I don’t see a long future ahead of me, nor do I have a career that will be upended by a defeat in this election.
I have a dedicated group of volunteers. I love traveling around the state, I think I write and speak well. In Los Angeles, I studied both writing and acting. I don’t have the technological skills of today’s third graders, and I prefer that someone else raise money. I’m grateful that I have people who have volunteered to help or take charge of those things.
We have about eighty donors to the campaign, all friends and family across the country, and people in West Virginia who have heard me speak or seen me online. I can’t match Alex Mooney for money, and I tell people not to fret that they don’t have enough money to send me. I tell them I’m grateful for every dollar, and I am, and that they should tell their friends and neighbors about the campaign.
Alex Mooney has done nothing for West Virginia. He voted against the various Infrastructure and Build Back Better Acts, he voted against getting our veterans who are ill from burn pits the benefits they deserve, against lowering the cost of life-saving drugs like insulin. He has said “ Life begins at conception” and “Marriage is only between a man and a woman.” That gets personal for me.
Liberal institutions have not given my campaign their support, and my sister called me to say that she saw in The Washington Post that the national Democratic Party wouldn’t contest the incumbents in West Virginia. Danielle Walker, the new vice-chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, has spoken at my events and touted my candidacy online, but that’s the extent of state support. My campaign has reached out to County chairs in the counties in my district. I’ve gotten support and encouragement from Berkeley, Hampshire, Marshall and Tucker Counties. Individuals in Mineral and Wood Counties have reached out to me.
Joe Statler, the lone Republican delegate in Monongalia County, saw me in Charleston. He laughed when I asked him to vote against banning abortion, and asked how my campaign is going. I said “It’s going great. I’ll be a shoo-in once Mooney and Trump go to jail.” It was my turn to laugh.
This is the choice: Do we just want to let it go that we have a corporate extremist ideologue in Congress, or are we willing to fight to bring real democracy by backing a non-corporate, open-hearted and open-minded candidate who wants people in West Virginia to have better lives. I ask for your support and encouragement in this campaign. Thanks you for inviting me and allowing me to speak.
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