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Richard Ojeda, Democratic candidate for West Virginia's 3rd Congressional district, watches election results during his campaign's watch party at Special Occasions in Yuma, near Logan, W.Va., Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. (Dylan Vidovich/The Logan Banner via AP) |
Reshared by: KB72wenty3 aka VinnyG
By: John Raby, The Associated Press
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| Photo courtesy of militarytimes.commilitarytimes.com |
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A retired Army paratrooper and current West
Virginia lawmaker seeking to restore the Democratic Party’s blue-collar
roots chose Veterans Day to formalize his campaign for the presidency in
2020.
Richard Ojeda made the announcement Monday at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington. Ojeda filed his campaign committee paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday.
"We have not had people that have really fought for the working-class citizens in this country," Ojeda said.
The 24-year veteran known for his tattoos and populist message lost a U.S. House race to a Republican this month.
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| Photo courtesy of ThoughtCO. |
the West Virginia senate in 2016 and became a champion of
teachers during their fight for better pay and benefits.
He sponsored
successful legislation to make medical marijuana legal, and has stressed
health care and economic issues in a district reeling from lost coal
jobs.
He said Republicans and Democrats alike, including President Donald Trump, have focused more on "infighting, political wars."
Ojeda is a relative newcomer to politics. He lost a 2014 primary race
for the U.S. House before winning his senate seat in 2016.
After retiring from a 24-year military career, he co-founded a
nonprofit group that gave shoe vouchers to schoolchildren and provided meals to the poor and elderly, among other things. He said some kids in
the coal region had it worse than the ones he saw in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Ojeda said politicians on the federal level should be required to donate everything they make above $1 million to charity.
Ojeda took the struggles of state teachers to heart because he spent
four years as a high school ROTC instructor. He spoke to groups of
teachers several times and made a passionate Senate speech in January in
favor of them. The next month they embarked on a nine-day strike and
won a 5 percent pay increase.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/11/14/military-vet-ojeda-announces-2020-presidential-campaign/
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/11/14/military-vet-ojeda-announces-2020-presidential-campaign/
