Without a doubt, the most strident candidate at Friday’s Lincoln Day Dinner was businessman Peter Schiff, one of the GOP’s U.S. Senate hopefuls.
When he got up to talk, he held up his drink and said if he’d known he was going to address the crowd, he probably would have imbibed less. He was still pretty sober, though.
Having a drink or two is nonetheless always a good start, from a reporter’s perspective, particularly when it’s possible he doesn’t even know the press is in the room.
I’ll get back to what he said, but my favorite moment in his 5-minute talk came near the end, when his cell phone rang.
As he grabbed the phone and peered at the number of the caller, Schiff asked, “What is that? My ex-wife?”
He said she always calls at the worst times.
Then Schiff added, “I don’t learn from my mistakes. I’m getting married again in May.”
Most of his speech, though, focused on a blistering diatribe against what’s going on in Washington.
“We are on a collision course for disaster,” Schiff said.
But, he argued, voters in Connecticut “can do something to change the course.”
They can do it, of course, by electing him.
Schiff said the Republican leadership in the nation’s capital “has sold us out.”
He said the GOP leadership has compromised on too much for too long.
Schiff said he won’t bend.
“I want to win the ideological battle in Washington,” Schiff said.
He said the nation has to put the brakes on runaway spending. He said the government is twice the size it was a decade ago and it’s still growing.
“It’s a self-perpetuating cycle,” he said, and represents a disastrous course if there is no reform.
Right off the bat, Schiff said, he would refuse to increase the debt ceiling another penny, essentially capping the money the government could spend.
If enough Republicans say no to any increase – and filibuster any effort to hike spending -- “then the government has to cut. They have no choice,” he said.
With a $14 trillion debt ceiling looming, Schiff said, it’s time to say no higher.
“That’s not going to pass with me in the Senate,” he said.
Schiff said he understands the destructive policies undertaken in Washington and wants the chance “to prevent the worst case from happening.”
He said there are only one or two years left “to get this done. Otherwise, I think we’re finished.”
“The government is the source, not the solution, to our problems,” Schiff said.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
17 comments:
The more I learn about Peter Schiff, the more I like him. America needs more like Peter Schiff.
Stephen ..... your attempt to soil the image of Peter Schiff backfired . Maybe you should have stopped @ calling him a drunken womanizer and left out what he had to say .
He was not drunk. And I don't think having an ex-wife makes him a womanizer either.
And putting in what he had to say was the whole point. He was interesting.
Positevely wrong is wrong again !
Maybe he is a drunkin womanizer !
Schiff has my vote. This is the same guy that everyone was laughing at in 2005 about the whole housing crisis. This guy is like the Nostradamus of economics. If you go out to Youtube and search his name you will can learn a lot more about him. Very interesting dude. I think the Republicans are starting to see that this guy is the dark shadow that is about to emerge. I watched the debate the other night on Fox and the guy had the loudest support in the room.
Thanks for making the decision much easier, Positively Right.
If you like him, he must be a twisted weirdo.
How does that saying go? "birds of a feather..."
I was at the event and Schiff said all those things and more. Steve actually made him sound better than he did.
Peter did not come off very good and in fact turned many in the room off.
Steve did a good job covering the event and gave Schiff more attention than he deserved.
Anyone who is actively campaigning for public office and gets drunk at a political function deserves to be called out on it. If you can't take the heat, Pete, stay out of the kitchen.
March 8, 2010 12:15 PM:
That would be fine except for the following:
I can make a great argument as to why Peter Schiff is a great leader and why he would be a great Senator while all you can do is throw out baseless, useless and immature insults at me.
But that's OK. I don't expect better from people like you.
Steve you did not say anything about Jason Welsh speech?
Looks like March 8, 2010 12:15 PM took a page right out of your play book Negatively Wrong Cuckoo Conservative. LMFAO!
Odin.
Peter Schiff was not drunk at the event. He did make a joke about that if he had known that he was speaking first that he'd would have skipped his drink. It was a said as a joke. Steve never said that he was drunk his write up. Peter also joked about getting a call from his ex when his phone rang while he was addressing the crowd. This led to another joke about getting married again. So before this gets out of hand he was not drinking or womenizing.
As for his other comments about what he was running on and his political views, from where I was standing in the back of the room they did not go over all that well. Both Linda and Rob did a much better job of relating to the audience and explaining why folks should support them for Senate than Peter did.
Schiff is just a con man who is using the Senate campaign to get free advertising for his investment businesses. The CT Mirror has a piece describing a meeting where Schiff told the audience that the U.S. economy is going to collapse and we should all buy gold and silver, keeping some of it in foreign countries and the rest buried in our backyards. He then mentioned that he is about to start a precious metals investment business. That about says it all.
All the Democrats on here are about raising taxes to keep their Union jobs. They will say anything to bash/down grade a Republican on here.
Have you ever been to a Democratic party? There is more beer and people drinking then at Sporty's on a Friday night.
Peter Schiff clearly understands that our country's economy is the most important tissue regarding everything from jobs to national defense. He understands why our country is great and the people here enjoy the best standard of living in the history of the world. That reason is that we are a free, capitalist society based on the theories of Adam Smith which is again that of free-enterprise and capitalism. Big government, out of control spending, out of control government and entitlements are what is bringing us down.
And I won't go as far as calling people like "March 8, 2010 3:50 PM" cuckoo. That would be giving credit for them having a brain in the first place worth mentioning. LMFsmarterthanyourAO!!
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