Mark Small

Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines “progressive”: “favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp in political matters” 3/15

The word “progressive” has become pejorative on today’s political scene, but was long embraced by GOP elected officials, most notably President Theodore Roosevelt and Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette. 4/15

GOP of recent years is neither progressive nor “conservative”: “Predisposed to traditional attitudes, beliefs, and teachings; favoring established traditions, social stability, and gradual developments as opposed to abrupt changes.” Black’s Law Dictionary. 5/15

GOP’s trad’l attitudes, beliefs & est’d traditions: support of civil rights (Lincoln, Reconstruction, opposed Dixiecrats in 1950s), environment (T Roosevelt; EPA under Nixon), opposition to military-industrial complex (Pres Eisenhower’s farewell address). 6/15

GOP opposed accumulation of great wealth in few hands (1854 origins; T. Roosevelt’s “busting” of “trusts”) and was extremely aggressive as it sought to protect the rights of those newly freed from slavery. 7/15

Unfettered pwr of $ in campaigns was notably opposed in 1894 by Montana’s GOP. Neither the minority of people who hacked and took over the GOP in recent years nor my opponents in the May 5 primary are conservative. 8/15

Religious bigotry - as pushed by one of my opponents Rev Micah Beckwith - and embracing the recent idiocracy to which the GOP post-tea party has devolved are neither progressive nor conservative. 9/15

To be clear: I do NOT want votes of racists, people who love dictatorships, advocates of a military to kill as many people as possible. Those individuals have over a dozen other candidates for whom they may cast ballots. 10/15

By May 5 the only contested elections on our Hoosier primary horizon R in Democratic Party for POTUS and for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. By then even those races, from a practical standpoint, may be over. 11/15

If you want to begin to push forces of bigotry and ignorance out of politics, you should vote for me. We need to protect civil rights, repair our infrastructure, and make our nation more secure by cutting our military spending in half. 12/15

That’s right - our military has made us less secure. We have bombed and killed a lot of people for “freedom and democracy.” When people and bombed and killed, they tend to want to bomb and kill right back. 13/15

Another “war” we’ve waged that has hurt us: so-called war on drugs. We should end prohibition on drugs. Portugal’s rates of use & overdoses dropped significantly since it decriminalized laws FOR ALL DRUGS in 2000. 14/15