At the 41st annual Greene County GOP Pig Roast U.S. Senate candidate Daniel Gade warned that American values are at risk if the Democrats gain power.
“The Left in the United States have decided that now is the time when they come after our values. And they’ve openly said what they’re going to do if, God forbid, they win the presidency and if, God forbid, they win and they take the Senate,” Gade said in his speech.
“And here’s what they’re going to do: they’re going to stack the Supreme Court. No question about it, they’re going to stack the Supreme Court. They’re going to make D.C. a state, giving them two brand new Senators. They’re going to abolish the filibuster and then America as we know it is gone.”
“This fight is about our values. This fight is about all the things that make America the best place that has ever existed in all of humanity.” Gade added, “I’m a different kind of candidate, a different kind of candidate because I’m not a career politician.”
Gade told the crowd that his message is resonating across Virginia because it is attracting independents. “Independents are looking at their computers and they’re realizing that in 2020 finally at the Senate level they have a chance to vote for a career servant instead of a career politician.”
“Far rights suck, but then the Far lefts suck too,” attendee Mason Pickett said. “Extremes are no good.” Pickett said he was a Democrat until the 2010s, and he’s worried about what will happen in the election. “It’s going to be a wild time. Somebody better win in a big percentage way.”
In an interview with The Virginia Star, Gade said his center lean is not a political calculation. “It’s a kind of a philosophical thing for me. It’s not a political game at all.” Gade continued, “When I’m elected I’m going to represent all Virginians, including the far left (but they don’t care about me,) but especially the people who are Republicans, [or] who are Democrats, who say, ‘You know what? I don’t like politics. I don’t want politics in my life. Instead what I want is to live my life free.'”
“Everybody is really excited about having a non-career politician,” Gade said. “It’s so great because it shows that the polarization and the fear and the resentment [doesn’t] have to be the future of the commonwealth.”
Gade provided one example of his across-the-aisle approach. At the Norfolk State University debate, Gade said the moderator asked if the Black Lives Matter movement was a divisive social unrest movement, or a movement towards social justice. Gade answered that Republicans should be proud of their history freeing the slaves and fighting for civil rights.
“And we should also recognize that as Republicans it’s absolutely okay to say that Black people’s lives matter. Black Lives Matter the concept, we should 100 percent be embracing that. It’s true. Black people’s lives matter,” Gade said.
“We need criminal justice reform, we need to fix our failing schools,” Gade added. “If you listen to the rest of the statement I made, Black Lives Matter the movement has some real problems with infiltration from the far left, antifa, socialist anarchists and all that.”
“But we as conservatives need to recognize that every single person in our system of government, every single person in our system is granted from God with individual liberty and with infinite value in the eyes of the creator, and that value should be protected by government,” Gade said. “That’s what we do, that’s what government is for.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Phot0 “Daniel Gade” by Daniel Gade.