Tom Lingenfelter

==Background==
* Lt. Gov candidate, Independent, with Russ Diamond for Governor.
* 215-230-5330, Fax: 215-230-7197, tom -at- tomlingenfelter -dot- com
* Part of PA Clean Sweep
==Links==
* http://www.tomlingenfelter.com/
==Issues, harvested May 23, 2006, My Core Beliefs:==
I believe that Special Interests should not call the White House their home.
I believe government must decrease taxes and spending.
I believe Education is local – not national.
I believe our government is too intrusive in the affairs of other governments.
I believe in the rule of law and oppose corporate and judicial corruption.
I believe in economic freedom, therefore I support the Fair Tax and the abolishment of the income tax.
I believe in personal freedom (minding your own business) and that government has become overly intrusive in our personal lives.
I believe to be prepared for war is the best assurance of peace.
I believe in ‘Fair Trade’ and oppose government sponsored unfair ‘Free Trade’.
I believe “the Bush immigration proposal is wrong for immigrants and wrong for America.”
I believe our government should not promote exporting of American jobs.
I believe in America because freedom was born here! Declaration of Independence 1776, US Constitution 1787.
==Public Statement, PA Clean Sweep Rally, PA Capitol Rotunda, January 30, 2006==
Ladies & Gentlemen,
We (the People) want to thank you for your “involvement” in the political process. With apathy, ignorance and distrust on one hand and the growing power of special interests on the other, the threat to representative democracy grows more real every day. We need good people like yourselves to keep the system open and honest. It is by the participation of good people that we can effect needed changes in the way we choose our elected officials and run our government, especially in Pennsylvania where bad politics has become the norm.
Even now, the power-hungry political machine works to prevent opposition to their anointed puppet candidates in the May primary. Their goal of “politics as usual” is a primary without choices. This arrogance, disrespect and manipulation of the political process must not go unchallenged.
Abraham Lincoln said –
“This country…belongs to the people…whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right…to overthrow it.”
Let the Revolution begin!
==Insights==
Tom Lingenfelter has never been one to let an election loss - or two, or
three - deter him in his quest to right what he feels are the wrongs of the
political system.
So the Doylestown resident is throwing his hat in the ring again, this time
as the PACleanSweep candidate for lieutenant governor. He was a founding
board member of the anti-incumbent group started by Russ Diamond, who is
running for governor. The pair, running as independents, have to collect
just more than 67,000 signatures to secure a spot on the November ballot.
Lingenfelter, 67, had been running as a Democrat in the state Senate primary
when he got the call from Diamond.
"The only real, real way to fix anything is to run for office," he said. "I
run because I have to. It's my duty."
And run he has: As a Democrat, he tried for Bucks County controller last
year and ran the party's 2004 congressional primary.
As a Republican, he was unendorsed in the 2003 county commissioner race, and
three times sought that party's nomination for the Eighth District
congressional seat. He ran for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's seat in 1998. He
attempted to run for lieutenant governor in 1994, then sued after his name
was thrown off the ballot over a petition challenge. In the win column, he
scored a spot as Republican state committeeman in 1996. At least one of his
showings surprised party powers: he won 40 percent of the vote in the 1996
primary against former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood.
Lingenfelter said he doesn't see the repeated party switching as a
detriment.
"I switch because I'm trying to find a way in the political system where
they appreciate somebody who plays by the rules. And I can't find that."
==Links==
* Russ Diamond
* VIPs
Lingenfelter