Natalie Lakosil
Douglas Dispatch

More than 150 people showed at the Tea Party event Saturday for a chance to hear a different view this time around.

The event was held in the lobby of the Gadsden Hotel as candidates, Jesse Kelly and Tom Horne spoke to the packed room. Kelly, a former U.S. Marine, is a Republican GOP running for Congress. Horne is a Republican GOP candidate for Attorney General.

Two women, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a women’s health physician who spoke on the downfalls of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform and Gabriela Mercer, a naturalized U.S. citizen spoke on becoming an American citizen.

“The American people voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders,” Kelly said. He stated that the Democrats, at all levels in Washington D.C., have endangered the freedoms of the nation.

The government meddles in every aspect of the American people’s lives, he said. “Too much government got us into this fiscal mess, more government wont get us out,” Kelly said.

The crowd laughed as Kelly said, “We can be as fat as we want to be in the United States of America.”

When asked at the event by a crowd member would he repeal Obama’s healthcare if elected, Kelly responded, “Yes, of course.”

“It is your healthcare, not the governments, not the insurance companies. You have to take the power back,” Kelly told the crowd.

For border security, Kelly, who toured the border before the Tea Party event, wants more Border Patrol on the border. “It is an embarrassment what is on the border,” Kelly said.

He also wants a double layer border fence, “in areas where they have built it already, violent crime has dropped 94 percent,” he said.

Kelly took a jab at his party, saying some Republicans who go along with Democrats also cause the problem in D.C.

People have to work to take the country back, he said. It is no longer just about voting but also about working to have people elected.

“Freedom is the DNA of the country,” he said.

“I am questioning their (the Democrats) patriotism,” he said, because one cannot say they love America and do the things they have to tear the country down.”

Kelly, 29, thinks his age will be a huge advantage. “I have fresh ideas to offer not stale old ones that caused the country to be bankrupt,” he said. “The United States is the greatest country in the history of the world and I want to make sure it stay’s that way.”

Kelly opened a campaign office in Sierra Vista after the Tea Party Saturday at 350 S. Seventh Street, C Suite 4.

One patron at the event knows life on both sides of the border. Alice Valenzuela, a U.S. citizen lives and owns a ranch in Mexico, she is also a naturalized citizen in Mexico.

Her families ranch is about 40 miles from Douglas in, Fronteras, Mexico.

“The powerful elite of Mexico want a monopoly on every economic opportunity available. People don’t want to leave Mexico, they are expelled from the country,” Valenzuela said.

“I offer a non biased observation having dual citizenship and running a business in Mexico,” she said.

Valenzuela and her husband run a company that dismantles and recycles electronic parts. The company has created an opportunity for many jobs in the Fronteras community but because of the oppressive government, women especially are often not allowed to obtain the permits required to work, she said.

The business has been open for the past five years and Valenzuela is still waiting on electricity to be turned on and final permits to be obtained.

“ The answer is for people to assert the rights they already have,” she said.

Horne’s Views

Horne said his first priority, as Attorney General will be to pressure the federal government to have people on the border and more border security. His second priority is for people to be safe in their homes and communities and third to attract business from other states to Arizona for growth.

He will have to defend Senate Bill 1070 against the federal government, in what he considered as a state’s personal right. He will also repeal Obama’s healthcare plan if elected.

Horne said that during his two terms as state superintendent of public instruction and as a lawyer, he has demonstrated he will take on hard issues. Ranging from federal intrusion in state issues to fighting groups who have misused education for their own agendas.

A medical perspective

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a women’s health physician, took the stage at the Tea Party event to address Obama’s healthcare reform.

What is happening in Washington, D.C., and spreading across the country is politicians thinking they know more “than we the people,” she said Saturday.

The Democratic administration of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are creating laws and manipulating others for their own advantage, hiding in traces of language, things that are a danger to America’s freedoms, Vliet said.

Vliet who has been treated in the U.S., England and Russia said she prefers the U.S. system without the extreme government control. She said the national health care law and economic stimulus package have hidden things in them that will create a true socialized medical system in the country, much like in England and Russia, neither of which are good because they ration health care.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution giving the federal government the right to run a national health care program, she said.

“The citizens were lied to,” Vliet said, pertaining to the talk about how Obama’s healthcare plans will improve the nation’s health care.

Within the stimulus is a requirement for all medical records from hospitals to physicians to eventually be provided to the government, and they can be used to determine what type of care will be approved, she said.

Arizona’s Medicaid program will suffer and because of the high number of illegal immigrants in the state who have no health insurance, the strain on the system will become worse, she said.

“Both parties have screwed up,” said Vliet, who says she is an independent and said she made a mistake by voting for now two-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It’s an error in her judgment that will be corrected in the November election, Vliet said.

An immigrants views

Gabriela Mercer is a naturalized U.S. citizen. She fell in love with the United States when she went on a trip to Disneyland as an elementary student from Mexico.

She said she wanted to enter the U.S. the right way and obtained a green card, which was hard to get. As an adult Mercer worked hard to become a U.S. citizen.

“I’m not a Latina, Chicano, Hispanic or Mexican-American. I’m an American of Mexican ancestry,” she said as the audience applauded her loudly. Mercer was again applauded when she mentioned her daughter is a nine-year veteran of the Marine Corps and a staff sergeant now deployed to Afghanistan.

Mercer said she knows illegal immigrants are getting free health care throughout America to the disadvantage of those who are citizens and may not be able to afford it.

When she spoke about bill 1070, Mercer said the Mexican media is not being truthful about it, “they’re lying.”

She said she is worried American is changing for the worse.

“That’s not the America I migrated to,” she said.

Other political candidates at the Tea Party event

Candidates for other offices turned out at the Tea Party event, to either show their support for Kelly or to mingle with Douglas locals.

State Representative for District 25, David Stevens, from Sierra Vista is up for re-election this year. He just finished his first term, which is two years.

“I am supporting who takes out Giffords,” Stevens said. “Kelly is a straight forward honest man who will shake up Washington,” he said.

“I was tired of yelling at the television so I decided to run myself and never gave up,” Stevens said. He was in the army for 11 years and then decided to become involved with politics in 2002.

He is for SB 1070 (co-sponsor) and more border security. He fought for rural healthcare funding (GME, DSH and SAV).

There has been a 20 percent reduction of state spending since Stevens took office in 2009, while protectiong education, public safety, hospitals and veterans.

Mary Ellen Dunlap, from Bisbee, is running for Clerk of Superior Court. She has had more than 25 years of legal experience with 16 years being hands-on experience in the Clerk of Superior Court Office.

The Arizona Supreme Court identified her efforts as “best practices.” She has had more than seven years in the County Attorney’s Office.

Dunlap is indorsed by Kelly and said this about him and Horne, “I know they will both do a great job in office and make a difference.”

“I have a passion for being clerk and helping people,” she said.

Roger Contreras is running for Cochise County Superior Court Judge, Division II. Contreras is a resident of Hereford and has been Deputy County Attorney at the Cochise County Attorney’s Office, supervisor of the misdemeanor division since 2005.

He attended Northern Arizona University for his B.S. and attended J.D. University of Arizona College of Law. He has passed the bar in both California and Arizona.

He is also currently Judge Pro Tempore for Pima County Superior Court and a mediator at the Office of the Arizona Attorney General. He came to the event to reach out to local people but does not get involved with other politics.