When you run for public office, you think of family first – your spouse, your children, and your parents. Both of my parents were teachers. I grew up in a modest home where education was important, and where I was rooted in the kind of traditional family values which everyone can appreciate. The lessons I learned then are the lessons that I am trying to pass on to my children and my grandchildren today. Yet, we are constantly being told by, what Ronald Reagan called a “distant elite,” that we need to change. But what exactly are these people asking us to change?
In 1979, Margaret Thatcher said, “it’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.”
Isn’t that what we want again in our government? We as Alabamians have seen too many people who come to Montgomery and bill themselves as the one who will change the system, only to find out that it is the system that has changed them. The moment change asks you to put your values aside, is the time when danger looms on the horizon. Values which are a mile wide and one inch deep will not be able to change the course of our great state. But values rooted in the soil of belief and the principles of our nations’ founding will be able to deliver on better infrastructure and a better education for our most precious resource – our children.
Hard work, honesty, faith in God, respect for life, and a rugged optimism which believes that tomorrow can always be better – have held many Alabamians through good times and dark times. Simple, yes. But it is in these same deeply-rooted, proven values, which lies the confidence we need to address the future. We are a people who look to God, while rolling up our sleeves to work harder in the jobs we do and for the families we raise.
This is precisely why I am running for Lt. Governor. I want to continue bringing our timeless Alabama values to Montgomery. I want to bring about jobs – good, high-paying jobs – for our state, so that families become stronger. I want to strengthen our high school, community college and higher education offerings, so that our children today will be the best and brightest. I want to be the Lt. Governor who puts our families and our values first – rejecting self-interest and special interests. These are the values which create the real leaders in Alabama, and this can be our future. Our brighter future.
The above is the opinion of Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, the President of the Alabama Public Service Commission. Twinkle is a small business owner and former Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. Opinions expressed do not represent the position of the Public Service Commission or its other commissioners.
