There are so many to thank for their hard work.  You have been out in the cold wind and rain, talking to neighbors and friends and strangers, too.

I want to give a special thank you to Sandra.  Your enthusiasm and your volunteers have inspired me and so many others to work harder.  Thank you.

Sarah and Afiyah – thank you for your dedication and hard work every day, starting with the petition drive and going right up to this evening.  This campaign would not have started without the 12 thousand 15 signatures.

And a special thank you Curtis, my friend first and then my loyal campaign manager.  I don’t have time to mention all your strengths and abilities, your contacts, your 24/7 work habit and your counsel.

This campaign was all about your families’ future and we the people.

It’s about changing our government to work for the people not the investment bankers and the multinational corporations.

When 3 men in a room tried to tell us who would be on the ballot, 12 thousand of you said, “No, we won’t let you tell us who to vote for.”

And when the lobbyists came and spent millions of dollars to buy this election, we said “no, we won’t let you tell us who to vote for.”

And when the Wall Street investment bankers said we don’t need to make things in America anymore, we said “No, you are wrong.  You are destroying our jobs, our homes, our health care, our Social Security, and putting our children in debt and poverty.”

We built this campaign the same way we built this country – with pride, hard work and honesty.

Tonight, the people of Western New York have sent a message to Washington.  We’ve had enough of politics as usual.  We won’t be fooled by labels.

We are dedicated to America … to an America where we are manufacturers, not just consumers of foreign products.

I have been at war against job-killing free traders since 2003.  I have won battles and lost some.

My motto is “I have not yet begun to fight.”

The fight goes on.

In a matter of days, three new free trade agreements will come up for votes in Congress. We will continue to fight against them.

This election served notice to every member of Congress:

You ignore the wishes of the people, and your own job will be challenged.

The American people do not want their congressmen to be job-killers.

We will challenge the leaders of both parties in their districts.

We can be proud of what we have done today.  We have changed the politics of western New York.  We have set an example for voters across the country for the 2012 election.

Remember: “No Illegitium Carborundum.”

Translated: “Don’t let the lying bastards grind you down.”

On to the next battle.

Thank you.

While the candidates of the two major parties argued over “creating jobs,” reducing the deficit and fixing Medicare, neither of them talked about our jobs going overseas.

Jack Davis did, and his message struck a chord.

Jack Davis delivered a common sense message that Democrats, Republicans and independents understood: It’s no coincidence  governments are running deficits at the same time millions of Americans are unemployed and we import all our consumer products.

The key to reducing deficits and putting Social Security and Medicare on a sound footing is to put Americans back to work so more of us are paying taxes into the treasury and trust funds.  And to put Americans back to work, we must make the products we use rather than importing them from foreign countries.

Karl Rove boasted he had the playbook to take Jack Davis out, and he and fellow Republicans including Jane Corwin spent millions spreading lies to do it.  Kathy Hochul and the national Democrats spent more money to spread lies about Jack and Social Security.

But despite the millions spent to smear him and muddy the waters, Jack Davis’ message got through.

Now, the leaders of both parties are pushing new trade treaties that promise to offshore more jobs.  Poll after poll shows the majority of Americans opposes these treaties.

The candidates who are going to be victorious in 2012 will carry the common sense message of economic patriotism that Jack Davis delivered in Western New York in the spring of 2011.  We must have a Made in America economy if we are to restore prosperity and put our fiscal house in order.

Jack Davis has been fighting the war against job-killing free trade policies since 2003.  You win some battles and you lose some.  But the fight goes on.  Jack’s motto is “I have not yet begun to fight.”

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Jack Davis is an engineer, innovator and entrepreneur who founded and manages a manufacturing company in Western New York, I Squared R Element, Inc.  He is giving the company to his employees when he retires.

NIAGARA FALLS — In the race for the 26th Congressional District, only one candidate has spent more time talking about what he considers to be the problems at hand than complaining about the other candidates. That candidate, Jack Davis, gets our vote in Tuesday’s election.

Democrat Kathy Hochul and Republican Jane Corwin both have strong points, but neither comes across as having the same degree of conviction of Davis, who is registered as a Republican, but running as an independent.

In face-to-face interviews, Davis came across as the most sincere and least like a politician.

Davis has run for this seat three times before — in 2004, 2006 and 2010. He’s run previously as a Democrat, changed his affiliation back to Republican and now is running on the Tea Party line, but he has maintained the same message for all four runs.

It’s hard not to identify with Davis’ goals of wanting to create jobs in the United States through the abolition of free trade agreements like NAFTA, which he says is the primary reason jobs are leaving and factories are closing.

True, it is Davis’ sole issue. But the issue itself is intrinsic in fixing so many of the other things that haunt us these days, including health care, Social Security and national security.

If people have jobs, they’re more like to be able to afford health care. If people have jobs, they’re paying into Social Security. If we stop worrying about “most favored nations,” we can concentrate on who our real friends and enemies are.

Yes, we would have liked Davis to participate in the debates held in Buffalo and Rochester. He said he dropped out because he can’t stand to be on the same stage as the other candidates, who he says lie about his record.

And yes, we think Davis could probably use some polish.

But we like his message. And moreover, we like Jack.

We realize that many people are going to feel they should choose between Hochul and Corwin, as conventional wisdom says that either the Democrat or Republican will win and they don’t want to waste their vote. However, voting your conscience is never a wasted vote.

“There’s no one in Congress like me,” Davis said.

We think the voters of the 26th Congressional District should right that wrong.

Following a week of bad headlines and running from cameras after a bungled attempt to ambush independent candidate Jack Davis, it appears support from Jane Corwin is collapsing.  A poll released Thursday night shows her a distant third in the three way matchup to fill the seat vacated by Chris Lee.

The poll surveyed 4,602 ‘frequent’ voters most likely to cast a ballot in New York’s 26^th District special election.  Democrat Kathy Hochul came out on top at 44%.  Jack Davis came in second with 27% of the vote.  Jane Corwin, once considered the odds-on favorite, finished last with only 17% support.  12% of respondents remained undecided.

“It’s clear that if conservatives, Republicans and Tea Party patriots want to keep Kathy Hochul, a Nancy Pelosi Democrat, from representing this district, they must vote for Jack Davis,” said Jack Davis campaign manager Curtis Ellis.

The survey released by the Jack Davis campaign was conducted Wednesday May 18 and Thursday May 19.

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Jack Davis is an engineer, innovator and entrepreneur who founded and manages a manufacturing company in Western New York, I Squared R Element, Inc.  He is giving the company to his employees when he retires.

The real issue both parties are ignoring

People in western New York used to roll their eyes when the name Jack Davis came up.

Mr. Davis, a wealthy industrialist, spent over $5 million of his own money on failed efforts to win a seat in Congress. He once said, after a congressman sent sexually suggestive messages to young pages, that he would have used a bat on anyone who had done the same thing to one of his sons. He also predicted that states with large numbers of Mexican immigrants would secede and start a second Civil War.

But these days, few are writing off Mr. Davis.

A special election fight over a House of Representatives seat, which has attracted big money and huge interest from both parties, now appears to hinge on him. Running as a Tea Party candidate, Mr. Davis, 78, is siphoning support from the Republican candidate — so much so that Republicans privately concede that if they do not stop him, they could hand a seat they have long held to the Democrats.

With a week remaining in the race, Republican heavyweights like House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and conservative organizations, including one with ties to Karl Rove, are questioning Mr. Davis’s conservative credentials in television advertisements, news conferences and elsewhere.

Mr. Davis’s ascension comes as a race that had once seemed a certain Republican victory has become fiercely competitive because of a House Republican plan that calls for overhauling Medicare.

The election, in the 26th Congressional District, which runs between Rochester and Buffalo, is to fill a seat vacated by a Republican.

Mr. Boehner took a veiled swipe at Mr. Davis during a visit to western New York to campaign with the Republican candidate, Jane Corwin. Then, several national conservative organizations began directing attacks at Mr. Davis, who has switched parties multiple times.

In recent days, national and local Republican operatives have circulated a video that they claim shows Mr. Davis assaulting a young Republican volunteer who tracked him with a camera — an accusation the Davis camp says is untrue and a smear attempt.

Mr. Davis says Republicans are obviously out to get him.

“They’re coming after me like I’m really the No. 1 issue to their winning the election,” he said after a rally in Varysburg. “They thought this would be a coronation. And I’ve changed their plans, and they don’t like it.”

For the new Republican majority in Congress, the stakes in the race are significant.

Ms. Corwin’s advantage vanished after her Democratic rival, Kathy Hochul, used the Republican Medicare proposal to energize her once long-shot campaign.

Ms. Hochul has repeatedly criticized the plan as dangerous for retirees, an important voting bloc, and has called on Ms. Corwin to denounce it. But Ms. Corwin has refused to budge, which may go over well with conservatives.

The shifting dynamics of the race have caused an about-face among top Democrats. After hesitating to spend much money supporting Ms. Hochul in a district where Republicans far outnumber Democrats, party leaders are now making the contest a preview of next year’s battle for the House by turning it into a referendum on the Republican agenda.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently unveiled a television campaign focused on older residents of the district, where a majority of registered voters are 45 or older. It portrays Ms. Corwin and Mr. Davis as having similar views.

But while Medicare has proven to be a powerful issue, independent analysts and strategists from both parties say Mr. Davis’s candidacy has become a threat to Ms. Corwin and may tip the balance to Ms. Hochul.

“It is clear to me that he is a spoiler and not headed to victory in this race,” said Thomas M. Reynolds, a former Republican congressman from the district who was a strategist for the national party. (Mr. Davis is also drawing voters away from Ms. Hochul, but pollsters and other experts say his impact on the Democrat is less damaging.)

Mr. Davis, who has spent $2.2 million on his campaign, grew up in western New York. In 1964, he started a company, I Squared R Element Company, which manufactures heating elements for electric furnaces. It made a fortune for Mr. Davis, who is married, with 6 children and 13 grandchildren.

It is difficult to attach a political label to Mr. Davis, whose views combine economic populism (he abhors free trade) with libertarianism (he supports both gun rights and abortion rights).

Mr. Davis started off as a Republican in the mold of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. But he left the party in 2004, largely because he felt it did not share his concerns over multinational corporations benefiting from trade policies that hurt American workers.

He became a Democrat that year and spent $1.4 million in an unsuccessful effort to unseat Mr. Reynolds. Two years later, he poured $2.4 million into another failed campaign to defeat Mr. Reynolds. After Mr. Reynolds retired in 2008, Mr. Davis ran for Congress again, spending $1.7 million in a losing bid for the Democratic nomination. Christopher Lee, a Republican businessman, won the seat.

The seat became vacant in February when Mr. Lee resigned after he e-mailed a woman a shirtless photo of himself and it appeared on the Internet. Mr. Davis entered the race, seeking the Republican nomination, as Democratic leaders got behind Ms. Hochul, the Erie County clerk. But after failing to secure the Republican bid, Mr. Davis gathered enough signatures to run on the Tea Party line.

Over the weekend, the excitement over his candidacy was evident at a banquet hall where he drew applause during a speech in which he denounced free trade, spoke of reversing America’s manufacturing decline, pledged to take a $1 annual salary in Congress and promised to bequeath his company to his 75 employees.

“Let me tell you why I am running for Congress,” he told the crowd. “I love America.”

In trying to blunt Mr. Davis’s rise, Republicans have sought to raise doubts about his conservative credentials.

American Crossroads has unveiled a television campaign calling him a “millionaire career candidate” who is “pretending to be conservative.”

But some Republican voters do not seem inclined to be swayed.

Mary Ann Reisdorf, 70, of Varysburg, attended the Davis rally and left with a more favorable opinion of him than of Ms. Corwin, the Republican.

“Jack is a lot more forthright, I think, and I like that,” Ms. Reisdorf said.

Clayton Ehrenreich, 53, a Republican and the former mayor of the village of Medina, had a similar view.

“Davis is somebody different than the status quo in Washington,” Mr. Ehrenreich said. “He’s not controlled by either party.”

Let me tell you why I am running for Congress.

I love America.  I am a Patriot.  A Patriot is a person willing to make sacrifices for his country.

My patriotic heroes are:

• Nathan Hale –  “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”  Then the Brits hanged him.
• Patrick Henry — “Give me liberty or give me death”And my favorite –-
• John Paul Jones – As his ship the Bonhomme Richard was sinking, the British captain asked if he was ready to give up and he said: “Sir, I have not yet begun to fight”.This is my motto too – I have not yet begun to fight.

Since I am asking you to vote for me I thought you would like to know me better.

I am a life time member of the NRA – Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.  I support the Second Amendment and an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

I have a beautiful collection of Winchester Lever-Action rifles.

I have a lifetime of creating jobs, balancing budgets, and getting things done for working men and women.

I have worked in manufacturing and foreign commerce for over 56 years.  That is more experience than all of Congress, the President, the Secretary of Commerce, the US Trade Representative and Kathy and Jane all combined.

I am married with 6 children, 13 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren.  This election is about the debt and poverty we are leaving our children.

I grew up in Western New York and graduated from Amherst Central High School and from the University of Buffalo with a degree in engineering.

I served in the Marine Corp and as an officer in the United States Coast Guard.

In 1964, I founded the I Squared R Element Company which I own and manage.  I started the company in my garage.  Our United States competitors were two large multinational corporations, Carborundum and Norton.  Everyone said I would not survive.

Well I proved them wrong.  Those multinational corporations no longer exist and my company is thriving.

I Squared R is the world-leader and now the only United States manufacturer of silicon carbide heating elements.  They are used in high temperature electric furnaces.  The plant is located in Akron.

I created good paying jobs, offer employees a good health care plan and a fully funded profit sharing retirement plan.

The company is not for sale and I have never outsourced a single job.

When I retire I will give my company to the employees.

This rewards my employees for years of loyal service and insures I Squared R will not be sold, moved, or closed.  Now that is what I call job security.

Last year I donated five million dollars to the University of Buffalo School of Engineering to help with the education of students from Western New York.  I will self fund my campaign with three million dollars.

I am 78 and not enrolled in Social Security or Medicare.  When elected I will work for one dollar a year and will not take a government pension or health care.

I have been a fiscal Conservative all my life and a Republican most of my life.  I voted for Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater and Reagan (twice).  I also voted for other Republican presidents.  I am now an Independent.

Some question my switching of political parties.

I had and have very good reasons – it was to fight the off shoring of our jobs.

Both parties are off shoring our jobs.

From kindergarten on I pledged allegiance to the United States of American, not the leaders of the Republican or Democratic parties.

In the special election on May 24^th I will be on the Tea Party Line.

When sworn in as your Congressman I will introduce a bill to cut spending by one quarter of a trillion dollars.

I will cut foreign aid to countries that hate us.  We can make countries like Germany and Japan foot the bill to defend themselves.

We can cut corporate welfare and corporate tax loop holes.  As an example of a tax loop hole – General Electric 2010 U.S. profits were 5.1 billion dollars.  General Electric’s 2010 U.S. taxes were zero.

We can cut spending by not bombing Libya.

As a former Marine and officer in the Coast Guard, I say our troops have fought long enough in Iraq and Afghanistan and we won.  Those countries have held elections.  We can bring the troops home.

I oppose partial birth abortion and all federal funding for abortion and agencies that provide abortion.

Economics 101 — The only way to produce wealth is grow, dig or make products.

We have become a nation of consumers of foreign products. Therefore we have a huge foreign debt and huge national debt.

We are paying over four dollars a gallon for gasoline because we are spending billions of dollars for oil from unstable Muslim countries that hate us.

We must drill for oil in Anwar and off the east and west coasts and the Gulf of Mexico.

We must develop all the U.S. energy resources available in a responsible manner — coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

We should not burn corn in our cars – we should eat it.

American should make everything it consumes or uses from the simplest cloth to CAT scan machines.

Cutting spending is good but will not solve all the deficit problems by itself.

The key to reducing the deficit is putting Americans back to work.  The inflow of revenue to the U.S. Treasury and the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds from taxes paid by working Americans and profits from businesses will solve the deficit problems.

American companies will not hire American workers until they have a level playing field.

Manufacturing companies need trade balancing tariffs to be competitive with the predatory trade policies of foreign countries, like China.  This will level the playing field.

We cannot make foreign countries do something they don’t want to do — but we can control our borders and cancel free trade agreements.  Thiswill put Americans back to work.

The President and leaders of both political parties continue to push free trade agreements like NAFTA – now with Korea, Columbia and Panama.  We have seen the damage NAFTA has done to our country.

I will fight the new NAFTAs that Obama and the Republicans are pushing.

The White House and Congress are controlled by the money from multinational corporations and by Wall Street.

They will not control me.  I cannot be bought.

In a perfect world there are not liars.  Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world.  Jane Corwin is a liar.  She has stated “Liberal Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Jack Davis must be stopped”.

I am not a Liberal Democrat and never have been.  I will caucus with G.O.P.

Kathy Hochul is also a liar.  She stated I support the Ryan Bill.  The Ryan Bill does not reduce spending enough and will cut Medicare benefits.  I do not support Ryan Bill and never did.  I will not cut Social Security or Medicare benefits.  I will put American’s back to work.  This will provide the money to make the trust funds solvent.

I deplore lying and dirty politics.  I planned on running a clean campaign and keeping the contest on a high plain by presenting my personal qualifications and my platform.

Jane is attacking me with lies and she has sent her New York State Assembly Chief of Staff to harass and provoke me into a fight after a meeting with over 100 veterans.  He called me a coward.

Jane’s plan back fired when a Channel 2 camera man recorded a portion of the harassment.

I am not going to let anyone push me around and I am certainly not going to let them push you around either.  Lying Jane, of course, denies any knowledge of the harassment.

Jane and her Republican henchmen have been a sad disappointment to me.

At one time I was proud to be a Republican and believed they were the honest and trustworthy party – I know better now.

I think the other Republicans would be disgusted too if they knew how badly a businessman and Goldwater and Reagan Republican was treated.

I am a Marine, a patriot and a fighter and I have dedicated the rest my life to cutting spending and saving jobs, farms and industries.

To do this I need to go to Washington as your Congressman.

I cannot do this alone.  I only have one vote.  On May 24^th, the day of the Special Election — IT IS YOU – You, who will make the change we need.

Please ask your family, your friends, and your neighbors to vote for a fighter, a marine, and a patriot.

Remember … “I have not yet begun to fight”.

America and our children are depending on you.

Thank you.

WBEN – The chairman of the Erie County Republican Party confirms to NewsRadio 930 AM and 107.7 FM WBEN a member of Assemblywoman Jane Corwin’s staff was behind the camera when congressional candidate Jack Davis allegedly shoved him after being pressed on why he declined to take part in Thursday’s debate. “He is a member of the staff,” says Chairman Nick Longworthy. “It was after hours in a capacity for the Republican Party.” Langworthy would not identify the man, citing privacy concerns. However, several media sources have identified the volunteer as Michael Mallia, Chief of Staff for Corwin.

Check out her explanation – WGRZ story.

“For those like myself that want to replace Obamacare, the interstate Healthcare Compact is a realistic and viable strategy.  States, not Congress, the White House, or federal bureaucrats, should set the rules for healthcare from top to bottom. In addition, individuals should be able to deduct the cost of health insurance from their federal income taxes just as corporations can,” Davis said.

“Healthcare is simply too large and complex to manage at the federal level. Our federal healthcare system impacts 300+ million people and healthcare spending exceeds 2.3 trillion dollars annually. Centralized planning of an industry that is this large and complex is not possible and has never been successful,” said Jack Davis.

The Healthcare Compact would make it possible for Americans to exercise greater control over their healthcare options. It would relieve the federal government of the responsibility for healthcare policy and return it to the states. As decision-making is transferred from the federal government to the states, so would control over federal healthcare dollars.

The Healthcare Compact does not impose one model of healthcare reform on an immense and diverse country.  It does not presume that there is one Band-Aid solution to solve the healthcare crisis.  Exactly how a specific compact would work – how it would function – would be determined by the states that enter into it.

New York state taxpayers send more dollars to Washington than they receive in return from the federal government.  Overall, government checks flow from affluent states, generally in the Northeast and West, to less affluent states, especially in the South.

Jack Davis is running for Congress in the 26^th Congressional District.  The special election is scheduled for May 24^th.

For more information, go to: www.healthcarecompact.org

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Jack Davis is an engineer, innovator and entrepreneur who founded and manages a manufacturing company in Western New York, I Squared R Element, Inc.  He is giving the company to his employees when he retires.