I met Jackie Kostas over a year ago at a Tea Party meeting. I can’t for the life of me remember where and how it happened exactly. In life, you meet so many people that sometimes the particular circumstances don’t matter as much as the friendship that develops over time. I consider Jackie Kostas to be my friend.
Jackie is running for State Representative for the 13th Worcester District against incumbent John Mahoney. Jackie is a naturalized citizen of The United States emigrating from Peru well over twenty years ago. What a story this woman has to tell. Her father was a German Jew and spent most of his time hiding from the Nazis. After the war he emigrated to Peru and married a woman there. He ran a very successful suit and tailoring business specializing in fine suits for choice customers. It was not a struggling life for young Jackie.
Then the Communists came to town.
In a series of coup-de-tats that occurred regularly like clockwork back in those days Jackie watched her beautiful Peru go from a growing nation to a despotic Communist stronghold complete with all the wonderful trappings Communism brings in its wake. Bread lines, empty shops, sporadic electricity, the occasional raid in the middle of the night. Jackie told me during our interview together on The Meat And Potatoes Show about the fear and uncertainty she felt as a young woman. She remembers the strikes, the bombings, gunfire in the distance. Her first hand experience during this part of her life gives her a keen sense of what freedom really means. She can see right through the velvet glove of Liberalism to the steely fist of veiled Socialism. She is not fooled.
Running a grassroots campaign is no easy task. What makes it especially tough for her is that she works full time and is a mother. After a day at work she tends to her family and then hits the bricks with campaign manager Jim Knowlton knocking on countless doors making people aware of her campaign. The hours are long, exhausting and can be fruitless at times in a primarily Democratic stronghold of Worcester.
That is until one Saturday when she and Jim were getting coffee before starting out and there in the news stand was the Telegram and Gazette with Deval Patrick on the front page. The article was about the illegals being flown into Massachusetts and Obama’s 3 billion + demand to help pay for it all on our dime. This is a personal issue for Jackie who paid dearly to come to America. She waited her turn while Peru slipped into the Stone Age, filled out reams of paperwork, saved what money she could just so she could come here the correct way. What Jackie didn’t know that Saturday morning was the doors she was about to knock on the residents were already well aware of this debacle and were none to pleased about it.
She told me it turned out to be one of the best days of her campaign. Again, primarily Democratic households, she was able to communicate the gravity of the situation to a bewildered constituency. But this was no flash in the pan for her campaign. Turns out she is gaining on her opponent John Mahoney. Mahoney has done very little to push his re-election campaign. I guess he felt that a small Latina mother couldn’t fire up such a challenge but she has. Her passion concerning EBT and welfare fraud is seen firsthand where she works at Sam’s club. She carries in her cell phone the famous picture of the EBT receipt for $1413.00. She shows it during her door knocking and boy does that turn heads. As a mother she knows how to stretch a dollar and remembers the shortages in her homeland. There was no EBT for her family in those days and the way it is abused here with cash withdrawals for expensive sneakers, clothes, cigarettes and booze is one of her main platforms.
She is no fan of illegals either. Her own story of immigration is enough. She knows the caliber of individuals pouring across the border from the riff-raff she encountered during the Communist takeover of Peru. Trust me, these people are NOT here for a better life. Jackie will work to stop and reverse the assembly line taxation this Legislature seems to be in love with. Her defense of the 2nd Amendment is (again) born out of her experience with the Communists. She knows what happens when the State rounds up all the guns from the citizens. Historically, this scenario never ends well.
One thing that sets Jackie Kostas apart from the current crop of Legislators is that she takes her Oath of citizenship very seriously. She studied hard to pass the exam and continues to work in the Tea Party learning all she can about Liberty. Immigrants like Jackie ARE the strength of America. Although she observes and upholds her heritage as a Greek and a Peruvian she is 100% American and makes no bones about it. This is a character trait that my friend Jackie Kostas will carry to victory on election night.
http://www.jackiekostas.com/
