Troy Goodale: "We deserve new leadership that looks to serve the public good as opposed to the special interests. We will not get that quality of leadership from a 24-year incumbent who is a second generation career politician."

Troy Goodale is the Democratic nominee running against Rep. John Duncan for Tennessee's 2nd District U.S. House of Representatives seat.

General election campaign kickoff statement after the jump...

Goodale campaign press release...

Goodale Gears Up for General Election

Knoxville, TN – The Democratic Party Nominee for Tennessee's 2nd Congressional District, Dr. Troy Goodale, stated today his campaign’s intention to concentrate on the problem of unemployment and the lack of cooperation in Congress that aggravates the current economic conditions.

"Far too many East Tennesseans are out of work today," Goodale said. "One of the root causes of this is a system that rewards corporations who cut costs by shipping American jobs overseas to exploit cheap labor. These corporations abandon their operations here at home to move abroad and avoid reasonable worker safety standards and paying their fair share of taxes."

Dr. Goodale believes that American businesses should be better than this. It is his position that good corporate citizenship can be encouraged through proper public policy, since the status quo too often forces companies to choose between preserving American jobs or reaping windfall profits.

"We need to see the words 'Made in America' again," Goodale asserted. "The tax code must be restructured to remove the impetus to export American jobs and provide incentives for businesses that maintain and create jobs domestically."

Troy Goodale is running for the House of Representatives, in large part, because he has grown frustrated with the dysfunction on Capitol Hill that has resulted in an unprecedented level of gridlock. Long-serving career politicians in the Congress focus on getting re-elected, which requires that they do the bidding of their Big Money contributors rather than the people's business.

"Career politicians become entrenched in their positions," Goodale stated. "This creates an environment today in which cooperation and compromise are dirty words. We deserve new leadership that looks to serve the public good as opposed to the special interests. We will not get that quality of leadership from a 24-year incumbent who is a second generation career politician."

Troy Goodale was raised in a working class family. He worked his way through college in the restaurant industry, returning later to get his doctorate in political science from the University of Tennessee.

"I worked for and earned everything that I have," Dr. Goodale affirmed. "It is my goal to give the people of the 2nd District a new kind of representative, one who like most Americans lives paycheck to paycheck and can relate to the struggles and issues facing regular, hard-working folks."

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