Marine declares war on Bush!!

Iraq war veteran Steve Brozak is running hard for Congress. And he's turning his campaign into a referendum on Bush's military folly.

By Michelle Goldberg

Sept. 30, 2004 | Steve Brozak is running for Congress in New Jersey against George W. Bush. Sure, his opponent on the ticket is Republican incumbent Mike Ferguson. But as Brozak sees it, Ferguson is just a synecdoche for the Bush team, whose failings drove Brozak out of the Marines and the Republican Party and into the first political campaign of his life.

"The bottom line is I'm going to take him down," Brozak says of Ferguson. "I'm just going to keep hitting at him. This is a national race because I'm going to start hitting not just him but his boss. They lied to us, they misled us about what was at stake in the war with Iraq, and they're misleading us about what is going to happen going forward."

A candidate who has actually served in the Middle East during the Iraq war, Brozak has seen the quagmire up close. A dark-haired, broad-shouldered man, he has a deep, authoritative voice and enunciates crisply -- it's easy to imagine him in uniform, barking orders. When he speaks of the Bush administration, though, it's with the stunned incredulousness of one who's seen all his assumptions about the world upended. Before the war, Brozak says, he wanted to believe his president. It barely occurred to him not to. Now, his voice gets heated when he talks about Iraq, which is the subject he talks about most. "There were no weapons of mass destruction," he says. "There was no planning, just this sense of arrogance and contempt by the civilians in this administration."


Running in an affluent, solidly Republican district -- one that Bush carried over Gore in 2000 -- Brozak is making this race a referendum on the president's handling of the war. Like many Democrats, he believes Iraq is so self-evidently catastrophic that it's only a matter of time before people across the political spectrum wake up and realize it. He attacks Ferguson as a "water boy" for Bush and mocks him for putting color-coded terror alerts on his Web site.



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/30/brozak/index.html

shameless kick!

I hope he wins!

<http://www.stevebrozakforcongress.com/>

A businessman and Marine Corps veteran, Steve Brozak is running for Congress to put his experience to work by bringing high paying jobs back to New Jersey.

He believes in fiscal responsibility, and will fight to get spending under control and balance the budget. Steve's experience as a Marine has prepared him to be a leader on the foreign policy challenges and national security needs facing our country in the post-9/11 world. As your Congressman, Steve will fight to protect the long-term stability of Social Security and Medicare, and to deliver real prescription drug relief for New Jersey seniors.

Born in New York City in 1961, Steve was raised throughout the tri-state area. After high school Steve put himself through college working in the restaurant business, earning his BA in East Asian Studies from Columbia University in 1982. In 1994 Steve received his MBA from Columbia's Executive Program. Steve was commissioned into the Marine Corps after college, where he served until 1985. Steve worked for several Wall Street firms such as Salomon Brothers, Dean Witter, Cowen & Company, Alex, and Brown & Sons, before co-founding the firm of Westfield Bakerink Brozak LLC, an investment bank specializing in biotechnology, medical devices and healthcare research.

Steve remained in the Marine Reserves while working for the financial industry in the biotech sector, and continues his work as an advocate in the field of stem cell research. Prior to his release from active duty in the Marine Corps in November 2003, Steve served in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Steve officially retired from the Marine Corps on May 1, 2004. Steve has two daughters and lives with his wife, Linda, in Westfield, New Jersey.

:kick: