Conservative GOP congressional candidate Ilario Pantano reports on recent activity in his campaign.

 By Verne Strickland / August 29, 2011

At the recent August meeting in Wilmington of the New Hanover County Republican Party, we caught up with Ilario Pantano, conservative GOP candidate for the North Carolina Seventh District Congressional seat. Here is part of our interview:

VS:  It’s obvious that you and your volunteers are charged up and getting right to the task of winning the 2012 GOP primary and election for the Seventh District.  And there seems to be no shortage of energy this early in the election season.

I’ve been a long-distance endurance athlete for a long time. I’ve got a good perspective on this type of regimen, being a sniper, run marathons, having done Iron Man – a 140-mile race – and competing in intense physical activity for thirteen hours. It’s painful, it’s grueling, it’s relentless. 

It’s kind of like what a campaign is early in the process.  We have nine months until the primary, more than that until the general, and yet we are being recharged every day by wonderful young men and women, and you’ve seen it in this room tonight, the kind of support and energy that we get. We are fueled by grace, and we are driven by volunteers that are motivated and dedicated, and we’ve been doing neat things.

We just finished a four-part series – a class on the Constitution held in our office. It’s been really wonderful. People who have attended gained a great deal. We will be doing classes now on the theory of the origins of the Constitution, classes on faith and the founding fathers, classes on policy, Obamacare, the economy, debt. 

We had a great conference recently with former New York Congressman Joe DioGuardi, and you did a nice write-up on him, talking about debt and the pressing need for financial reform in Washington. Joe was a popular headliner at the Grand Opening of our Volunteer Office on Market Street.

We are trying to educate people, but you know, this is a long process. It’s a slog. But it’s worth it. And it’s worth it everyday, and there’s uncertainty everyday, and challenges, which we find in every enterprise, which every American knows, wondering if they will continue to have a job, and be able to pay their bills, and we go forward in faith, and good things happen. We’ve been blessed with terrific volunteers. They keep our office buzzing. It’s exciting and stimulating to everyone involved.

I’d like to mention a couple of other things. I was in Greenville a couple of weeks ago, where NC FIRE and ALIPAC were protesting the fact that the Mexican Consulate was doing a voter registration and matricular ID card drive, which means that the Mexican Consulate, a foreign government, was operating in Greenville, and they were issuing ID cards to illegals so that they could get American welfare benefits. This is on-going. 

I went and saw it for myself. I have copies of the forms and documentation – USDA agricultural forms that announce in Spanish: “VOTE! IT'S YOUR RIGHT” pins in Spanish, paid for by the N. C. State Board of Elections, reminding  illegals that it’s their right to vote. Well, no it is not. So let’s just be clear about that. But this whole voter drive for illegals is a travesty, and we want to stop it right in its tracks.

Also, I will be up in New York on 9/11 at Ground Zero in a protest of the mosque. I was up there last year as well, joining with a group of patriots speaking at the event.. So I am privileged to be invited back to the 2011 event, the tenth anniversary of this heinous attack on America by radical Muslim jihadists. I’ll have reports on that, and will make those available to you for your followers on USA DOT COM. So we're busy, working hard, enjoying the mission, and getting our message out there to the people.

For more information on former U.S. Congressman, author and conservative activist Joe J. DioGuardi, go to this USA DOT COM link: http://usadotcom.blogspot.com/2011/08/unaccountable-congress-author-joe.html


To visit the Pantano for Congress headquarters, go here: http://www.facebook.com/pantanoforcongress