South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Mayor Wayne Messam starts push for presidency with ‘American Dream’ rally
In the first speech of his presidential campaign, Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam on Saturday said he’s aiming to “give Americans a second chance at the American Dream.”
The 44-year-old son of Jamaican immigrants said his top priorities are greatly reducing gun violence and preventing mass shootings, eliminating college loan debt, reversing harmful climate change, and rebuilding ties with America’s allies across the planet.
“We will meet this challenge,” Messam told the crowd at the Lou Rawls Center for the Performing Arts at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. He used the “Black Panther” movie song “Pray for Me” as his theme music.
More than two dozen supporters held campaign signs and stood on the stage behind Messam, as he spoke under a large banner with his slogan “WAYNE for America” and the hashtag “ChangeCantWait.” As he joins a crowded field with 15 other Democratic candidates, and more expected, in the 2020 race, Messam said he expects to hear questions about his qualifications for the White House.
“The real question should be, what does Washington experience have to do with meeting the needs of the American people?” Messam countered. “The year 2020 just might be the year of the mayor.”
He boasted about his success leading Florida’s 13th largest city, and said he’s too disturbed at the state of the nation “to wait my turn and sit idle.”
At the same time, he recognized that for his campaign to succeed he will need considerable financial support.
“I’m not backed by the super PACs and the big corporations,” he said. “We won’t have the most big donors, but your $5, your
$10, your $20 or even your
$100 can make this country even better.”
Messam said his top priority as president will be to reduce gun violence, with a pledge to cut gun-related deaths in the nation by 50 percent in his first term.
He cited the tragedies of the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Stoneman Douglas senior Jada Decoste was among the featured speakers Saturday before Messam.
“No longer can we blindly accept that our country has a mass shooting nearly every single day,” Messam said. “It’s time to stop playing games with American lives … one more child lost to gun violence is one too many.”
Messam said it also will be a top priority of his administration to eliminate student loan debt that prevents college graduates from achieving financial success in life.
He introduced a plan to provide total relief to the one-in-four adult Americans now struggling to pay back student loans, averaging about $30,000 and often several times that amount.
“The cost of a college degree has skyrocketed out of control,” Messam said. “It’s a crisis … as president I will push for national student loan forgiveness.”
To pay for that program, Messam said he will fight to cancel the “malignant” tax cuts created by President Donald Trump’s administration. This would provide $1.5 trillion to cover those student loans, immediately putting $400 a month into the pockets of graduates.
“It is morally wrong for this country to require our citizens to take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to achieve the American Dream,” he said. “Our education system is debt for young Americans that will keep them struggling through their golden years.”
Tamika St. Fort, 42, of Miami Gardens cheered Messam’s message.
“He has a lot of ideas and he is talking about a lot of change in our community,” said St. Fort, a registered Democrat who is a fourthgrade teacher at a public school in Pembroke Pines.
Now in his second term as mayor, Messam has been building his broader political resume for years. He supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and was an early backer of Andrew Gillum’s bid for Florida governor last year.
Messam also has served as president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.
The married father of three told hundreds at Saturday’s rally about how he grew up in the small, rural town of South Bay, in western Palm Beach County, and graduated from Glades Central High School, where he was senior class president.
“My father and my mother wanted the American Dream for us,” he said. “I thank them for that.”
Messam became a starting wide receiver for Florida State University’s 1993 national championship football team in his freshman year, and later a student body vice president on campus.
“He was a scholar athlete,” Steve Messam, a younger brother said in an introduction Saturday. “He was thinking outside of what he was doing on the field.”
During his speech, Wayne Messam thanked his wife and how proud he was of their construction business, which is dedicated to energy efficient green projects.
Messam’s campaign is expected to focus much of its early efforts on South Carolina and Nevada, two of the first four states in the presidential nominating process.
Messam also asked the audience to help make it possible for him to participate in Democratic presidential debates planned for late June in Miami.
To qualify for the debates, candidates will have to either meet thresholds of 1 percent in national polling or in early primary states, or receive contributions from 65,000 different donors, with at least 200 of them in each of at least 20 states.
“I pledge to fight for you,” Messam said before leaving the stage and shaking hands with supporters. “I pledge to be your champion.”