Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the history of Searchlight starts this way, the first paragraph of that book: Searchlight is like many Nevada towns and cities: it would never have come to be had gold not been discovered. Situated on rocky, windy, and arid terrain without artisan wells or surface water of any kind, the place we call Searchlight was not a gathering spot for Indian or animal. Searchlight. It is a long way from Searchlight in the U.S. Senate. I grew up during World War II in Searchlight. As Senator McConnell mentioned, my dad was a miner, a hard-rock miner, an underground miner, but work wasn't very good in Searchlight. The mines during World War II were especially gone--all over America but especially in Nevada. There were a few things that went on after the war, promotions. He would work, and sometimes they would pay him, sometimes there were bad checks that would bounce. Sometimes they wouldn't pay him, they would just leave. My mom worked really hard. We had this old Maytag washer. There were lines outside. She worked really hard. Searchlight had about 250 people then. It had seen its better days. Searchlight was discovered in 1898 when gold was discovered, and for 15 or 18 years, it was a booming, booming town. It was one of the most modern cities in all of Nevada. It had electricity--turn of the century, electricity. It had a telegraph. It had telephones. It had a fire station, firetrucks. It had roads with signs on them designating the name of the street.…”