U.S.

Senate Campaign Announcement Remarks: Clear Choices On The Economy Saturday, December 10, 2011 Old Town, Maine It is nice to be joined by so many friends, family and neighbors this morning. Michelle and I appreciate everyone being here to help mark the beginning of a journey. Fi=een years ago, I stood here and asked to represent you and this community in the State Legislature. This morning, I begin the process of asking friends and neighbors - from Fort Kent to KiCery and Rumford to Eastport for their support and their vote again. Today, I am announcing my campaign to become your next United States Senator from the Great State of Maine. Why I Am Running My decision to run has come a=er long conversaLons with my wife and family, my most trusted associates, and many other friends who have helped me weigh the pros and cons of a lengthy campaign for naLonal oce. There is one simple fact, one overwhelming reason Michelle and I have decided to take on this eort: We want to do everything we possibly can to ensure that our 10 year old daughter has more opportunity to live and work here in Maine than we have had, not less. The Greatest GeneraLon delivered on that American promise and became the Arsenal of Democracy, defeated Nazism and Fascism, rebuilt Europe, made college aordable through the G.I. Bill and grew our middle class into the greatest economic engine the world had ever seen. Today, Congress treats more mundane issues, like managing our own budget which Maine families do every week as insurmountable obstacles to bicker over endlessly. Our country and our families deserve beCer. We face criLcal naLonal decisions about how to get our country and our economy back on the right track. In my view, if We the People want to halt Congress steady march toward abject ineecIveness in 2012 to borrow a recent phrase then we might start by not sending the same people back to Congress again. I am running because we do need change in Congress. I believe the right kind of change starts with elecLng people who know in their lives and in their bones what it is like to work hard and make ends meet. People who will cast every vote with a sense of urgency about making life a liKle easier for people who work hard and play by the rules. That is who I am, where I come from and what I would do as your next U.S. Senator. Biography www.DunlapForSenate.com 1

I was born and raised in Maine. I grew up on a working saltwater farm in Town Hill outside of Bar Harbor. Both Michelles and my father, as well as other family members, served in the Army, Navy and Coast Guard during World War II and the Vietnam War. My parents always worked at three jobs with a weaving and poCery businesses to supplement the farm. I started working early and seem to have always had at least two jobs. Ive worked almost every job in a restaurant dishwasher, waiter, bartender and cook. Ive worked in texLle mills. Ive shoveled crushed rock and worked in the driving rain and snow. Ive punched a clock to start work at ve in the morning, and punched out from the same shi= twenty hours later. I graduated from the University of Maine and conLnued working two jobs, including experience as an administrator, writer, editor and teacher. When I stood here and asked to represent you in Augusta, I was also working as both a proofreader and bar manager at Pats Pizza in Orono. I was privileged to serve this community as a state representaLve, in a district I was told I could not win, for four terms. And I was honored to be elected three Lmes to serve all Mainers as Secretary of State and by my peers across the country to serve as President of the NaLonal AssociaLon of Secretaries of State. Other than that, I mow my own lawn and wash my own truck. Im acLve in my community and my church. I hunt and sh. Youll nd me taking my daughter shing in the summer and in camo and blaze orange in the fall. Community We are a middle class, working class Maine family from Old Town. I menLon this community again because Old Town, for me, represents something else we Mainers know in our bones. Just as our working families have been struggling for a long Lme our mill towns, farming, shipbuilding, paper and other communiLes have been suering as well. Less than 50 years ago, 10,000 people punched Lme clocks in shops all over this town in shoe factories, woolen mills, paper mills, tanneries, the canoe factories, lumber millsand yes, all of those existed in plurals in those days. This is a beauLful town we are proud to call home, but most of that it is now gone. And Old Town is hardly unique. The Katahdin Region, Lewiston, Waterville, Sanford, and many, many other communiLes have similar stories. Now we import paper and manufactured goods from China, India and Indonesia. Maine was one of Americas leading agricultural states, but we have lost too much of our farming industry and too many of our family farms. Now we import food from Chile and Peru. Maine once built the majority of ships that carried the worlds commerce. Now, youd be hard pressed to nd a seagoing vessel even ying the American ag. One answer to this, and there are many, is that we absolutely need to stop shipping good American jobs with good American benets to countries with cheap labor and no benets and calling it free trade. There is so much potenLal and possibility to create new opportuniLes and new industries across this state from standing up for our tradiLonal industries, to new high-speed broadband networks, new sources of energy and 100 other entrepreneurial ideas where Maine can lead the naLon. I look forward to listening and talking to Mainers about those opportuniLes over the coming months. I believe an important rst step is to truly understand this history and what it means for Mainers living in communiIes like Old Town, Millinocket, Sanford and so many others. www.DunlapForSenate.com 2

Clear Choices on the Economy When you look at what is happening in Washington from that bedrock perspecLve of a working family and a hard hit community, with those values complicated issues can become very clear choices. Here is my test as your next Senator: Will this make life easier for working Maine families? Will it increase opportunity for young Mainers to be successful? Does it keep faith with our commitments to our parents and grandparents? If so, I will work as hard as I can to make it happen and vote for it as your Senator. Every Lme. ElecLons in this country are about you, the voters, gefng a chance to choose the person you agree with on the issues that are most important to you. I respect Senator Snowe. She has served Maine and her country honorably in poliLcal oce for a very long Lme, almost 34 years. I am not going to try to make people dislike Senator Snowe, or turn her service into some kind of caricature. But here is the crux of the whole thing. For Michelle and me, the most important issues in this elecLon are big, important economic issues that will impact our family and our daughters future. When my wife and I talk about it around our kitchen table, Senator Snowe is on the wrong side of every bread and buKer economic issue that maKers to our family and working families across Maine. We will have a long campaign to respeciully debate those issues so that voters can make their own choice on ElecLon Day based on the public record. Here are three important examples: 1. Raising Payroll Taxes on Working Families

First, Should we raise taxes by $1,000 to $1,500 on all working Maine families to avoid asking a few millionaires to pay a liKle bit more? Last week, Senator Snowe was the only member of Maines Congressional DelegaLon who voted against extending the payroll tax for working families. I strongly disagree. Where do you stand? 2. PrevenLng the Next Recession

Here is the second economic issue. Do you think it is past Ime that Congress protect working families and catch irresponsible speculators and Wall Street schemers before they have a chance to crash our economy again? Senator Snowe actually helped pass the Consumer Financial ProtecLon Bureau over Republican opposiLon saying it was criLcal to ensure we avoid another nancial catastrophe such as the one that plunged our naIon into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Then, in May of this year, she signed a parLsan leCer with all of her Republican colleagues threatening to libuster the bureau she wrote the legislaLon to create. And just two days ago, she cast a parLsan vote that helped prevent the new board from funcLoning. That doesnt make sense to me and I strongly disagree. www.DunlapForSenate.com 3

Let me be very clear. When I am your Senator and I believe something is criLcal to ensure we avoid another nancial catastrophe, no Washington poliLcian -- DemocraLc, Republican, Independent, Tea, Coee or Bull Moose party will be able to prevent me from showing up and voLng a clear yes on behalf of Maine people. Where do you stand? 3. Making Bush Economic Policies Permanent

Here is the third economic issue and it is a huge one. Over the next ten or more years, do you think we should reduce and gut investments in everything from educaIon, to environmental protecIon and funding for our troops so that we can make President George W. Bushs economic policies permanent including warIme tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans? Senator Snowe originally opposed and called some of these tax cuts irresponsible. She fought to include a provision saying the tax cuts would be repealed if the projected surpluses did not materialize which, of course we know, they never did. And yet today, she is ghLng to permanently extend the Bush economic policies she opposed in the rst place despite the challenges facing the country. That doesnt make sense to me and I strongly disagree. This could very well be one of the rst votes your next Senator will have to make in 2013: Make the Bush economic policies permanent or put our own people rst and rebuild the middle class? That one vote will shape our economic future for years and years to come. If that is a 51-49 vote, how do you want your next Senator from Maine to vote? Conclusion I am condent that when working Mainers -- Democrats, Independents and Republicans sit at their own kitchen tables and look at these clear choices on bread and buCer economic issues, and consider what they mean for their own future, we will win. It may come as a shock to many people, but if you dont support permanent extension of Bush economic policies, oppose new rules to prevent another Wall Street recession, and oppose tax relief for working families you dont support Senator Snowe. We are lucky to live in the most beauLful state in the greatest country on Earth. Americans can do anything we set our mind to and American workers can compete with anyone, anywhere in the world. We just need a government that shares our values and is focused like a laser how to help working families and rebuild the middle class. If we use this elecLon to make that change, we can turn our country and our economy around quickly and ensure that our daughter, and all of us, have a future with endless possibiliLes. I ask each of you for your vote, your support and your help building a campaign and a Congress that speaks for working people and families from every corner of our state. And I pledge this: I will work as hard for you and put just as much pride into being your U.S. Senator as I do in being a Mainer. Thank you.

www.DunlapForSenate.com 4