Live from Virginia Monday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed candidate for the city council of Richmond Mike Dickinson to the show to discuss his campaign and the fight to save his city from the left-wing liberals holding the government to a standard of accountability.
Fredericks: Joining us now is Mike Dickinson. Mike is a candidate for city council in Richmond. He’s going to tell you all about it. What ward it is and all that good stuff. And he’s already made some headlines by threatening to do a mural of Babies Lives Matter. And then the Black Lives Matter mural was stopped in its tracks. And he did that by himself. And he’s joining us now. Mike Dickinson great to have you, Mike.
Dickinson: Always great to be here on your show. Great respect for you and great respect for your your show and everything you do and stand up for.
Fredericks: Mike tell us about your campaign.
Dickinson: I’m running in the First District of Richmond, which is everything to the west pretty much of the Boulevard. It’s the Museum District, Windsor Farms, Mary Mumford, and all the way down to the University of Richmond. I feel good about it. We’ve been out there talking to people who were just sick of this. Sick of this incompetent government we have here in Richmond.
Sick of a mayor that’s not letting the police do their job. Sick of always the solution as being more government and more taxes and the solution never being accountability. So it’s just, I mean, it’s a shame what happened to Richmond in the last four months or five months. It’s turned into a war zone. It’s an embarrassment. It’s not safe.
Fredericks: So running for city council and taking the positions that you’re in and running in a very liberal, very Democratic city in the First District. How are those going to play out?
Dickinson: Well, I know President Trump got 4,300 votes here in just this district in 2016. So there are votes to be had. I know that the two people I’m running against, there’s one guy who’s very liberal. He marched with Black Lives Matter. He supports all of this destruction. The other guy’s an incumbent, but he’s voted to raise taxes.
He said defunding the police is a good idea. My whole argument is we need to double down and support law enforcement. We need to support the rule of law. And we need to get into this idea that more government is not the answer. Accountability is the answer, not more government. So going through and talking to people in the First District, a lot of people feel that way.
But a lot of people won’t tell you publicly, or they are afraid to put signs up. The amount of intimidation that people in the First District are feeling from their liberal neighbors, from the mayor, from these psychotic people on the left. It’s unreal. People tell me every day I put your sign out, and I put a President Trump sign out, but my neighbors have a problem with me. I don’t want to be a target. So it’s almost, you know, a form of intimidation and voter suppression that way because of these people on the left are acting so nuts.
Fredericks: Mike tell me about you said that President Trump got four 4,300 votes in 2016 in District One. Offhand, do you know how many of the incumbents?
Dickinson: I believe, that was a two-way race in 2016, and there are about 13,000 voters in the district between two people. They believe Addison got like 7,000 or 8,000 votes. But that was between two people. This race is between three people. Two fairly liberal people and one conservative. So if we can pull President Trump and maybe flip a few other people who are upset about this threat to public safety we’re going to be in good shape.
Fredericks: So you get 6,000 votes and then the other vote is split. And then you’re able to win. Is that is it the same as mayor? Do you have to get 50 percent plus one or go to runoff or is it a plurality?
Dickinson: Is this the plurality? It’s not, it’s none. If you like to break 50 percent to win.
Fredericks: Right? So you could be 40-30-30 and the guy with 40 percent or so wins, right?
Dickinson: Yes. That’s yeah, right.
Fredericks: It sounds like you got a heck of a shot there because you got two liberals running on the same thing. One trying to out left-wing the other one. And you got one person talking reason. Now, are you knocking on doors? Tell us about your campaign.
Dickinson: We’re knocking on doors. We’re putting door hangers out. We’re talking to the people who we see on the street. We’re putting out yard signs. We’re not just campaigning. We’re actually trying to engage the fight before we even get elected. You know, we pushed back on the plan to paint Black Lives Matter on a public street downtown.
So using the same permit process they use, I filed to have Babies Lives Matter painted in front of Planned Parenthood here on Hamilton Street, which is in my district using the same, you know, the process that they use. And they were stopped in their tracks because the mayor and the city council didn’t want to allow mine, so they had to stop everybody. (Fredericks chuckles) So I’m not just campaigning. I’m already trying to put skin in the game and get on the front lines to fight back.
Fredericks: Well that’s called activism. Right? So you fought back the right way and you used the same jargon that they do and the same paperwork to file for your own mural Babies Lives Matter in front of Planned Parenthood. They didn’t want that. They got rid of the Black Lives Matter mural. We ran that on The Virginia Star as one of our headlines, and I thought it was a fabulous thing that you did.
And it basically shows that you’re basically in this thing to win. Mike Dickinson in this to win it. No question. So you basically need about seems to me you need about 5,500 votes. I think you, I think you’re going to get there. Your baseline is for 4,300. Trump’s going to have a bigger turnout. But I would have to think there’s a lot of people in that ward that have got to be upset with what has happened.
I mean kids aren’t in school. Basically, if you’re in Richmond, you will not be in school for an entire year. Think about what that does to a child’s development Mike. A year. Because they went out in the first week in March, and they’ve already, he said the school board and Stoney already said that the earliest they are going back is the middle of January earliest. That’s a year.
Dickinson: It’s absolutely crazy. It’s absolutely crazy that they’ve done this, and they’re setting the kids back so far. These are kids that they need to be in school. They need a regimen and not only that, it’s also an unfair process too. Many of these parents work, and each parent works a job for the kids that have two parents.
In the kids that are single parents, single parents the mom or dad has to work during the day to support them. So, you know nobody at the school board or the mayor, nobody thought about the implications on the families and people. But the thing that’s crazy is the government of Richmond has no problem sending you a higher tax bill this year. My taxes, my personal property assessment for my house went up 14 percent. So it’s absolutely crazy that the government thinks they can give us fewer and fewer services. And less quality of services and make us pay more every time.
Fredericks: Yeah, if there isn’t any school then why are your property taxes going up? They shut down businesses, so they’re not getting any tax revenue. Well, what do they expect is going to happen? I mean these people are more moronic. They’re moronic.
Dickinson: Yes. Yes.
Fredericks: So now do you have any debate schedule any forums? How’s that work?
Dickinson: We’ve been doing a lot of online forums with community groups. And I mean, basically, we need a better and bigger Republican and conservative presence in Richmond because every one of these forums that we have is some left-wing organization. (Fredericks chuckles) And I get asked a million times about should Richmond have a Green New Deal?
Should Richmond have, you know, high taxes to support this? Should we have more this and that? Instead of getting asked questions about really the core of government and what we need to be worrying about, which is delivering goods services at the lowest cost possible and defending our constitutional rights, because that’s been something else the mayor of Richmond has been on the warpath against.
Restricting our constitutional rights to defend ourselves. I never get asked any of that in any of these forums, because every left-wing organization has it, and we can’t get anything together for a Republican forum. We need a stronger presence. I’m trying to do that whether I win, which I hope I will, or lose. I’m trying to be a strong presence and have an organization going forward that can really push back on everything. And try to be somebody that supports President Trump and supports his plan.
Listen to the full show here:
https://youtu.be/RVjz0DFgv5A
