Ravalli Republic: Gianforte celebrates birthday with Hamilton's Advancing Conservatism Society

Ravalli Republic: Gianforte celebrates birthday with Hamilton's Advancing Conservatism Society (04/19/2017)

Echoing Trump's own campaign slogan, Gianforte said he's ready to go to work "with Donald Trump to drain the swamp. Specifically, we need to put term limits in place. We also need to make it illegal for congressmen to become lobbyists after they're done."

"I got introduced to Montana originally over 40 years ago," he said. "I had a junior high school science teacher back in Pennsylvania where I grew up who flew P-51s in WWII. He trained at Malmstrom Air Force Base and fell in love with Montana.

"The only way he could get back here on a teacher's salary was to bring 18 ninth-graders with him in a van, actually two vans. We drove from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where I lived, all the way to Red Lodge."

"My wife is the daughter of two German immigrants that came here to the U.S. after WWII," he said. "Unfortunately, her dad died when she was 1 year old. Her mom, with no high school diploma, was in New York City. She spoke German and no English.

"As a single mom, they lived in a three-floor walkup in Queens, one bedroom," Gianforte said. "Her mom was determined to stay here. She got a job in the mail room of a bank delivering messages. She worked there 38 years and retired as an officer of that bank. … She got her little girl that she raised by herself in that third-floor walkup into Cornell engineering school. Now she's retired and fully independent.

"She has lived the American Dream," Gianforte said. "Susan and I have lived the American Dream. And it's not complicated, but it involves hard work and frugality and being able to keep the fruits of your labor. We risk losing the American dream if we don't understand the ingredients to make it happen."

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