John Washington III Says Politicians Who Forgot the People Cannot Ask the People to Fight for Them

Presidential candidate John Washington III is asking a question of the politicians he says are now looking to the public for help: where were they when the public needed them? In a written statement, John Washington III said that for years politicians have passed laws that take more money from people's pockets and strip away their rights, and that now that the same system is coming after those politicians, they suddenly want the American people to stand up and fight for them.

He argued that the record runs the other way. Voters elected those politicians to fight for them, he wrote, not to become part of the system hurting them - and every election, he said, the same politicians ask for votes, money and loyalty, then turn their backs once they win. "What do we have to show for it?" he wrote.

John Washington III said he is done fighting to save political careers while everyday Americans struggle to protect their rights and freedoms. "Your political battles are not our responsibility," he wrote, addressed to the politicians in his statement.

He closed on the relationship he says should govern the whole exchange. "I'm fighting for the people, not politicians who forgot who they work for," John Washington III wrote. "You work for us. We don't work for you." His statement ended with the line he has made a refrain of the campaign: "The people come first. Period!"