George Demos has dedicated his entire career to fighting corporate fraud and crime on behalf of the American people. The grandson of immigrants who sailed past the Statue of Liberty on their journey from Greece to freedom and opportunity, George is committed to protecting our freedoms and expanding our opportunities. George’s mother, a former public school teacher, instilled in him at an early age the importance of education, while George’s father, an attorney in private practice, gave him the gift of a strong work ethic, and taught by example the importance of giving back to the community.

George served as a United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement attorney from 2002 through 2009 where he specialized in prosecuting corporate and white collar fraud.

He received his BA from Columbia University where he majored in political science and his law degree from Fordham Law School where he served on the Environmental Law Journal.

Below is George Demos’ announcement regarding his candidacy in 2012.

I am George Demos. I believe in freedom. I believe in America. I believe in Long Island. I am conservative. I am pro-life and I want to be your Congressman.

America’s hour of truth has arrived. Do we believe in freedom or the tyranny of big government? The choice we make will determine whether America becomes just another chapter in history or continues to be the author of liberty.

In 2010, thousands of grassroots supporters joined our campaign of true conservative values. And I was so humbled that America’s leading Conservative voice Rush Limbaugh himself supported our campaign.

More than ever we see how important it is, not just to elect someone with an R next to their name, but to elect a real Conservative with steely determination who will not fail us, who will not falter, and who will not waiver when he gets to Washington.

We live in a nation where ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things if they are allowed to pursue their God-given talents. What separates us from all other nations is that we are a people with a government, not a government with a people. We were founded on the belief that you, not the government, have the first claim to the dollars you earn from the sweat of your brow.

That opportunity to work hard and save for your dreams and for your children is what led my grandparents from a tiny village in Greece. They couldn’t speak the language here, but they understood that in America, if you work hard, anything is possible.

So why is it that today we are busy importing the same heavy handed big government, big tax policies that our ancestors fled from? This is the United States of America, not some broken down European socialist republic.

We are now in the longest recession in American history caused and prolonged directly by the policies of liberals like Tim Bishop. Too many of our neighbors are out of work, looking for a job -including right here in Port Jefferson -and they are wondering why their jobs were outsourced to third world nations. Gas prices are skyrocketing and it costs a fortune to drive on the LIE. But liberals like Tim Bishop have their hands in our pockets and they will not stop until they empty our pockets.

President Obama tried to spend his way out of this economic storm, and he actually laughed that “shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we thought.” Well, the jobless in the First District are not laughing. Tim Bishop voted for the same reckless stimulus bill and laughed right along when it failed. Their answer now: do it again. Take more money from the pockets of hard-working Long Island families and waste it. That didn’t work then and it will not work now.

We need a true Conservative who will stand up and fight for the sanctity of life and defend our Conservative values.

As Ronald Reagan, the eternal optimist, used to remind us, for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Long Island has always been the leader in that can-do American spirit. Long Island built the lunar module so that America could reach for the stars. Today we stand by and watch as the last space shuttle is mothballed.

But you and I still believe in America. And if you’re the kind of person whose eyes still well up every time you hear God Bless America, whose heart swells with pride every time you see a brave American serviceman in uniform, and who feels truly blessed, everyday, to live in the greatest nation in the history of the world – then I am your candidate and this is your campaign. I am one of us. I want to fight for us and I want to fight for our Conservative values. I want to be your Congressman. I am George Demos and I’m asking for your vote. Thank you.

Rochelle “Shelley” Berkley has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1999, representing the First Congressional District of Nevada, which includes most of the city of Las Vegas as well as the Las Vegas Strip. Her grandmother was from Thessaloníki and part of the Greek Jewish community there. Berkley was born in New York City and then moved with her family to Nevada when she was a junior high school student. She attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and earned a degree in political science and served as the UNLV Student Body President. She then entered the University of San Diego, graduating with a degree in Law. She served in the Nevada Assembly from 1982 to 1984 and was involved in civic affairs locally. While in the state legislature, she advocated consumer safety laws, campaigned against drunken driving, and founded the Senior Law Project. Berkley was also appointed vice chair of the Nevada University System Board of Regents, serving at the position from 1990 to 1998. Elected to the House in 1998, she serves in the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs, and Ways and Means. As a representative, Berkley views her top priorities as to fight for affordable health care coverage for all Americans, veteran’s rights, and alternative energy. Berkley is known as one of the supporters of the drive to regulate online gambling. On October 10, 2002, Mrs. Berkley was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

Gus Bilirakis was born on February 8, 1963 in Gainesville, Florida. is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives for Florida’s 9th congressional district. Bilirakis was elected as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives to replace his father, Mike Bilirakis, who did not run for reelection after 23 years in the United States Congress. Before being elected to Congress, Gus Bilirakis had been a member of the Florida House of Representatives since 1998. He grew up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, as the second-generation son of Greek immigrants. His grandfather opened a bakery in that town. At an early age, Bilirakis began working at his family’s bakery. He attended Tampa Bay area public schools and continued to work in his grandfather’s bakery while growing up. Bilirakis graduated from Tarpon Springs High School and St. Petersburg Junior College. He then attended the University of Florida, where he graduated in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He received his law degree from the Stetson University College of Law in 1989. Bilirakis has a Tampa Bay area law practice, the Bilirakis Law Group, specializing in probate and estate planning, which he took over from his father. He has helped run his father’s campaigns for the past 23 years. He is co-chair of the Hellenic Caucus.

John Peter Spyros Sarbanes has represented the third district of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives since 2007. The district includes the state capital of Annapolis, central portions of the city of Baltimore, and parts of Howard and Baltimore counties. Sarbanes was born in Baltimore on May 22, 1961 and is the eldest son of former U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes. He received a B.A. cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1984 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988. Sarbanes lives in Towson, Maryland with his three children and wife Dina, who he met at Harvard and wed in 1988. Dina Sarbanes is an Assistant County Attorney with the Baltimore County Attorney’s office. Sarbanes sought the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s third congressional district after then-incumbent representative Ben Cardin chose not to seek re-election in order to run for the United States Senate seat of John Sarbanes’ father, Paul Sarbanes. In the last election he won with a solid 64 percent of the vote. However, he had a hard time campaigning to win the Democratic Primary.

Zack Space of Dover, Ohio, is an American politician of the Democratic Party and presently serves in the U.S. House of Representatives for Ohio’s 18th congressional district. Space won the seat in the November 7, 2006 election, defeating state Senator Joy Padgett. Space’s seat was formerly held by Republican Bob Ney, who pled guilty to conspiracy and making false statements in relation to the Abramoff scandal. Republican Fred Dailey is currently running against Space in the 2008 election. Born in Dover, Ohio, in 1961, Space is the son of Socrates Space and Sandra Gallion. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from Greece in the early years of the 20th century. His grandfather and namesake, Zacharias Space, earned U.S. citizenship through service in World War I. Space attended Kenyon College in Knox County. While earning a degree in political science, he was awarded All-American honors in football and was named the 1982 Athlete of the Year at Kenyon. After his graduation from Kenyon, Space enrolled in the Ohio State University College of Law and earned his Juris Doctor in 1986. He is married to Mary Wade, the first woman judge in Tuscarawas County history. She was re-elected in 2005 with 64 percent of the vote.

Niki Tsongas is the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 5th congressional district and the widow of Greek-American U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. She has three Greek-American daughters and she calls herself “Greek by Osmosis” She is the first woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts in 25 years and the first female Democrat elected to Congress from the state in 35 years. Niki was born to Marian Susan Wyman, an artist and copywriter, and Colonel Russell Elmer Sauvage, an engineer in the United States Air Force who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was a 1964 graduate from Narimasu American High School in Japan while her father was stationed at Fuchu Air Force Base and then spent one year at Michigan State before attending Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. After graduating from Smith College in 1968, she moved to New York City where she took a job as a social worker for the Department of Welfare. Niki has a law degree from Boston University and started Lowell’s first all-female law practice. In the last election she defeated her four opponents in the Democratic primary with a plurality of the vote, 36%. Her leading opponent in the general election, on October 16, 2007, was Republican Jim Ogonowski; in addition, there were two independent candidates and one from the Constitution Party. During her campaign she received endorsements from the three major newspapers in the area: The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The Lowell Sun.

The Three Greek-American new comers:

Jane Mitakides is the Democratic candidate in the 2008 congressional elections for the 3rd Congressional District (map) of Ohio. On March 4th, 2008 she won the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). Mitakides is married to John Mitakides with whom she has two children. She is a strong supporter of Hellenic issues, such as FYROM, Cyprus and she is also an active member of the American Hellenic Institute.

Jim Trakas is a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and is the Republican nominee for the United States House of Representatives in Ohio’s 10th congressional district. He is a 1987 graduate of The Ohio State University where he earned a B.A. in Social and Behavioral Sciences. In 1996 Trakas was elected Chairman of The Republican Party of Cuyahoga County where he served until 2005. In 1998, Trakas was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives representing the 15th district, later renumbered the 17th district, where he served until 2007. Trakas won the Republican Primary by 79.31 percent of the vote and stands a very good chance to get elected. He is a member of the Order of AHEPA and the American Hellenic Institute.

Costandina “Dina” Titus is a Democratic member of the Nevada Senate, representing Clark County District 7 (map) since 1988. She has been the Minority Leader since 1993. She is also a political science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has taught American and Nevada government at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for 30 years. Before her recent congressional run, she was considered likely to seek a rematch with current Republican governor Jim Gibbons in 2010. Gibbons defeated her in the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. On May 1, 2008, Dina Titus announced that she will challenge Jon Porter for the Third Congressional Seat in Nevada. The announcement was made in the Henderson Events Plaza Amphitheater, just below the Henderson Veterans Memorial, where she reminded her supporters that it was the fifth anniversary of Bush’s pronouncement of “mission accomplished” in Iraq. Her Greek grandfather ran a restaurant in Tifton, Georgia where she was born.

With information from: The Hellenic journal, Wikipedia, United States House of Representatives

George Stephanopoulos has a rare insight into presidential campaigns, unlike the majority of mainstream television journalists, since he used to work on the other side of politics, as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Although Stephanopoulos received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Columbia University, a career in politics seemed unlikely after receiving his Master’s degree in theology from Balliol College at Oxford University in England, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

While Stephanopoulos’s father and grandfather were priests in the Greek Orthodox church, Stephanopoulos made a decision early on not to follow the same path. His father urged him to become a lawyer, but after graduating from Oxford, Stephanopoulos decided to go work for Ohio Congressman Ed Feighan in 1982 as a legislative assistant.

The first presidential campaign Stephanopoulos worked on was in 1988 for Michael Dukakis, who he felt an affinity for since they were both liberal Greek-Americans from Massachusetts. After the campaign, Stephanopoulos worked for House Majority Leader, Dick Gephardt, until joining the Clinton campaign.

Stephanopoulos was a leading member of the Clinton campaign along with James Carville and David Wilhelm. After the 1992 election, he became Clinton’s Communications Director and then Senior Advisor to President Clinton during his first administration.

However, all did not end well between Stephanopoulos and the Clintons. Stephanopoulos resigned from the administration shortly after the 1996 election and wrote a tell-all book called “All Too Human: A Political Education” published in 1999, which became a New York Times #1 bestseller. The book discussed Stephanopoulos’s struggles and clashes with President Clinton and First Lady Hilary during Clinton’s first term and the 1992 and 1996 Clinton/Gore campaigns.

Stephanopoulos made his transition into journalism when he joined ABC News in 1997 as a news analyst for “This Week.” In 2002, he began anchoring “This Week” replacing long-time host, the late David Brinkley, who went into retirement. The program’s title was changed to “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” to reflect this change. Stephanopoulos was named Chief Washington Correspondent for ABC News in December 2005.

Since making the switch from politician to journalist, Stephanopoulos has been criticized for being biased due to his liberal background. In response, Stephanopoulos told Greek Circle Magazine: “I ask people to judge me by my work. The longer I work in journalism, of course, the fewer questions there are.”

However, after the Democratic debate that he moderated with ABC News’ Charles Gibson in April 2008, he received criticism for being too aggressive and asking unfair questions to the Democratic candidates, including Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

“The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point,” Stephanopoulos told the L.A. Times. “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.”

Stephanopoulos, as influenced by his father, believes his role in life is to make a difference in the world. In his commencement address at St. John’s University in 2007, he explained that “…trying to change people’s lives for the better; it’s what we’re called to do. Not to create a perfect world in a world of imperfect people, it’s just not possible. But a better world.”

As evident in his interviews with the most important world leaders and political candidates, Stephanopoulos will continue to play a role in future presidential elections by asking questions that inform and educate the public about those politicians who have the power to change the world.