Yesterday, I made the trip to the Democratic National Convention. At 8 o'clock my co-workers Valerie, Marissa and I set off driving from Washington DC to Charlotte, North Carolina. Even though the three of us come from different parts of the country and different faiths, we still share a commitment to equal rights, an unwavering passion that all Americans receive a quality education, and a deep and unshakable love for 90s R and B.
For us the road to Charlotte was eight hours long, but for Democrats over the last four years it has been a road with many ups and downs. In 2008 we saw Barack Obama overwhelmingly sent to the Oval Office; Democrats built on their majorities in the Congress, and Democrats won majorities in both houses of the legislature in 27 states and split control with Republicans in another eight states.
Democrats were ready to govern on behalf of the voters who put them in power. In North Carolina, Democratic Speaker Joe Hackney set a commitment to building green jobs in his state; in Alabama, Democrats put the breaks on dangerous voter intimidation laws; and in Oregon, then Democratic Speaker Dave Hunt announced that the newly elected Democratic supermajority would freeze the scheduled pay increase in legislative salaries.
Democrats were poised to work to ensure their state’s economies were solidly in the 21st century — attracting and retaining quality jobs for the middle class, protecting voters’ rights, and taking responsible steps to bring their budgets into line. They came to govern, but in the midst of their work to turn back the destructive eight years of the Bush administration, the Tea Party gained steam, and in 2010 they wrested control in many of these same legislative chambers.
Where the Tea Party promised to help working people, instead they stripped laws ensuring women received equal pay for equal work and eviscerated the rights of workers to organize.
They campaigned on protecting citizens, but then they blocked legislation to prevent jobs from state contracts from being shipped overseas.
They promised to focus on real issues, and then spent precious time and energy attacking the United Nations and questioning the President's birth certificate.
And they swore they would be fiscally responsible, and then passed budgets that cut taxes to corporations while balancing the lost revenue on the backs students and the middle class.
For Democrats, Charlotte is not the beginning of the trip to recapture control of state legislatures. We have recruited qualified candidates from across the country and all walks of life--from retired teachers to small business owners--who have stepped up to serve.
And as we gather this week, it is certainly not the end of the journey. True, this stop will involve an intense media spotlight and lots of security, but it will also mean talking to people from across the nation. We will agree on many issues, and perhaps more importantly we will disagree on several others--but we will leave energized and committed to returning state houses to Democratic control.
When we pulled into Charlotte at five o'clock yesterday, we were tired, and we owed a huge debt to Val for doing all of the seven hours of driving. But even though we were ready to just vegetate, there is still work to be done.
We might be tired from the long road, and we may just want to let up being so close to November. But with so many indicators showing that Democrats are poised for victory on Election Day, we will rest later, and work today.
Reposted from DLCC.org. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.