Watching Tom Perriello always makes me feel like I should be doing even more to help elect Democrats this year in Virginia. For starters, check out Tom’s explanation for why the 2017 Virginia elections matter a LOT (bolding added by me for emphasis).
“We have great candidates…statewide…Ralph, Justin and Mark…We have these amazing delegate candidates, over 50 have stepped up, over half of them are women, about a quarter are candidates of color, about a quarter are millennials. This is really something that looks like all of Virginia. And I think that’s a lot of what this fight is about this year, what is the real Virginia? We see an electorate that shows up in presidential years that reflects the whole commonwealth. And then, often, that coalition disappears. And then we end up with an electorate that’s frankly older, whiter and much more conservative.”
“This really is the first statewide election of the Trump era, and it is being seen as a referendum in many ways on Donald Trump, in part because Ed Gillespie has chosen to run essentially as Donald Trump, even though he liked to fashion himself before as sort of an old Dubya Bush kind of conservative, he’s running the most race-baiting, divisive campaign I’ve seen in Virginia politics in a long time. So there’s a question right now…whether we can turn that ‘[Women’s] march’ energy into voting energy. If we can, it’s not only going to get us our state back in Virginia, it’s going to have shock waves I think that’s going to make a bunch of Republicans follow Bob Corker and retire from the House rather than face reelection next year.”
“This is a 14-year election, not a 4-year election. This governor is going to oversee the redistricting map after the next Census….”
Next, here’s Tom explaining why Henrico County‘s Debra Rodman (#11 on my list of most-competitive Virginia House of Delegates races this year, definitely a winnable/Hillary Clinton district) rocks and why it’s so important to elect her on November 7!
“We’re out here in Henrico County with Debra Rodman, who…is about take over the seat that Eric Cantor once held. And then O’Bannon, who’s the current delegate…has been the #1 barrier to Medicaid expansion despite being a doctor. There are 400,000 Virginia families struggling today…and in addition to that, all of us who have private insurance are paying more because O’Bannon and his colleagues wanted that cost of the uninsured passed on to us. And now we have this amazing woman who is going to run and replace [Bannon] who stepped up not out of a political background but she’s been this amazing professor, I meet students of [Rodman’s] all the time who are out there talking about how [Rodman] changed their lives.”
Finally, here’s Tom with Planned Parenthood in Henrico County kicking off a canvass for Debra Rodman, highlighting how important the 2017 Virginia elections are for women. So make sure you get involved in the final 2+ weeks and help Democrats win up and down the ballot on November 7!
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