Definitely check out the entire video (click on this link or see below) from Network NOVA’s most recent Friday Power Lunch, but I just wanted to highlight VA State Senator Louise Lucas’ appearance, as she really nailed it. So the first video, below, is 10 minutes of Sen. Lucas – speeded up a bit, so I could fit in (almost) her whole appearance to the 10-minute LiteCam limit – and some highlights from what she had to say.
- “Look, I got to tell you, I am so proud to be a part of this campaign this year…the most important thing we can do between now and November 4th is make sure we get as many people as we can early voting…and making sure that we get every able-bodied person we know to get out the vote.”
- “Let let me just get right straight to the point. I don’t need to tell you all that Trump’s Big Ugly Bill is a direct attack on the people of Virginia. It’s a tax scam for the wealthy…a slap in the face to working families and a threat to everyone we fight for in the Commonwealth of Virginia. But let me just say this. We’re standing on the edge of history right here in Virginia. I told some folks last night, we have a chance to do something bold, something big, something powerful, and that to deliver a Democratic trifecta that will put people, not politics, first. And and let me tell you, I am so proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with DPVA and with other leaders all across the Commonwealth of Virginia to fight against the draconian agenda being pushed on us by Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin.”
- “Now, let me bring it home for you. In 1991, I was elected to the Senate of Virginia, only the second Black woman ever to do so. You know, Yvonne Miller was the first. And I have waited a long, long time for this moment. I waited for a very long time to see us elect a woman governor in Virginia…It’s past time. And we need a fighter. We need someone who will wake up every single day thinking about Virginia’s working families. And that person, of course, is Abigail Spanberger… She has stood up for to the extremists in Washington. And she has fought to lower costs, to protect healthcare, to defend our freedoms, and to help our communities be safe. She doesn’t just walk the walk, talk the talk – she delivers. And that’s exactly what we need in the governor’s mansion. Now, let me be real about it. There are some other choices, but representation is not the only thing. We need somebody who’s gonna wake up to fight for hardworking Virginians, not somebody who’s gonna be pushing an extremist agenda. We’re going forward. We’re not going backwards. They want to tell women what to do with their bodies. They want to silence our voices at the ballot box. They want to divide us, distract us, drag us down. But guess what? In Virginia, we are not going back.”
- “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that if someone happens to get purged and we know who that person is, we’re going to do everything we can to try to make sure that we get them back on the rolls. Because I know there’s going to be a lot of shenanigans going on. There’s no question in my mind because they know they know that they’re losing, and so they’re trying to steal the votes however they can get it, even if they have to take people who are legally registered voters off the polls, off the rolls, and and we’re just not going to let it happen.”
- [“Are we going to have National Guard troops at our polling places?”] Well, you know what? I would hope that that’s not the case. But if in fact it is, let me just say this. I’m a fighter, I was born fighting, I guess I was. And what we need to do is to make sure that we’re out there on the front line. I know there’s some people who feel intimidated. There’s some people who might be afraid. I understand that. But you know, I feel an obligation to fight for people who are afraid, who feel intimidated. Because if we don’t, the consequences is that it affects all of us. So… those of us who are accustomed to this kind of fight, we need to be on the front line now making sure that we defend the right for people to vote.”
- “This is not a time for us to sit back and say, ‘Oh, that’s what they do’ and just not say anything about it. We have to counter punch everything they say, everything they do. I don’t let them get away with a damn thing. When they strike, I strike back. I mean, you’re not going to win…if you let them continue to punch at you and you don’t punch back. And so we have got to punch back. That’s the thing that we’ve got to do. We cannot just sit back and and let and say, ‘Oh, somebody else will do it.’…we need everybody in this fight. Nobody can afford to sit back and say, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.’ Yes, everybody can say something because, you know, there’s strength in numbers. So, we’ve got to get our collective number of folks who are used to this kind of fight out there fighting for the people. Teach the others how to do it. And you know, I know some folks are even afraid to use their social media platforms now because they’re afraid that either they’re going to get fired or somebody’s going to come for them. Look, I am not going to be intimidated like that. I grew up in the civil rights movement. I know what it is to be on the front line fighting. We’ve got to teach other people how to do that. We have got to counter punch. We have to be brave.”
- “I know different groups, different organizations do it differently, but what we need to do is bring all of us together and use our collective…strategies, use everything we have in the toolbox. And these are difficult times that we’re living in. So we have to do things differently, because the times require us to do that. And a big part of that is going to be fighting…back. Don’t let them slide with a damn thing. We cannot let them get away with one thing, because just like what I was told growing up, you give them an inch, they’ll take them out. We cannot.”
- “And you know, I was on a podcast the other night and one of the people on there was Al Sharpton. And you know, am amazed at how sometimes he can come up with little nuggets that just make so much sense. He said, ‘we’re doing all these things, but if the people don’t see us out in the street marching, rallying, that has to be a part of it as well.’ We have to let the folks that we’re representing see us fighting. You know, we can do all we want to in the social media, but sometimes, you know, I’m an old civil rights person, sometimes you’ve got to put these boots on the ground and take it to the street. And so, there’s nothing that I’d like to see more than than us to have another major national kind of a march to say to the Trump administration, we are not going to let you drag us back.”
- “Well, I tell you what, for those people who feel intimidated now, I want to say to them, if you’re not fighting now, it can get a hell of a lot worse than it is right now, right? So, let’s stop it. Let’s nip it in the bud, because we’re not going to let our democracy be taken away from us. We’re not going to let our freedoms and our rights be taken away from us. A lot of us have been on the front line fighting too long and too hard to do it. And I’ll tell you, I’ll fight to my dying day to make sure that we defend our democracy.”
- “I agree [VA Republicans are focusing on the AG race] because they know that they’re going to lose these other battles…however we try need to try to get this message across, we’re going to make sure we get Abigail into the governor’s mansion. I said it before, I get criticized when I say this: all skin folks ain’t kin folks. You got to make sure that you’re supporting the person who’s gonna be fighting for hard working Virginians. Yeah, I said it, I said it! Don’t be fooled by all of this nonsense that you see out there. Look, we don’t need somebody who looks like me in the governor’s mansion carrying an agenda for Trump and for Youngkin. I’m not having it. So, every time I get a chance to tell people this, I said, ‘look, we need somebody in the governor’s mansion who’s going to sign the bills that affect the income levels, all of the rights of the working people of Virginia.'”
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