The following announcement is from Democrat April Moore, who is running for the second time (the first being in 2015) against far-right State Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-SD26). Moore’s platform is focused on the following four main elements: 1) protect our climate; 2) build a state government that puts people before Big Money; 3) make all our public schools truly excellent; 4) solve the opioid crisis. I’d simply add that having met April Moore, she’s a wonderful person and would be an INFINITE improvement over Mark Obenshain in the Virginia State Senate. Yes, this is a deep-red district, but as the saying goes, “you can’t win if you don’t play.” So…go April Moore!
As for Mark Obenshain, the guy is utterly deplorable. Just yesterday, for instance, he led the fight in the Virginia State Senate against raising the minimum wage, spewing absurd/fallacious “arguments” against it. Obenshain also, unsurprisingly, was against Virginia ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, because…[fill in the blank crazy/hysterical/false argument]. And, of course, wingnut that he is, Obenshain was vehemently against Medicaid expansion, something that would help the people of his rural district tremendously, but…Obenshain simply doesn’t care.
For more on the guy I call “ObenSHAME,” see VA Sen. Mark Obenshain Mocks Freezing Woman Who Threw Concrete Through Gen. Assembly Window In Order to Go Someplace Warm…Jail, GOP attorney general candidate tried to force women to report miscarriages to police (“Virginia Sen. Mark Obenshain wanted to send women to jail who failed to report their miscarriages to the police”), Video: Far-Right-Wing Virginia Sen. Mark “Criminalize Miscarriages” Obenshain Mansplains to April Moore About Global Warming, Qarni Labels Obenshain’s Constitutional Amendment On Charter Schools “Irresponsible” & “Misguided”, Sen. Mark Obenshain attacks voting rights…again, Mark Obenshain’s Facebook Rant on Supposed “Voter Fraud” Hypocrisy Makes Zero Sense, etc, etc. Yep, I think you get the idea; this guy’s basically the Dick Black of the Shenandoah Valley. So…this November, please vote for integrity, intelligence, sanity, our planet, your own self interest…and for April Moore!
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I am running for the Virginia Senate (SD-26) this coming November. (Please visit my campaign website.)
As you may remember, I ran for this seat back in 2015. I challenged the Republican incumbent Mark Obenshain because I could see that it was not the people of this district he was serving.
That is still true: So I will challenge him again on issues like corruption in Virginia’s government, where he is an instrument of the Koch Brothers; and on climate change, in which he is in the pocket of Dominion Energy; and on health care, where, until the bitter end, he put the ambitions of his party above the well-being of the citizens of Virginia.
But this year I will challenge Mr. Obenshain in a whole new way because of the unthinkable and dangerous thing his Republican Party has become–the Party of Trump. I will challenge him to tell us which side he’s on, in this battle for our American democracy and our national security.
In a conservative district like ours, any candidate who wants to win must earn the support of a good many Republicans. I know there are Republicans in our area who are unhappy with what their party has become–people who are like my life-long Republican parents, who could never have supported a Republican party like this one, one that tramples on the conservative values they held dear.
[See my recent op/ed, in the Northern Virginia Daily, “To Those Like My Lifelong Republican Parents.”]
It is such principled Republicans that I will work to pry away from Sen. Obenshain by challenging him to declare where he stands on all the ugly things the Trump Party is doing.
This is the heart of my strategy to win this seat.
And, in addition, I will use my platform, as the major party nominee I hope to be, to speak the urgently important truth that all of my Trump-supporting neighbors need to hear.
So please join me as I officially launch my campaign for state senate with a press conference. Show the press and the public that you support my campaign’s efforts to:
- protect our climate;
- build a state government that puts people before Big Money;
- make all our public schools truly excellent;
- solve the opioid crisis. [See my op/ed appearing yesterday in the Northern Virginia Daily, “What Underlies this Opioid Crisis?.”]
When and Where?
When: Tuesday, January 29
11:00 am
Where: Rockingham County Government Building
Board room
20 E. Gay Street
Harrisonburg, Virginia
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