My wife and I were able to meet and breifly talk to Gov. Warner, Gov. Kaine and Sen. Deeds. All three were gracious and happy to be there. They seemed to feed off the energy of 300 energized, Loudoun Democrats. We've come a long way in Loudoun County (a point which each speaker repeated) and we have just as much work to do to keep our majority and keep Loudoun on the right track.
Go Dems!
[update] Here's a photo of us with Gov. Warner. It was really great to meet him again. He has a rare ability to stir up a Democratic crowd even as he promises to reach across the aisle and work with responsible Republican colleagues in the Senate.
2 comments:
I thought Mike Turner, running in the June 6 Democratic primary for Congress, was also great. A lot of people who were not previously familiar with him personally, appeared quite impressed with his very well-delivered remarks, positions on the issues, resume, and just plain stage presence.
One of his signature issues is his support for singler payer health care, and HR 676 in Congress which already has the support of 88 Democrats, including 2 of Virginia's 3 Democrats, Bobby Scott and Jim Moran. Virtually all of organized labor is also strongly behind single payer, because it's the only answer that works. Neither Obama's nor Clinton's plans are actually universal, and they will both cost more, and deliver less, than single payer, because they don't remove the huge margins of profit, and unnecessary overhead administrative costs, from the equation as single payer does. Mike's opponent, Judy Feder, despite 3 decades as an academic professional in the health care field, has yet to endorse any plan, but has indicated she does not publicly favor single payer. In this year, when if it was ever important to step up and propose the bold solutions needed to deal with huge crises in so many areas, it is now, Turner has done it in this so important area.
Both Judy and Mike gave great speeches, and it was really wonderful to hear the subject of real health care reform and bringing our troops home spoken by both candidates with such conviction.
I commend Mike for endorsing a single-payer bill in Congress, but am realistic about its prospects. The health care reform we can achieve will be reform that is proposed and led by a Democratic President. That is the reality of our situation, so endorsing one bill or another today has no major impact on the reform that will actually happen.
I believe that Judy Feder is the better candidate for the 10th District in November. Her decades of experience in the health care policy debate means that she understands how difficult getting true reform will be, and how easily we can get distracted and run down blind alleys in the pursuit of our goals. She will be a strong, experienced and stalwart ally to our next President in Congress, and will have the credentials to be a leader, not a follower, in the health care debates to come.
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