There’s a well-known saying that those who don’t stand for something will fall for anything.
The upcoming Democratic primary election will be a clear statement of whether the district Democrats stand for something.
We believe they should stand for a candidate they know is on their side, someone with a history of standing for what is right, someone who is not afraid to speak truth to power, someone whose grounding in the community moves her to hear and speak to its many needs and its deepest hopes.
The candidate who best fits that description is Nina Turner.
We can count on Turner’s loud, assertive and insistent voice to speak publicly, powerfully and courageously for people whose needs are too often unvoiced and discounted in the national corridors of power. We can have confidence that her voice will not be silenced or purchased in the cloakrooms of Congress.
Our confidence is based on Turner's past performance. She is not a go-along-just-to-get-along politician. Once she stakes out a position, she is tenacious in advancing it.
When Nina stood almost alone in the black community in favor of ending our county commissioner system that had been hopelessly corrupted by political termites, the black political establishment voiced fears that our community would lose its influence. Today there are four black members on the county council, including both its president and vice president.
The best patriots criticize their country out of desire to make it better. The best Democrats do the same for their party. In 2015 Turner’s love of her people, her party and her country led her to leave the cocoon of Clintonian orthodoxy for a stronger, bolder vision. While her candidate was unsuccessful in securing the Democratic nomination in both 2016 and again last year, the ideas and principles they championed have moved her party, our country and the current Administration in a positive direction much faster and further than would have been the case without the strenuous advocacy on many issues for which she has been such a visible, vocal, and vital spokesperson.
The historic 11th District should not send a whimpering wallflower to a hothouse Congress. Nina Turner is the kind of fierce champion of progressive values needed in our District and our nation at this time.
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