This may cost me some votes, but here are the facts. At this Saturday’s Virginia Democratic Party Convention, delegates will elect four members of the Democratic National Committee. According to the DNC Charter, two must be women and two must be men. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, since 1972 when Ruth Harvey Charity was first elected, one of these four DNC seats has been held by an African-American. Finally, we have tried to have geographic diversity in our DNC membership.
With these goals in mind, I (from Arlington) joined with George Wallace, the African-American vice mayor of Hampton; Mame Reiley, DNC Women’s Caucus Chair from Alexandria; and Doris-Crouse Mays, AFL-CIO President from Bedford, to form the “Unity Team.” Our team reflects the racial and geographic diversity of the Commonwealth, and consists of four people who respect and encourage Democratic volunteers, have worked very hard to elect President Obama and all Democratic candidates, fought for Democratic issues and values, and are fully committed to continuing to build the Democratic Party.
At the State Convention, you can vote for us as the “Unity Team” or vote for us individually as George, Frank, Doris, and Mame, but we appreciate your support and look forward to continuing to work with you to achieve Democratic victories.
Thanks for your thoughts. I would point out that we’re not electing one person, we are electing four DNC members and people may want to consider the goal of a diverse delegation in making their choices. Certainly, that’s not the only consideration, and we have set forth our experiences in working to elect Democrats and build the Democratic Party and the various ways we intend to do so on the Unity Team page on this site.
The Unity ticket is made of experienced and committed grassroots Democrats with a wide range of background participating in this ticket. I look forward to supporting the ticket at the state convention on Saturday, June 2.
Interesting take but unless conventions are somehow dramatically different than voting elsewhere it seems to me that we are to pick the best candidates not vote demographics. I respect everything each of these candidates stand for but by that logic above we would be hard pressed to find a President that made up the correct mixture of demographics. So the question becomes, do we elect demographics (if that is the case was I truly disloyal when I, as a woman, supported Obama over Clinton?) or candidates respecting that they will represent even those demographics that they themselves do no belong? Perhaps I would vote for each of the individuals listed here but I can only hope that there would be a better reason to do so than the demographic/historic argument presented.
Excellent piece – all well said. Pixie
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