| Darcy Burner narrowly lost to the WA04 seat to incumbent Congressman Dave Reichert in both 2006 and 2008 and is now the Executive Director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. She gave the closing keynote at Netroots Nation 2009 Saturday evening. Despite it's brevity, it was a barn burner. Italics below are Darcy's words.
We're called to build a world in which the basic promises on which this country was founded are finally realized. The idea that every person is created equal. We're called to be a beacon for the rest of the world for the idea that government of the people, by the people and for the people is the only way to fulfill humankind's destiny. We have been called to take our country back and now it is finally time for us to take it forward.
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We can't rely on people in authority to make everything right. We have got to do the hard work of governing. It's our job as Americans, it's our obligation.
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We have to help the people we elected.
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The message I get from [Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus] consistently is "we are doing everything in our power to make a difference but we have to have the support of the grassroots, we need the grassroots helping to frame the message, we need the grassroots to apply pressure."
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Much to the surprise of the Blue Dogs and people like Max Baucus, we are in fact winning. So there's an enormous amount of work to do ... the single biggest competitive advantage progressives in Congress have is sitting right here tonight.
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Destroying our allies is the surest way to lose and we cannot afford to lose. We owe it to this country to win. We've been called to do the hard work of governing. We need to get to the point, right now, of being ready to leave it all on the field.
I know there's been a lot of talk about health care reform. I don't know if it's been conveyed how critical this battle is. This is about a whole lot more than just health care. This is about precedent, about the direction of the country. This is quite frankly about the soul of our country. That's a lesson the Tea Baggers already know. They know that if they can defeat this we will not be able to take the country in the direction that it ought to be going. If we lose this battle, we will have virtually no chance of winning anything from here on out.
So I'm going to ask you today to take out everything you've got. If you can blog about it -- which most of you can -- please do. If you have the ability to make viral videos, if you have the ability to frame, if you can write letters to the editor or get people to write letters to the editor, if you can get people to show up at town hall meetings, if you can come up with ideas that I haven't thought of that you think are going to have an impact on this debate, do it now! Find your courage. Dust yourself off and go into battle now. We have been called and it's time to get to work. |
