Thank you, commentor Jeffro:
Below are some of the pics I took while attending the “Congress: Cornerstone of Democracy” event put on at UVA yesterday by the Karsh Institute for Democracy.
(pics were taken inside the Rotunda at UVA)
Speaker Emerita Pelosi was warm and funny as we would all expect. My biggest takeaway at the end came at the end of Q&A, after she had been asked about her biggest concerns and biggest hopes for our country. She said she understands the outrage but her advice was “don’t agonize…ORGANIZE!” I have to agree. 🙂
Other tidbits:
* She said that our current era reminded her of Thomas Paine’s famous quote about how “the times have found us”. Paraphrasing NP here: “It was true then when it produced the American Revolution. It was true when Abraham Lincoln led us through the Civil War and kept our country together. And it is true now.”* She kept coming back to the main theme: Congress is in Article 1 for a reason, and that many of our current problems revolve around Congress not doing its job (ie, conducting oversight of trump)
* She closed by noting that she was thrilled to see so many young folks in attendance (I mean come ON, it IS a university Madame Speaker Emerita! LOL) and encouraged young people to not only participate but to run for office – especially the young women in the audience.
She did say a few times that she felt, unfortunately, not enough Americans view ‘preserving democracy’ as a primary motivator for voting, and therefore focusing on issues like health care, affordability, etc was a smart way to go for most Dem candidates. But she did add that ICE’s violent insanity and trump’s Greenland obsession/attacks on NATO were registering with many voters, too.
She predicted that Dems will win the House handily due to the president’s consistent low approval ratings. She also noted poor candidate recruitment for the Rs (and vice versa for us) as well as lots of R retirements. She’s cautiously optimistic about the Senate, too!
Guest Post: Speaker Emerita Pelosi At the Karsh Institute for DemocracyPost + Comments (39)