Two eloquent Democratic Party messengers whipped up the Illinois delegation Wednesday, warning that Democratic National Convention euphoria won’t last without hard work.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who helped flip the Senate when he and Sen. Jon Ossoff won Georgia in separate 2021 runoff elections, told delegates Wednesday they should give his home state “a round of applause.”
“Who would have thought that Georgia, a state of the old Confederacy, would set us up the way we did? Who would have picked Georgia? I’m glad you’re laughing because Georgia got the last laugh,” Warnock told the crowd at the Illinois delegation’s breakfast meeting.
But, “we got to stay in this fight between now and November. Don’t let up for a moment. We feel real good right now. But when we come down from this mountaintop we got to go down into the valley and do the work.
“A vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” he added. “And our prayers are stronger when we pray together.”
State Sen. Laura Fine of Glenview saw the morning as a call to action.
“It was very inspirational today and really focused on how important this election is. The future of our country depends on it,” she said. “I feel like we’re almost on a high right now … but we have to use all our energy, all our enthusiasm and work, work, work until the election to make sure that we’re in.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, gave a shoutout to O’Hare International Airport and local toll roads.
He attributed momentum to elect Vice President Kamala Harris to “the simple fact that the American people agree with us on the issues that matter.
“For some reason, Democrats have this habit of sometimes feeling that our views must be unpopular. The reverse is true,” Buttigieg said.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, left, listen to Attorney General Kwame Raoul speak Wednesday at the Illinois delegation breakfast during the Democratic National Convention.
Marni Pyke/mpyke@dailyherald.com
“Americans agree with us that it is the wealthy who are not paying their fair share (of taxes). Americans agree with us that in a free country you are free to join a union and get a good day’s wages and benefits for a good day’s work. Americans agree with us that the best way to keep our children safe is not to censor Toni Morrison paperbacks and keep them out of the school library but to make sure that gun violence does not come to the steps of our schools or our homes,” he said. “And the vast majority of Americans agree with us that in a free country you can be who you are, love who you love and a woman’s health care decisions are up to her.”
For Park Ridge delegate Aurora Austriaco, “the message is very positive, the message is that we’re going to get the House back.”
With “heavy hitters” like Buttigieg and Warnock, “it’s just energizing and it gives me so much hope. Coming out of this convention, I’m thinking of going to Wisconsin and Michigan, I’m going to knock on doors,” she added.
Also on tap were Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, AFL-CIO union leaders, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis of Chicago.
Johnson promised, “Illinois is going to deliver history again when we launch the first Black woman of Asian descent as president of the United States of America. And just for good measure we’re going to send a social studies teacher to the White House,” the former educator said of vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.