A while back I became social media friends with Cliff Schecter and he was singing the praises of P.G. Sittenfeld. I don’t always agree with Cliff, but even when we disagree, I respect his opinion on why. I wanted to check Sittenfeld out.
His platform on gun control is terrific. I saw immediately why Cliff was excited about him, that is his wheel house. However, my issue is how to be a better ally. I was devastated at how there was nothing on his website on how we will address racism. He’s in Ohio, and the name Tamir Rice does not appear on his issues page.
In fact, his “Civil Rights” section is suspiciously empty. I can’t complain about what’s there, because it’s all great, but look what’s missing:
A Progressive Vision on Social Issues and Civil Rights
PG will continue to fight for a future where politicians and bureaucrats stop practicing medicine without a license—and women are trusted to make their own health care decisions. He will only support a Supreme Court nominee who pledges to uphold Roe v. Wade.
PG has always been an unwavering advocate for LGBT Rights, helping move Cincinnati from among the worst to among the best cities in the country for its LGBT policies. And while he is thrilled that Marriage Equality is now the law of the land, PG knows there’s plenty more work to be done, including advocating for sweeping non-discrimination legislation.
I have put a word into his campaign about this. I was looking over his Huffington Post editorials where I found this quote. It took me a while before I found it in the first place and it took some time to find it again.
I’m not saying that this should be front and center in the campaign. If this isn’t your area of focus, fine. Ignore the black voters at your peril. This is the problem with the Sanders campaign and why he lost South Carolina so bad.
I like P.G. Sittenfeld. I really do. We need more people like him, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate. This is how we build a deep bench. If you read Sittenfeld’s Huffington Post piece, you can see he understands this, however, based on his website, his campaign does not.
To be fair, I don’t know where he is campaigning, is he or his campaign in the barbershops, the churches, and working with the activists in Ohio, because I am not in Ohio. This is important to me because we need that deep bench of progressives. We also need to deep six people like Rob Portman, whose seat he's running for.
I for one feel that P.G. Sittenfeld should be the nominee and should win the seat in the Senate. He is super young, smart, and right on the issues. However, political insiders aren’t listening to people and the black community is demanding that politicians must #EarnMyDamnVoteOrLose. They are tired of being taken advantage of. Someone who understands that #BlackLivesMatter is more than a hash tag is good. Now earn that damn vote, Sittenfeld!
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