CHICAGO – Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a simple but emphatic message for Wisconsin delegates today as the California Dem looked forward to the fall campaign.
“Just own the ground, baby,” said Pelosi, another in a long string of big Dem names who have come to the Wisconsin delegation breakfast this week. “Everything’s riding on Wisconsin.”
Pelosi was talking about the ground game. Money is great. Ads are great. But, she said, “You must mobilize.”
Like other Dem names this week, the former California party chair praised Wisconsin Dem Party Chair Ben Wikler.
“You know,” Pelosi said, “Big Ben is regarded nationally as the preeminent party chair.” She later hinted at a possible elective political career for Wikler when she noted her stint as state party chair came before she ran for the House from San Francisco.
Pelosi said the prospect of electing the first female president is exciting, but she said Harris “should be president because she’s the best person for the job.” The fact that she’s a woman is “icing on the cake.”
Also at the breakfast:
– Biden administration Labor Secretary Julie Su, making a personal not an official visit, noted she, like Harris, has ties to the Badger State, being born in Madison. Su said she and Harris collaborated in California when the vice president was the state attorney general and Su was California labor commissioner. “She’s going to fight for people who aren’t represented,” she said.
– U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, motivated the crowd with an exhortation to “write your letter,” a reference to a story he told about Harris as the presiding officer in the U.S. Senate on the day Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed.
Booker was with U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., talking with Harris, who he said called it a “historic moment.” While Harris was referring to Jackson, he said it was also the first time three Black people ever got together on the Senate floor.
Harris told them to write a letter to a little girl to mark the moment and express what it meant to be there that day, and handed them stationary with the vice presidential seal.
Beyond writing a literal letter, Booker said there was another mission.
“What Kamala Harris was asking me to do, yes, the beautiful, literal thing, but spiritually, she was saying, Cory Booker, write your letter every day. By what we do, by how we show up, by the energy and the work and the effort we do, we are writing a letter,” he said.
Booker said all those in the room are decedents of the letters, written in blood, sweat and tears by their ancestors.
“They wrote us a letter of suffrage. They wrote us a letter of civil rights. They wrote us letters about Roe v Wade. They wrote us letters. And so now, Wisconsin, it’s your turn. Write your letter over the next 80 days,” he said, his voice rising. “Write your letter with love, with work, with struggle, with sacrifice, oh, make it a letter about reproductive rights. Make your letter a letter about defending democracy. Make your letter a story of how you worked to get Kamala Harris elected to the highest office of the land, Wisconsin. Write your letter.”
– Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Town of Vermont, called it a “no-brainer” to work hard for the reelection of U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. “In Washington she’s a workhorse not a show horse,” he said.
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