Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker speaks to Pennsylvania delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Aug. 20, 2024 (Capital-Star photo)
CHICAGO — The Pennsylvania delegation’s breakfast was the hot ticket at the Democratic National Convention on its second morning, with state and national Democrats reminding the room of the state’s battleground status in the 2024 election.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker spoke about the fight ahead, trying to get the delegates fired up.
“I see a group of soldiers, and I don’t care who you are, even the strongest warriors get tired sometimes,” Parker said. “And when you get tired, you have to find a way, just like electricity works, to plug into power to get re-energized. That’s why we come together as Democrats from all over the nation to gather here so that we can remember who we are.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg addressed the gathering briefly. “Everywhere I go I open with the last sentence I ever thought I’d be saying in my life: My name is Pete Buttigieg, you may recognize me from Fox News,” he joked. The American people, Buttigieg said, “already agree with” Democrats on policy issues.
“We’re just not going back to what it felt like to be an American in those years,” Buttigieg said of former President Donald Trump’s term. “I was exhausted. Were you? Every time you looked at the news, it was punching you in the face. You don’t have to be a true blue blooded Democrat to believe that we can do better than that, and Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are calling us to a better version of ourselves.”
Buttigieg, who was considered a candidate to be Vice President Harris’ running mate also took a jab at GOP vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (D-Ohio). “We need a vice president of the United States who thinks that people who don’t have kids are all childless cat ladies,” Buttigieg said. “ I’m a dog guy with two kids, and I’m insulted by that.”
Gwen Walz, spouse of vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, told the gathering she was impressed with Pennsylvania during the bus tour she took with Walz, Harris and Harris’s husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff last weekend. She elicited a few fervent “Wawa!” calls from the audience when she praised Sheetz.
The Harris-Walz ticket, Gwen Walz said, “wants to give everyone a chance to chase the American dream, every single person.”
David Plouffe, a senior adviser for the Harris-Walz campaign, also the delegates — as if anyone could forget — that “if Trump gets Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, Kamala can still win but it’s a heck of a lot harder.”
Next up was Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker, the first Black mayor in the city’s history. Aliquippa was one of the stops on the Harris-Walz bus tour last weekend, where the candidates spoke to the high school’s champion football team.
Walker ran for office because his sister was shot and killed in 2009 and the mayor at the time “treated my sister like she was nobody,” he said Tuesday. “I got into the game so I could affect it from the inside out.” He’s now four terms in and said being mayor is not for the faint of heart. “I love my community but I cannot do it alone. Beaver County is critical in this election.”
Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, the first Asian-American candidate elected to the position, said the county had seen the highest increase in Democratic voter turnout of any of the collar counties around Philadelphia in his race.
Both Walker and Makhija emphasized that they were examples that proved flipping previously red areas blue in Pennsylvania was possible.
“When we are for the people, for all the people, when we show up, we’re going to make history,” Makhija said, “and we’re going to elect Madam Vice President to be Madam President.”
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