To the Editor:

 A friend and I attended a political rally to hear Trudy Busch Valentine, Missouri’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, a woman who makes no claim to being, or wanting to be, a career politician.

My friend asked her this question:  “Our nation is so starkly divided in so many ways, what is the solution to the lack of unity in the Democratic Party?” and Ms. Valentine answered:  “I honestly do not know.”

My first reaction was:  What?  No solution?  What kind of answer is that?  But thinking about it later, I decided it was a good answer, the right answer.  Haven’t we had enough of the career politicians who make false promises, propose phony solutions, blame everything bad on their opponents, while side-stepping the crucial issues and staying strictly “on message” no matter how irrelevant or hypocritical the message may be.

Trudy Busch Valentine may not have the solution, but in a very real sense she embodies the solution.  She intends to go to Washington to get good affordable health care for all (and she is a nurse.)  She stands up for women’s right to choose (and she is a woman.)  She puts protecting school children from  gun violence ahead of the right to bear arms (and she is a mother of six.)  Best of all, she will fight to restore Power to the People, in sheer defiance of any power-grabbing, voter-suppressing, unconstitutional, undemocratic or downright unconscionable career politician who tries to stifle her.  She is one of us.  She is for us.  And I’m for her.

Taffy Wallace

Fayette MO