The only declared candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination is Marianne Williamson, who kicked off her campaign on March 4, but she is about to get company as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is launching his candidacy tomorrow and President Biden says his announcement is imminent.
Her time alone in the contest is reported to be productive, and two New Jerseyans— Aiden DiMarco and Nicholas Gallo—have joined her campaign as national youth coordinators.
While many commentators have attempted to disparage her candidacy, Williamson is striking a chord among Democrats.
Polls show three out of four party members do not want Biden to be the nominee in 2024.
Williamson’s rhetoric revives the pre-Clinton era messaging based on the policies advocated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who came into power at a stage in US history much like that in which now stand.
“It is time for us to return the Democratic Party to the unequivocal principle of advocacy for the working people of the United States,” Williamson said. “My belief is that we should end the unjust economic system that says to Americans, ‘Even though you live in the richest country in the world, somehow it’s complicated … to not have universal health care, tuition free college, free child care, paid family sick leave and livable wage.’”
Williamson, 70, founded Project Angel Food, a nonprofit organization that began as a food delivery program to homebound people with AIDS and later expanded to feed people battling any critical illness.
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, who delivered the keynote address during the event, said that Black voters need to stand up and become the voice lacking in what she calls a timid Democratic Party.
“We need each and every one of you to become missionaries for true superman justice and the American way,” Cobb-Hunter said. “We as Democrats are so nice; we don’t want to step on anybody’s toes and we have to be super inclusive. But I’m here to tell you unless we get a Democratic Party that (has a backbone), we won’t have a chance (against Republicans).”
Williamson said Democrats must believe that we have the ability to improve the lives of working class Americans is a speech that captured the attention of attendees at the dinner at Brookland Baptist Church .
Williamson made an impassioned and colorful appeal before a crowd of voters who know that Democratic leaders have not been all in on issues vital to the Black community.
Williamson confidently asserted that she’s the right candidate for the nation’s highest office.
While the has not drawn scorn or anything that matches the vitriol common among conservatives, in Black churches and barber shops across the country, African American voters have expressed heartbreak, frustration and disappointment with the Biden administration.
The Black community is being absolutely pummeled economically by soaring gas, food and housing prices but the White House has made inflation worse with higher interest rates and measures the reduce job growth.
Meanwhile, nothing is being done to curn corporate greed and repair supply chain issues that are driving up consumer prices.
The Justice Department has gone back to fixing police departments, after the former administration abandoned that strategy, but Biden’s team has failed to level charges for obstruction of justice, vote tampering, tax and bank fraud, or inciting the failed coup d’état against ex-President Donald Trump.
Biden propped up and then eliminated an expanded child tax credit that lifted millions of families out of poverty and he has failed to address the imminent depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund, which would slash payments to retired Americans by 25 percent or more unless Congress and the President take action.
Meanwhile, Biden cannot convince Republicans in Congress that they should pay the government’s bills, even though the last time the GOP threatened not to lift the debt ceiling, America’s credit rating took a hit that cost billions of dollars to the economy.