When You Are A Trailblazer

Ever walk through a field and have all those seeds stick to your pants like Burdock or Beggerticks? When you are a trailblazer all type scum are attracted to you.

How the first potential transgender member of Congress plans to navigate the House GOP
Sarah McBride said she sees “the importance of representation. But it’s also my job to make clear to people that I’m more than just one thing, that I am a multi-dimensional human being.”
Politico
By Nicholas Wu
September 16, 2023

Sarah McBride touts that she’d be the first openly transgender member of Congress. She also wants to be known for more than just her gender identity.

Sitting outside a coffee shop blocks from Joe Biden’s favorite beach, the 33-year-old said she sees “the importance of representation. But it’s also my job to make clear to people that I’m more than just one thing, that I am a multi-dimensional human being.”

During several campaign stops on a muggy September afternoon, McBride leaned into her gender identity in largely friendly territory, arguing that recent antagonistic rhetoric about transgender rights made it impossible to ignore. Still, she said there are other parts of her story that have been more formative than her gender identity, namely serving as a caregiver to her late husband Andrew Cray during his terminal battle with cancer.

She has learned the lesson of “All politics are local” that is how she won in Delaware. She is going up against some powerful Democrats in the primaries.

Her first step is getting through the yearlong slog of the Democratic primary. Sen. Tom Carper’s decision to retire and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s bid for his seat opened opportunities for a host of ambitious Democrats. McBride won’t have the field to herself in the deep-blue, close-knit state, and she could face stiff competition from State Treasurer Colleen Davis and State Housing Authority Director Eugene Young. Blunt Rochester is expected to stay neutral in the race to succeed her.

Can she rise above the other candidates?

McBride is already something of a local celebrity, and no stranger to national politics. She made national headlines in 2011 when she came out as transgender, serving as the American University class president at the time. And she has longstanding ties to the Biden family. President Joe Biden wrote the foreword to her 2018 memoir, and McBride said his late son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, was one of her mentors.

The local star power certainly doesn’t hurt on the campaign trail. Delaware State Sen. Russ Huxtable, who’s supporting her, observed that voters tend to recognize her when they’ve campaigned together: “People are like, ‘Oh my gosh, is that Sarah McBride?’”

She has a good pedigree in politics, so she is no stranger to running for office.

Celine Mentzer, 58, was out biking through Delaware’s Amish country when she stopped by to talk to McBride’s volunteer group in Dover. Despite being a Republican, she was considering supporting McBride because she and another Delaware state representative helped her brother get unemployment insurance during the Covid-19 pandemic when he couldn’t get through to state authorities.

“They still cared for him. So I was very impressed,” she said.

All politics are local.

Repeat are me… All politics are local!

I can just picture Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Freedom Caucus having a hissy fit if they have to work with her on a committee.