Today I attended a reception for Deborah Ross in Durham, NC. She is running against Richard Burr for the US Senate.

I’m gonna get it right on the table at the top: if you live in a safe blue state, squeeze out some cash for a high quality swing state candidate that will turn the senate blue! Her poll numbers have been climbing all year. She is pulling ahead of Burr, but we are heading into a storm of Koch and dark money.

Donate here.

The reception was at a private home, and what a home it was.

 Owned by two doctors, it contained one of the best private modern art collections in the state, if not the country. But this isn’t about the house. This is about the Senate.

Deborah Ross is the daughter of a psychiatrist who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and a Head Start teacher devoted to early education. She has been a state legislator for 10 years. Now she wants to retire Richard Burr, one of the most reliably conservative votes in Congress, lining up in lockstep behind the totally obstructionist and racist republicans for 12 years. He has voted against raising the minimum wage six times, against equal pay for equal work for women 5 times. He has voted to privatize Social Security, to cut Medicaid benefits and to repeal Obamacare (what…33 times?). He has voted against common sense gun legislation. He has voted with private insurers, the fossil fuel industry; he has obstructed the ratification of judges–even for his own constituents who have been waiting 10 years to fill bench vacancies.

He finds nothing wrong with HB2. He loves Monsanto, big Ag, the gun manufacturers and he thinks it’s OK for the government to be snooping into all of your business.

Deborah, on the other hand, wants students to be able to refinance their debt, actually believes that Veterans should be cared for after their service and, well….I could go on.

The point is, she is smart, passionate, extremely astute politically, devoted to a progressive agenda, to addressing climate change and she belongs in the Senate right along with Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Kirsten Gellibrand, Amy Klobuchar and if the chips fall right, Katie McGinty of PA and Tammy Duckworth of IL.

How many seats do the Democrats need to take back the Senate??

Build the progressive women’s caucus in the US Senate. Support Deborah Ross with your time, your body or your money–or all three. Send Burr back to flipping’ Burrgers.