I was a ten-year-old in awe when I met the legendary Darrell Royal, head coach of the Texas Longhorns football team from the late 1950’s to 1976. He had the charm and wit to go along with coaching smarts that got him three national championships over his storied career.
One of the best lines he ever produced was not on the offensive or defensive line of scrimmage. It was a quip he made to a journalist asking him about a possible lineup change in an upcoming big game. His famous answer was, “You’ve gotta dance with them what brung ya”. The quote even made its way into the title of a book by Molly Ivins and is as appropriate today as it was when Royal said it a half a century ago.
This brings me to who I support for the next governor of Virginia. I know both of the Democratic candidates. Tom Periello and Ralph Northam are good men and as a single issue voter on gun safety, I believe both abhor the terrorist behavior of the NRA leadership and their paid republican lackeys in the Virginia General Assembly.
There is a big difference between them, however. At the core is opportunism versus consistency and steadfastness. Tom has channeled the Bernie Sanders movement. He’s a progressive champion but just like Bernie, he grudgingly comes late to the game on the gun issue. While Bernie was defending gun manufacturers from lawsuits in the 2000’s, Periello was boasting of his “A” rating from the NRA in 2008 even in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre. He straight up told those affected families he wasn’t budging on his allegiance to the gun lobby, putting its insidious interests over the safety of future victims, like my daughter Alison.
That was then, this is now. I’m glad Tom had an epiphany on the NRA, but his sudden reappearance in Virginia and dive into the governor’s race looks like pure opportunism trying to capitalize on the Bernie faithful.
In the meantime, our Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, the former Army physician who knows what bullets do to the body, has steadfastly been there for the people of Virginia at the sacrifice of his private practice as a pediatric neurologist. He was there for Virginia Tech families. He was there for us when Alison was murdered. He’s one of those rare breeds in politics—a true public servant who enters the arena as a higher calling and who has been with us from the get go.
I’m gonna dance with them what brung me. And that would be Ralph Northam.
