The Importance of Electoral Politics in Social Change Movements
Mandy Carter
By Mandy Carter–
I wonder how many of us could ever have thought that we would have our first-ever woman, and woman of color, as our vice-president? I sure didn’t at first.
That was until I remembered having had the good fortune of working on the historic election of our first-ever Black president, Barack Obama, in his 2008 presidential election campaign.
As an out Black lesbian and lifelong Democrat, I count myself fortunate to have worked on two winning historic campaigns that proactively engaged our LGBTQ+ communities. In 2008, soon-to-be President Obama formed Obama Pride with five national co-chairs for his national LGBT leadership team. They included myself of Durham, NC; Marsha Botzer of Seattle, WA; Jesse Garcia of Dallas, TX; Campbell Spencer of Washington, DC; and Eric Stern of Berkeley, CA.