Whitney Raver of Custer has finally populated her campaign website and formally launched her campaign for U.S. House.
Raver spoke to supporters in Rapid City Monday night just blocks from the homeless shelter where she once lived:
“When I first moved to South Dakota I lived right here in Rapid City, not far from this spot actually, at 30 Main Street,” Whitney Raver said during her campaign kickoff at Murphy’s Pub and Grill in downtown Rapid City, which was streamed on Facebook. “And if you don’t recognize that off the top of your head, that is the Cornerstone Rescue Mission.”
Raver, 32, said she always remembered during the difficult times in her life that “there was something else for me if I just kept climbing.”
“There is a name for that,” Raver said. “It is a philosophy that even today is spoken in reverent whispers all over the world. It is the American dream, and I still believe in that dream” [Seth Tupper, “Candidate for Congress Was Formerly Homeless,” Rapid City Journal, 2019.10.29].
Raver is a Democrat; so is Brian Wirth, who declared for U.S. House in August and was out shaking hands at the State Fair alongside his Dell Rapids neighbor and now U.S. Senate candidate Dan Ahlers. If Raver and Wirth each follow through and collect 1,615 Democratic voter signatures (minimum nominating petition signature requirement calculated from Billie Sutton’s 2018 vote tally but not yet posted by Secretary of State Steve Barnett—come on, Steve!) between January 1 and March 30, we Democrats will have a real South Dakota primary!
Good for her! We need more candidates who have experienced poverty and climbing out of it.
We could certainly use more elected officials with more diverse experiences to inform broader empathy.
This young woman seems a most viable candidate. I hope she does well and wins the primaries.
Good luck to Ms. Raver and congratulations to her for her achievements.
She is an example of one close to the concerns of common people. Stan on the other hand has been out of touch with us since the day he was born into wealth (although i’ve not read his book for the timeline). He is a Republican of very dark stripe when it counts for the GOP.
By the way, Trump’s goose appears cooked despite the interference from the white house, DOJ and lackey Republican politicians on the house intel committee in today’s hearing chaired by attorney/Cali Dem Adam Schiff.
Whoop, Whoop! Go Dems!!