Philadelphia
—New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro appeared Tuesday afternoon at the Logan Hotel here with a pitch for why the 150 women present should help elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as the country’s first president: Do it for mom.
“When I see Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket, I think of how far we have come in just my lifetime, and I think of my mother, Luisa,” DeLauro recalled to the crowd, drawing nods, “wows” and murmurs of agreement at a mention of her mother’s past-centennial years. “How far we have come since she was a girl.” The event was one of many around town coinciding with the Democratic National Convention, which formally nominated Clinton Tuesday for president.
Then DeLauro shared a story with which many people in New Haven may be familiar: After growing up in the city and going to work in a garment factory, where “she worked nonstop because she had to,” after raising her own family in the city that raised her, after making “opportunities available for friends, for neighbors,” Luisa DeLauro became New Haven’s longest-serving alder. During the first [Bill] Clinton campaign in 1992, she was entrusted with meeting the Clintons, and introducing them to the Italian-American community in Wooster Square.
“She introduced Hillary Clinton all over the neighborhood to the Italian community, and she sent them away with pizzas as well,” DeLauro said to polite laughter. “How she remembers that, even with her bad memory these days … she is a powerful example of what we can achieve.”
