By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Christy Zapiecki Rahrig started thinking about politics when she was an Otsego middle schooler. She remembers getting a knot in her stomach when she heard people say being gay is wrong and gay marriage is a sin.
“It didn’t sit well with me” at the time, she said in a telephone interview this week. “I think gay marriage and gay rights is where my awareness of politics started “
She was old enough to vote in the general election when she was a high school senior in 2008. She woke up early – a rarity for her – to share the voting experience with her mother, Karen Zapiecki, and to cast her presidential vote for Barack Obama.
“That night when they announced that he had enough electoral votes to win the presidency, I just felt like, ‘Yes, this is democracy at work.’”
She’s gotten a bit wiser over the years and learned that there are wins and losses every election year. But last week, she experienced that same feeling of democracy at work as a delegate representing Ohio’s District 12 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“I was there not just as a Democrat representing Muskingum County, but also as an Ohioan, an American, and a person that is interested in what’s happening in our government,” she said proudly.
With more than 20,000 people overflowing the 18,000-seat venue, the environment was electric.
“People were excited; they were smiling. It felt like a very wholesome event,” she said.
Delegates who had attended previous conventions told her, “This feels a lot like 2008 when Barack Obama was the official nominee for the Democratic Party.” Only now the excitement was for Kamala Harris, the nominee who is a woman, Black, South Asian, and also experienced with more than three years as vice president.
“There’s hope and cautious optimism,” Rahrig said. The entire convention was a celebration, but she viewed it more as a kickoff because there is still a lot of work to do over the next two months. “The overall message was that we the people have the power to make change in our country.”
The road to the DNC
The convention “was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I am just beyond grateful to have experienced,” she said.
Rahrig earned that opportunity after becoming active in the Muskingum County Democratic Party, which she and her Bowling Green State University Falcon Flame husband Kevin joined over three years ago. They moved to Zanesville after they were married in 2015 and quickly became acclimated to the community in the arts and theatre.
“It’s really nice that we can be as involved in our community as we can. There’s a lot of opportunity to gain social capital and make connections and contribute your time, your talent, your treasure to the community around you,” she said.
They have lived in Zanesville for eight years, but she admitted she is not an Appalachian. However, “We do our best to try and support local candidates,” she said. “I tell people, you know what? I’m an Ohioan just like you. Just because I grew up in one corner of the state doesn’t mean that I don’t have respect for people in every other corner of the state.”
Because Muskingum County is a fairly conservative county, they focus their efforts to inform residents about the registration process and to make sure they know that they do have choices every election.
The Muskingum County and District 12 delegate process requires interested party members be elected to become a Democratic delegate, Rahrig said. The 2024 caucus was in Zanesville, which may have helped her odds of being elected because of their significant involvement in the community. Her name had been suggested by several party members.
When the Muskingum County Democratic Party chair approached the 2009 Otsego graduate and 2014 Bowling Green State University graduate, she decided to take a chance. She prepared a speech for caucus day, but when her four-month-old daughter Lauryn tested positive for RSV, she wasn’t sure if she could still vie for the position. As it turned out, as long as someone was willing to present her speech, she could run. By 8 that night, she got word that she was elected.
Biden out. Harris in.
In addition to attending the convention, delegates must pledge their commitment to the presumptive nominee. She had signed a pledge in May, but the plan was to do an official virtual roll call in early August, prior to the DNC, “to pledge ourselves to President Biden,” Rahrig said.
When Biden dropped out and Harris was in, there was some confusion about how to move forward. “I don’t want to say it changed everything, but it kind of changed everything,” There wasn’t a playbook for next steps in the process.
Within a couple of days, a mandatory delegate meeting via Zoom was called. The decision was to move forward with Harris since delegates had already technically pledged their votes to her as the other half of the Democratic ticket.
“It was a natural step to pledge ourselves to her that night. Withing the week a new email was sent to officially put Harris’s name on the ballot,” Rahrig said, meeting the Aug. 6 deadline.
Delegates were required to be at the United Center in Chicago Monday through Thursday of the convention. The daytime events and activities were optional, but the evening events, from 5 p.m. to midnight, were mandatory. Once the convention starts, the delegate’s official job is mostly over because they have already filled out the pledge form; however, they were expected to listen to speeches, meet delegates from Ohio and across the country, and be enthusiastic Democrats.
Lasting DNC memories
The convention held so many wonderful opportunities to meet and interact with delegates and local, state and national political figures.
Being in the same space as Harris and her vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the Obamas and other notable speakers was other-worldly, Rahrig said, “but there were several poignant moments for me during the week.”
When Gov. Tim Walz spoke on Wednesday night, his experiences as a former public school teacher resonated with Rahrig. Her mother, who passed away in 2015 after a battle with cancer, was a public school teacher in Toledo. She would have been proud of her daughter’s advocacy and also happy with Walz’s public school values.
“I’m a very proud daughter of a public educator, and I am very proud of my public education all the way through college. To hear from a former teacher who gave a relatively short, but fired-up speech was invigorating,” she said.
For her, the most important part of the speech was to see the cameras cut to his family, especially his son Gus who was crying and clapping for his father. “We all could hear him mouth, ‘That’s my dad!’” she said. “We were all-Gus in that moment. Seeing the love of his family was a beautiful thing to witness and probably one of my favorite parts of convention week.”
The speeches about gun violence on the last night of the convention also stirred Rahrig’s and many delegates’ emotions. Hearing the teacher from Sandy Hook and the mother of one of the students killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was heart-wrenching.
Rahrig sat next to a delegate who is a teacher, and together they sobbed through the presentations. “I know that every time a school shooting happened, it would devastate my mother; she was always afraid the next school shooting would happen at her school,” she said.
Having a daughter, who just turned one, compounded Rahrig’s feelings that night. “Now that I have a kid of my own, I understand where her fear was coming from,” she said.
Monday night’s focus on reproductive choices was another impactful memory. The women shared about how badly they wanted a child, but issues with the pregnancy meant the child would not survive. The topic of reproductive choices had become a key issue for her during this election cycle.
She remembered reading stories when she was in high school about women who have had to make very painful between themselves, their immediate family and their medical providers.
“That definitely expanded my view about bodily autonomy and how sometimes you don’t have a choice,” she said.
The women who stood up to tell their stories on a national platform were brave. The fact that Rahrig has experienced a miscarriage and has also carried a child to term expanded her view on bodily autonomy and made her more pro-choice.
“If they are bold enough to share their stories, I should be bold enough to share mine too,” she said. “When Roe was overturned two years ago, I was just so enraged to think that I now have fewer rights than what my mother had when she was my age, and my daughter was born with fewer rights than what I had when I was born.”
All of the speakers shared stories of impact and how Harris is the right choice at the right time, but the three segments on family, gun violence and reproductive rights “will stay with me for a long time,” she said.
While she represented District 12 and Ohio, she acknowledged that a huge part of her still belongs in northwest Ohio where the love and support she got throughout her life helped shape the woman she has become. “I still have a lot of love for Grand Rapids, Otsego and Bowling Green State University,” she said. “Whether or not I do this again, I’m not sure, but boy, this was quite the experience, to say the least. I’m very proud to have represented Ohio, and I hope I did ya’ll proud.”
