Words to win a Teamster's heart

Valerie Demings, candidate for Congress and Harley rider.

Valerie Demings, the first woman police chief of Orlando, Fla., knows exactly how to win a Teamster's heart.

Speaking to 1,500 Teamsters at the Unity Conference yesterday, Demings said she had a few free hours recently ... and so she took a ride on her 2004 Harley Davidson Road King Classic.

Demings is running for Congress in Orlando because, she said, there's a mess in Washington.

We can do better. We need to start electing candidates who understand what it means to be a working American. Who understands what it means to be in the middle class. To just want to have a decent job that pays a decent wage with decent benefits, a job that gives you the opportunity to keep a roof over your head, put food on the table, provide a quality education for your children and in those senior years after a life of working hard the ability to retire with dignity and be able to take care of yourself.

But about that ride on her Harley...

She said she was thinking about what to say to the Teamsters, and then hit upon it:

It's great to be made in America. ...Made in America is about the opportunities we're supposed to have in this country we say is the greatest country in the world.

And if that didn't win every Teamster over, this did:

I was a member of two unions. I have a son who's a firefighter, a brother who's a member of the postal workers union and my oldest brother spent 32 years with ups and was a proud member of the Teamsters.