I met Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter today, and she is the real thing.

She is challenging Pedro Espada in the Democratic primary. Far from being the kind of eager-but-inexperienced progressive, she has a long record of success and achievement battling for the kind of people who live in the district. A couple of examples: She led the charge to throw out the corrupt Board of Directors of her coop and is now the President of that Board. She also fought the MTA, who wanted to place an express bus stop down a steep hill from a heavily used street corner -- and won.

More recently, she took on developer Related Companies (and Mayor Bloomberg!), who wanted to turn the Kingsbridge Armory into a retail mall providing only low-wage, no-benefit jobs. She has better plans, including providing space for desperately needed community services.

She has also exposed the practice in NYC's public schools of creating "phantom classrooms" in order to conceal overcrowding, and fought for proper (and legally required) services for special-needs children.

In short, this is someone not to be trifled with!

She has hired Lisa Hernandez Gioia as her fundraiser (and there is nobody better in NYC), and BerlinRosen as her campaign consultant (they have close ties with WFP). Her background, work, and community organizing experience is amazing, her campaign is serious (her campaign manager is a young fellow with an encyclopedic knowledge of facts, issues, history -- you name it), and her dedication to winning is top flight.