It had to happen. As Milford business owner and candidate for Lt. Governor Sherri Valenzuela prepares for a speech at the Republican National Convention, the liberal blogosphere is taking notice.
Valenzuela appears to be part of a GOP convention story line about hard-working business owners surviving the Obama administration. That caught the attention of the Huffington Post and liberal blog ThinkProgress.
The piece from ThinkProgress provides a detailed account of how First State Manufacturing, the Milford industrial upholstery company owned by Valenzuela, her husband Eli and partner Ashley Wolfe. First State was built with the help of federal contacts and federal Small Business Administration financing.
The author had plenty to work with, thanks in part to the First State owners being named the 2012 Small Business Persons of the Year for Delaware by the Small Business Administration.
The point seems to be that First State is the type of business President Obama talked about a while ago. At the time, he drew heated criticism from Fox News and others suggesting that the economic environment is aided by government.
ThinkProgress ends up missing on key point in its lengthy piece, while managing to take a few shots at Fox News, which has been more than willing to take Obama to task for his remark.
Doing business with the federal government is difficult for small businesses. Competition is brutal and specifications can be tricky to meet especially in the current economy. More than a few companies have fallen by the wayside over the years.
Valenzuela deserves time in the spotlight for doing what it takes to build a sound business. The convention speech will be an opportunity to tell that story. It will be worth watching just to see if the federal government gets any praise. – Doug Rainey
