LIVE from Pittsburgh: Darcy Burner closes out Netroots Nation 2009

Andrew and I are here at the closing session of Netroots Nation, watching Darcy Burner give the closing keynote address. Darcy was treated to a very generous introduction by Markos Moulitsas, who said her loss last year was one of the losses that stung the most for him in the 2008 cycle.

Darcy began her speech to enthusiastic applause opining that it would be a really good idea if more women ran for public office. Then she launched into a key part of her stump speech from the campaign, talking about why she ran for public office in the first place. Her perspective on politics and government changed in January 2003 when her son Henry was born and Darcy began to wonder how she could give Henry the kind of future she wants him to have.

Then, two months later, Darcy's brother Jason went to Iraq as part of the United States' invasion force.

She came to the realization that no set of choices she could make as a parent would give Henry the life she wanted him to have. That she must be a part of fundamentally changing the way we do things in Congress and in America.

She went on to talk about a deeply personal event in her life that wasn't in her stump speech. Shortly after Darcy was married, she gave birth to a daughter who was born in the twenty fourth week of pregnancy and only lived for week. The child was born one week after the only doctor Darcy's health insurance plan would permit her to see had dismissed her concerns about her pregnancy and told her she was being paranoid and should rest easy.

Darcy explained that this traumatic experience taught her two things:

1. You cannot rely on people in authority to make things right.
2. Sometimes you get only one chance at something.

These lessons, Darcy said, matter in the fight to pass healthcare reform. "We have been called to take our country back, and now it is finally time to take it forward," she said. As citizens of this great democracy, "We can't rely on people in authority to make everything right... we have to do the hard work of governing."

Darcy told us that the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are adamant that they are doing everything in their power to make a difference, but they need the grassroots to help and put pressure on Congress to act.

Darcy then gave a dire warning that "If we loose this battle [on healthcare] we will have virtually no chance to win anything from here on out."

Darcy ended by urging the community to take action, a message we've heard from pretty much every guest speaker here. Blog, write letters to the editor, make a viral video, attend a townhall meeting. In Darcy's words: "Find your courage, find your conviction. Dust yourself off and go into battle now."

And with that, Netroots Nation 2009 came to an end.

If you've been following our live coverage throughout the past three days, thanks so much for following along. We're signing off... so long for now!