Gabriel Rom

grom@lohud.com

Rockland county's Democratic leadership turned out in force Saturday at the West Haverstraw Community Center to show their support for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

"Hillary knows she has a friend in Rockland County. In fact she has many," said Paul Adler, a former chairman of the Rockland County Democratic Party.

Behind him and in the crowd sat much of Rockland's Democratic elite, including U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, state Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who grew up near New City.

Referring to Clinton as a "dreamer and a doer, an idealist and a pragmatist," Weingarten framed the election as a fight between rationality and forces of hate.

"The anger in this country is profound but underlying that anger is the belief that America is the land of opportunity and Hillary understands that," she said.

Outside the community center stood a monument for the emergency workers who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks. Inside, speakers spoke glowingly of Clinton's time as New York senator in the months after the attacks.

"After September 11 a lot of U.S. senators turned their attention to other issues. Over time there was a sense that people were forgetting, but I truly believe Hillary never forgot," said Assemblyman U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Woodbury

Assemblyman James Skoufis, D-Woodbury, highlighted Clinton's involvement in securing medical benefits for emergency workers after the attack, and her role in the 2011 killing of Osama Bin Laden.

"She helped bring justice," Skoufis added.

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Allida Black, a professor at George Washington University and co-founder of the Ready for Hillary Super PAC, pointed to Clinton's formative years as a young law student working for civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman in the south. Black said that evidence Clinton gathered, often surreptitiously, helped lead to the loss of tax-exempt status for an all-white academy in Alabama.

Nyack Mayor Jen Laird White said while she respected Bernie Sander's idealism, she saw Clinton as the candidate who could get things done.

"As a government official, there is a tremendous amount of compromise and pragmatic policy making that must occur," she said. "I think Bernie is an idealist and I don't think government is the place of idealism. It's a wonderful thing to talk about but its very important that things be implemented."

Twitter: @GabrielRom1