Leadership Quote by Ron Kind

“From its earliest days” is doing quiet political heavy lifting: it frames stem cell research not as a trendy, coastal science project but as something with roots, history, and legitimacy. Ron Kind’s line is crafted to sound like civic memory, the kind of claim you can fold into state pride. The phrase “important to the people of Wisconsin” is equally strategic. It sidesteps the abstraction of biomedical research and reattaches it to a constituency - patients, families, farmers, aging voters - anyone who might see “research” as distant until it becomes a parent’s Parkinson’s, a child’s diabetes, a neighbor’s spinal injury.

The subtext is a rebuttal to the era when stem cell research was a cultural flashpoint, tangled with abortion politics and federal funding bans. By making Wisconsin the subject, Kind tries to provincialize the controversy: this isn’t about ideology; it’s about us. That “us” is a coalition-building tool, smoothing over religious and partisan divides by replacing moral argument with local benefit.

Context matters: Wisconsin has long marketed itself as a public-spirited science state, anchored by UW-Madison and a wider biotech ecosystem. Kind’s intent is to defend funding, keep talent and investment in-state, and present research as both compassionate and economically pragmatic. It’s a one-sentence bridge between laboratory ambition and kitchen-table politics, built to make disagreement feel like turning your back on home.