I‛ve never missed an election since I became eligible to vote in 1975. This presidential election is the first one in my life where my father isn‛t voting too. That‛s such an odd milestone.
My Pops was born on September 29, 1929, thirty days before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that arguably signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. He was the child of small farmers, of conservatives living in the American Heartland. He died on November 22, 2007, the 44th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In my life he had been a teacher, a student, something in the old Office of Economic Opportunity, and the director of the Head Start program in the county where I grew up.
He was that rarest of Americans, a progressive Republican. I don‛t know if he ever voted for a Republican for president. He may have voted for Eisenhower; it‛s possible, but I doubt it. I know he voted for JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey (he would have voted for RFK, given the chance,) George McGovern, Jimmy Carter (both times,) Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton (both times,) Al Gore, and John Kerry.
In 1968, when I was 11-years-old and intensely interested in the coming election, I asked him why, if he always voted for a Democratic candidate, he was a Republican. His initial response was, "Look at it this way, as a Republican I get to vote against Nixon." (The primaries were in progress.) I pointed out that if he was a Democrat he‛d get to vote against George Wallace. He smiled, nodded and said for the first time what was to become something of a joke between us, "Good argument, you should be a lawyer when you grow up." (The last time he said those exact words to me, I was 49. I miss my Pops.)
I pushed him on the issue of being a Republican. He said, "Honestly, I became a Republican because at the time I registered to vote, young men registered for the party their fathers belonged to." I pointed out that he had registered to vote sometime around the Dark Ages, and that since he now knew better, there was no reason not to switch parties. Once again he smiled and nodded. "Another good point, but the Republican party has been steadily moving in the wrong direction," he said, "and if everybody who disagrees with that direction leaves the party, there will be no chance that it will ever return to being what it should. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, you know. Think about that for awhile."
So I thought about it and I saw his point, although I honestly didn‛t like it, because at 11 I thought that all good people should be Democrats. "OK," I said eventually. "I guess that‛s all right, as long as you vote for the Democrat in the actual election." He laughed. "Thanks for your permission, and I‛ll make sure to vote for the Democrat." There was a pause, and he looked at me with a very serious expression. "Unless your party nominates George Wallace." My Pops never talked down to me. Once again I understood his point; it was not OK to just vote party lines, it was important to take your conscience to the polls with you.
My family was actively involved in politics for as long as I can remember. We marched for integration, the Farmworker‛s Union, and peace. My mother was the driving force behind our participation, had those things been left up to my dad, we probably would have been reading the funny papers and eating popcorn instead of marching to Sacramento with Cesar Chavez, and yet my father was my greatest political influence. My mother pushed, my father explained.
I remember sitting down with him at the dining room table as he took out a piece of paper and wrote the words "liberal" and "conservative" on opposite sides of it. He then drew a circle inside the two words and proceeded to explain politics, pointing out that the farther you went in either direction, the closer you became. I don‛t think I fully understood at the time, but it made a lasting impression and it‛s something I‛ve had many occasions to ponder ever since.
I remember how a cotton boll brought home from a Fresno field became a lesson in the history of American slavery. I remember how my getting hit over the head with my own picket sign, when I was 12 and picketing Safeway on behalf of the UFW, became a lesson in the the struggle for unions in America. I remember him saying, when at 18 I floated the notion that I might register as a Communist, that he didn‛t think it was the wisest idea I‛d ever had, but that if I believed it was the right thing to do, I should do it. (I registered Democratic.) I remember the all encompassing hug when I came out to him. I remember him listening to me as I talked about why I gave money to homeless people, and then going to his old foot locker and taking out his beloved army winter coat for me to give to a homeless guy I‛d met near my neighborhood. I remember him saying, when restitution to Japanese-Americans was being discussed, "About fucking time we apologized." I remember him saying on 9/11, "be kind to the Arabs you meet; they‛re going to have a very hard time living in America after this. Let them know that not all Americans are holding them personally responsible for what happened today."
For my entire life, every time something about politics or political actions confused me, I would talk to my dad. We didn‛t always end up agreeing on everything, but I always ended up with a much better understanding of where I stood and why I stood there. My father prevented me from becoming a reactionary and a knee-jerk liberal. He also said there was nothing wrong with having a bleeding heart.
In the last years of my father‛s life, I watched with sadness as the actions and policies of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, et al., began to devastate him. My father had never been a hater, but he hated them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. He felt, and rightly so, that they had stolen his country from him, and that they were slowly destroying the United States of America. It got so bad that my sister had to tell paramedics (my father had a series of TIAs) not to ask him who the POTUS was. (For those of you unfamiliar, it‛s common for paramedics to ask apparent stroke victims if they know their name, their spouse‛s name, the year, and who the president is, as a way of determining cognitive impairment.) Just thinking about Bush, when he was already upset, would drive my father nuts. He hated him that much.
My father didn‛t live to vote in the primaries. I don‛t know who he would have voted for. Not Giuliani, certainly. He laughed when Biden said, "A noun, a verb, and 9/11." Not Huckabee, I think. My Pops liked his humor but despised his belief in creationism and his attitude towards gays. I doubt he would have voted for Mitt Romney, but I don‛t know. So I suspect he would have voted for McCain in the primaries. I know he liked Joe Biden, and I know he liked Richardson. I‛m honestly not sure how he felt about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. We didn‛t talk much his last year of life – he never really liked talking on the phone much after a brain tumor left him with verbal aphasia – so I never got to discuss Obama with him.
After Pops died, as the primaries went on and on, I began to really feel the huge hole his passing had left in my life. Some people might think it odd that politics was the thing that made me miss him the most, but it is what it is. However he might have been leaning at the time, had he lived, I know in my heart that the "More Perfect Union" speech would have put my dad firmly in Obama‛s column. I know that the last debate between Clinton and Obama would have made him furious. As the primaries turned into the general, I know my father would have been pleased at Obama‛s selection of Joe Biden, both because he liked Biden and because of what the pick said about Obama. I know John McCain‛s tactics would have disgusted him, and that the pick of Palin would have initially made him shake his head (although I‛ve little doubt he would have found her hot, which makes me shake my head,) and eventually would have revolted him. I know he would have been "happy as a clam" to see Americans uniting to take back our country. I think it might have even made him cry.
I know, had he lived, my father would have been pleased to vote for Barack Obama. I know he would have been pleased to hear me say that for the first time in my life I was going to be able to vote for a candidate, rather than against one. I know he would have been ecstatic at the mere thought that Missouri might turn Blue. But my father died without ever having the chance to experience the hope that the United States of America had the potential to become his country again, that we had the chance to take it back from the thieves bent on destroying it.
My father died on November 22, 2007; he didn‛t get to vote for Barack Obama. Today, I voted to take back my country. Today, I voted for Barack Obama and against H8.
Today, I voted for my Pops.