She's the mother of my daughter's best friend. She owns her own small floral shop and works all the time.
She's Caucasian, late 30s or early 40s. She goes to a Mormon church - but I'm not thoroughly convinced she's going for the Mormonism than for the comradeship and she's said to me directly she wants her daughter to have some structure of "values" in her life - a reason I can appreciate, even if I, an atheist, hold myself accountable to some pretty high ethical standards.
She came to get her daughter from my house this evening around 7:30 p.m. She knows I am a staunch Obama supporter and she's even called me on the phone to discuss the election. But tonight while our children played in the yard, she nearly broke down twice, being genuinely conflicted with where to place her vote this November.
First and foremost I want to make clear that she does not like McCain AT ALL. She called him "a horrible choice." But her reservations about Obama are nearly equal.
"I don't trust him," she said. "Some of his...associations really bother me."
I, leaning into the passenger side window of her '90s model minivan asked, "Like what?"
"That whole preacher thing," she said.
I told her that 20 years ago that church had brought Obama to Christ. (I felt kind of cheap bringing up this point considering I honestly believe religion is a farce.) I said that Reverend Wright was like a member of Obama's family. She asked, why then, finally leave this church as if it were nothing to him after all these years, just to win an election?
I told her that hopefully in Obama's heart he believed he could do a greater good by leaving his church - and one congregation - in order to become more electable and therefore do what is essentially "the Lord's work" and have it reach far, far more people. She said she hoped that was what was in Obama's heart. I told her I can not speak for Obama, but I hoped that was what was in his heart, too. (For the record, my friend knows I am an atheist and do not believe in God or that Jesus was divine.)
But this was not the meat of our conversation. Let's get back to the fun part: Her hating on McCain. She made it unequivocally clear to me that she believes he is TOO OLD. "Geezer," I believe was the chosen word. I never brought his age up. I told her the factoid I have learned here at Kos and on Olbermann - that he has voted with Bush 100% of the time this year and 95% in 2007. Rest assured my friend does not like Bush II at all and does not herself like to be pidgeonholed as a "Republican" - she says she "cherry picks" from here and there. I told her not to worry about labels that may put her into an inappropriate box. I told her I myself identify far more with the definition of a "liberal" or a "progressive" far more than I do that of a Democrat.
My friend was beginning to tear up over her frustration, especially when we began to speak about the war. "We're just so...invested over there," she said. She was afraid of pulling out, but for what?
"We're not doing any good over there," I said. "Nothing our guys are doing over there is protecting 'the homeland,'" I said, gesticulating wildly at this point. "And we're spending something like 12 billion dollars a month over there. Don't you think some of that money could help us over here? And besides, if you're worried about Obama sitting up in his bedroom rolling the dice about what to do to get out of there, don't. You don't think he has generals and - Bill Richardson, for example - on his side helping him with this kind of stuff? It's not like he's all on his own."
I told her, trying to find a nutshell, that my allegiance to Obama really boils down to the fact I'm pro-choice and anti-war. "Well, I can't be pro-choice," she said. "I'm adopted, for crying out loud. I mean, if that was legal back then I wouldn't be here." (I know, I know, you're wanting to scream at this logic, but I'm trying to win a vote here.)
I told her that the number of abortions has risen dramatically under abstinence-only Bush II and that McCain was going to maintain that policy. This gave her great pause, and I saw her eyes glaze with this realization. I told her that there was more than one way to be pro-life, like not staying in an illegal war for 100 years.
I told her that I believed in my heart that Obama is the kind of man who, when he looks in the mirror at himself, must have the knowledge that he has done what is right - in order to live with himself. I know that is just a guess, but I believed it. I told her that McCain might have done some honorable things in his past, but the last several months of this campaign has shown that he is willing to sell his soul in order to get elected.
I told her I wanted her to get as much information about these candidates as possible - and to listen to as many people as she needed to in order to make up her mind.
I told her that if every American took their one singular vote as seriously as she does - and with such emotion - our country would be a better place. I told her we needed people like her on our team - people with heart and who gave things careful consideration.
I do not believe this meager diary does our conversation justice, but she admitted that getting her information from the TV was probably her biggest problem.
One last note, and this was how we parted (besides "goodnight"): "McCain's gonna lose, big time. Obama will be our next president."
Well spoken, Friend.