In my college dorm window.
Let me give you a little bit of the background to this story: I am a seventeen year old who until very recently lived in a small town in Montana. My father is a regular here at DailyKos, and is quite 'Progressively Passionate.' As such, I was forced from the age of ten or so to hear about the evils of the Bush Administration. For five years or so, I listened to his rants with the patient tolerance of someone who spent the first ten years of his life listening to rants about the evils of Microsoft.
About the time I entered High School, I began to understand just how severe the troubles that our country faces are. I was a silent opponent of the Republican party: I held my beliefs strongly, but I held them only in my own mind.
Just over a year ago, I experienced a political awakening, of sorts.
(More below the fold)
When the Democratic primaries began, I made a cursory once-over of the candidate's positions. Admittedly, I didn't do as much research as I perhaps should have. In the end, I decided that I would support the underdog, John Edwards.
As Kossacks are my readers here, I'm sure I don't need to tell the story of the Democratic primaries. Let's just say that when Edwards dropped out, I was forced to take a new look at the candidates... and was blown away by Barack Obama. The charisma that he practically drips held me fully in its grasp. I heard his call for a new kind of politics in Washington, and almost instantly became a zealot.
I talked to most anyone who would listen about the troubles facing our country. In my small town in Montana, I did my best to convert those I was closest to towards Obama and the Democratic party: my fellow students.
A month before Obama secured the nomination by winning Montana, I received a phone call asking if I would help the Obama campaign headquarters in my county by volunteering for them: making phone calls, knocking on doors. I was ecstatic, and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life: the feeling that I was making a difference in the world.
At long last, we come to the Obama yard sign.
At a county democratic rally, I picked up the sign, with visions of it sitting outside my house, proudly proclaiming for all to see that my family supported Barack Obama.
I took it home.
"No," my mother said. You see, she is the editor of the local paper. As such, she has a duty to remain (at least in appearances) impartial. Granted, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a news official holding political views, or even expressing them in private, but you must understand that in small towns, everybody knows everybody: particularly semi-important officials, such as the editor of the paper.
She promised me that I would be allowed to put it up after Obama secured the nomination... which I was quick to do.
Within the week, she received a letter from an elderly woman who had been a Hillary supporter. The letter scolded her, telling my mother that she had "violated the highest standard of (her) office." The letter also informed her that the writer had cancelled her subscription.
After a rather heated argument with my mother, I decided to take it down. My reasoning was something along these lines: "It's one thing to stubbornly stand by what is right, and take flak for it. It's quite another to stubbornly stand by something that is right, and let one's mother take flak for it." The sign has been sitting in my room for the last few months.
Now, however, I am in my dorm room in Wyoming. Despite the fact that Wyoming is heavily, heavily red, I will continue to campaign, to further the progressive movement's fifty-state-strategy.
And that Obama sign yard is now proudly displayed outside my window on the second floor.
--Keille