I had a long talk with my best friend last night, who was on the last leg of a 14 hour car trip. I stayed on the phone with him until 5am Eastern. To keep him awake, and plus, he wanted to talk. I know those trips. They're long and at night, they can be dangerous. So we talked about lots of things.
One of the things we talked about was the elections. I want to share a little about our conversations over the last few year about his father, a small businessman, and how his attitudes changed.
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My friend's dad inherited a business. A block and tile business, in the South--not the Deep South, but the south nonetheless. He'd fled to Canada during the Viet Nam war, went to law school there, and actually became a Barrister. During Carter's amnesty, he came back to this country not to practice law, but to take over the family business. He ran it until about half a dozen years ago, when he sold it and retired.
It was a "real" small business. Maybe 40 employees, plus equipment and trucks, etc. He was a Republican, of the moderate type. Canada had moderated some of his Southern views, and he went out of his way to employ persons of color. He paid them a fair wage, gave them paid time off for family issues, and--to hear him tell it--was even a little "soft" because "My workers are people, too. They have families. They have lives. They work hard here at the plant, and so do I. Everyone deserves a break when something happens at home". He did work hard. He knew every job in the plant he took over from his father, and often filled in if someone was absent to get that job done. Everyone loved him.
I talked to him shortly after he retired, on his boat. We had coffee one morning with my friend and myself. We talked about the upcoming election, the election of '08. He certainly still had some Republican notions, but of the GHWB type. He called John McCain "a looney" and expressed his opinion that they had no regard for small businesses like his, or for his workers. I am pretty sure he voted for Obama, though it would be impolite for me to ask someone I call "Sir" in a Southern sense who might be my best friend's father, but not mine.
"I could have made a lot more money, Son" he said to me, "if I had been as callous as some people would like me to be. Those people who worked in our plant, they were our family. "
My best friend's father is a truly honorable Southern Gentleman. He's also a rare breed: he saw that the investment in his employees--even over profits--was what was best for him, for them, for the company, and for the community in which he was a "job creator". He kept the family business going, paid himself last, was a fair, even generous boss, and retired well at the end with his pride and honor intact.
Are you listening, Mitt Romney? My best friend's dad IS what American values are all about.