Once in a while, you see it, they try to be sneaky and spring it, hoping you will stutter, stumble, or go blank. They ask the question, in a snide fashion
"Why are you voting for Obama?"
I've spent months and months reciting my reasons. I have spouted statistics. I have referred to education, health care, the economy, a war for greed, and many other issues. I've sometimes worried I sounded too admiring or too mechanical, always trying to find the balance so I don't appear remote or fanatical. Today, I heard an explanation I will be repeating the next several weeks, as often as I can.
At a local restaurant, a young waitress was serving a couple of older Republican men and they began a conversation that turned to politics as business was a bit slow. Here is the excerpt that leapt out for me, right after the gentlemen touted the great Free Trade Insurance:
With regard to the health care problem, the young woman tried to explain her side of it as she calmly said the following, with a wry smile. "I'm a good person. I played by the rules. I've worked hard. I was a good teenager. I finished high school at age 14, started college early, got my degree. I then worked at a corporation, making my way up the management ladder, working 80 or more hours a week. At age 23, I got cervical cancer and after a long, ugly battle, it is finally in remission. Now, due to the economic downturn, I'm laid off. I've used up my savings on medical bills. All the stock I've accrued is now worthless. I have no health insurance because I was laid off, I'm 25, I'm broke, and I have a pre-existing condition. So you find me here waiting tables, praying my cancer doesn't come back. I worked hard. I played by all the rules. Do I deserve to die for that?"
For me, this is the culmination of the perfect storm for America. We funnel our monies into Iraq, so our children can die there, and here. Our homes and jobs are lost, along with any security we have labored for. We can work like dogs and, in a moment, it is swept away. The more vulnerable we become, the quicker our system turns it's back on us. Our American dream becomes a nightmare.
I hear only one candidate addressing these issues. I see only one candidate that could look in that young face with the trembling smile and the big brown eyes and say, "I understand. I want to change these things. I care what happens to you." For me, that candidate doesn't have to be perfect, he just has to be wise enough to create some solutions that will engender some relief and, most of all, he needs to give a damn. That candidate is certainly NOT John McCain.
I hear the pundits and the strategists and, for them, it's all about the numbers, the scene, the frame, and the delivery. For them, it's not about the issues or us. For Barack Obama, it is all about the issues and all about us. Real people with real problems that are struggling. No, it's not just about this one young woman, it's the millions of Americans that share her dilemma.
Uninsured In America
Jobless Rate Spike
Five year high unemployment rate
Rising Foreclosures
Stocks Decline
That is why I'm voting for Obama. And that's why those two gentlemen today, at the end of a long conversation, told the young woman they would be voting for Obama too.
So the next time you hear that question "Why are you voting for Obama?" Well, please, think of this young woman. She could be your neighbor, your friend, your niece, your daughter. In fact, she is my daughter.