I was inspired to write this because I feel that there are many, many Republicans and Independents out there who will vote for Obama or just stay home on election day because they too are turned off by the shameful behavior of the MacPalin campaign. Behavior that is a slap in the face of America and all she stands for.
I was 14 in 1972 when George McGovern made a run for the White House. I brought a McGovern campaign poster home and my father, a military officer and die hard Republican upon seeing the poster turned into a scary beast. With eyes popping, neck veins bulging and spittle flying he tore the poster to shreds and forbade me to ever bring any such trash in his home ever again. Well so much for my young foray into politics. The first chance I got I voted Democrat.
When Reagan won I was living in Germany and decided that I would stay there until America came to its senses. It wasn’t long before I started reading reports of institutional doors being thrown wide open and the emergence of a new social class in America "The Homeless" But I have to admit I felt a little proud of our acting President when he said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Back on this side of the pond with George Bush Sr. in office I found myself in University and was proud of my country when we launched Desert Storm, what that nasty Saddam was doing to Kuwait and Israel had to be stopped. I enjoyed seeing that son of a dog running back to Baghdad with his tail between his legs. I liked the idea of limited strategic warfare sort of like a scalpel - not a hatchet approach. My only regret was that old George was a Republican and not a Democrat. When Clinton won I was a smitten voter and a happy camper.
When George Jr. won I was stunned as surely as if I’d been Tasered while sitting in my bath tub. I wanted to strangle all my complacent Democratic buddies who said they weren’t going to bother voting, because no way would America vote that nut into the White House. And why did they think that no way would America vote that nut into the White House? Well, because America was now a modern, educated, tolerant, globally minded and open society that had no desire to put a hot head fundamentalist Christian Texas boy child of a former welcome to my neighborhood President into the White House (whew). Boy oh Boy were they wrong!
My hothead father decided to become an independent. Which amazed me, him a Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., Republican and a man who served two tours in Vietnam, didn’t like Bush Jr. And liked him even less when we left the true theater of war (Afghanistan) to take care of his Daddy’s unfinished business in Baghdad.
My father’s birthday was last week. He is now a retired warrior living in the heart of Alabama. I sent him a birthday card and couldn’t resist writing "Happy Birthday – Vote Obama 08! I’m safely miles away in Colorado and if he wanted to shred his own birthday card then so be it. Alas, the obligatory call still ahead of me I rang him up. "So you’re voting for Obama?" he says, not a man to beat about the bush. In a rapid fire, take no casualties, approach he shoots out that Palin is a ridiculous joke, that he’s Joe six pack and she’s not talking for him, that if Obama was running against Charles Manson in Alabama he would still lose sixty percent of the vote, because it’s a racial thing, and that Obama is a good man and the smartest of the bunch! He decided that the lines would be too long to vote so he was just going to stay home. I encouraged him to go ahead and stand in line and vote for Obama anyway – he didn’t say no. So there you go, my old man, a two time honorably decorated Vietnam warrior, a Nixon and Reagan Republican is not going to vote for McCain.
After some of the recent shenanigans of McCain and the shadows of racism, McCarthyism and the emergence of a kind of subtle American fascism in his campaign I have hope that there are a lot of folks like my dad out there.