My son and I can't keep track of how many hours we've been out canvassing over the past few months. Must be over 70 hours and hundreds of doors. Every weekend - Saturday and Sunday all day - we're out there.
It's not the same out there as it was when we first started, and I started seeing the change around the time Sarah Palin came on board.
So today was a good day. Sunny beautiful fall day here in NEPA. We were hitting a mainly Democratic area, which is always good. Houses were close together, which is also always good.
Back when we first started, we spent a lot of time talking to people. Telling them our story and why we were supporting Barack. I am a single mom working two part-time jobs and I gave up my healthcare a few months back when food got so expensive.
Can't seem to find that $500 a month again. And that's just one of the reasons we're out there. My son doesn't want to go to war. He was the one who actually got me going on this, and has kept me going. He's 8 years-old.
There have been days where I've been tired and wanted to quit early, and he turns to me, his chest covered in Obama buttons, and he says, Mom, we can't quit. We have a job to do.
And we keep going.
But back to when we first started. We'd knock on doors and while we were mostly greeted with smiles and a thumbs up for Obama, there were a few people who would just say, No, I'm not supporting him, and shut the door. Over time, I realized that this was probably a sign that people didn't want a black man for president. But they never openly admitted it.
But in the past month or so, just as we have seen these reports in the news of 'kill him' and the McCain/Palin campaign turned up the heat on the hate, we have seen a distinct change. While we still get strong support for Obama, the formerly quiet ones we encounter are not only talking, it is almost like they are PROUD to announce their racism. They wear it openly like a badge of honor.
The other day, we were canvassing and a man called us over. With my son covered in Obama/Biden buttons, it was clear to him what we were doing. His address wasn't on our canvass sheets.
But I thought maybe he wanted to tell us he supported him.
Nope.
He called us over to spew the most hateful word I can think of - right in front of my little boy. His two little boys were standing there with him on the porch.
I just told him good luck and moved on. This began my son's education into racism, and we've talked about it alot since then.
Today we knocked on a man's door. He answered and we did our little introduction. He looked at my little boy and said "I can't vote for anyone who is black - ever. These blacks are disgusting."
Good luck. We moved on.
A lady in a cheetah-print fleece bathrobe answered the door. She obviously has been watching a lot of Fox.
She repeated every Fox McCain/Palin robo talking point and when I tried to answer, she shushed me. But after knocking on hundreds of doors here over the past few months, I have never, ever heard this:
"Well, I never owned a plantation, but I think these black people should thank us for bringing them to our plantations and giving them a good life here where they can even hope to be president."
I pulled my son away from her door, backed up down the steps and told her that I needed to protect my son from her hatred and we would be leaving.
So for those of you afraid of the Bradley effect, I doubt it now. John McCain, Sarah Palin and the hate mongers of Fox news and the Rush Limbaugh crowd have seen to it that the hatred is on display and not kept underground.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this experience, where people are more 'proud' to declare themselves as racists ever since Palin jumped in.