I'm a minority voter. I'm a straight white guy, a retired baby boomer in my 60's. I ride a Harley. I live in a red state. After all these years, finally, I feel like a minority in this country.
Looking at the demographics of yesterday's vote totals, us white guys are no longer the majority. Add in the Harley thing and you might even say I am a member of a super-minority. Yes, "you people" have finally and decisively taken over the American polity.
And I could not be more pleased!
You see, I'm also a proud DEMOCRAT and I'm not even a member of any labor union. That surely must define me as some kind of super-minority freak voter.
I worked for Bobby Kennedy in '68. I got my head bashed by Mayor Daly's cops outside the convention center in Chicago that same year. I voted for Hubert Humphrey anyway, then George McGovern (but not before supporting Shirley Chisholm), then Jimmy Carter twice, then Walter Mondale, then Michael Dukakis, then Bill Clinton twice, then Al Gore, John Kerry, and now Barack Obama twice.
But through all that I must say that I never thought I'd live to see the day when You People would wrest away the reins of power from us guys. I found a post from another old white guy on my Facebook page today that "congratulated" us for winning the election last night. They guy wasn't happy about it. He went on to proclaim, "Say goodbye to the America as we now know it!"
And to this I say, It's About Fuckin' Time!
Yes, we won big in 2008; that was cool. But we gave half of it back in 2010 and almost didn't survive this race. But it was You People who made all the difference this time. Good work, You People!
You young voters, you black and Latino voters, you women voters, you gay voters and yes, you few, straight white men who didn't buy into the Koch funded baloney: you have a lot to be proud and excited about.
But here's the deal... this victory is incomplete and may be only temporary. You have a lot of work left to do. If we learned anything from the last three elections -- 2008, 2010, and 2012 -- it's that when lots of people show up to vote, Democrats tend to win. When lots of people don't show up to vote, Democrats tend to lose. We all know the other side likes it when voter turnout is low. That's why they work so hard to pass laws to suppress the vote. Yeah, I know this is a gross generalization, but it's a fact that when all Americans are motivated to get to the polls and vote, the people who tend to be elected reflect the face of today's real America -- not the one that I grew up in where old crotchety white guys called all the shots. It is why we lost the House (and almost the Senate) in 2010. You let the old crazy white guys outnumber you. It's what put John Boehner in the Speaker's chair and what slowed the recovery and made Willard Romney the favored candidate among "The Economy" voters. It's what made last night's election even close when it should have been a cakewalk. How crazy is that?
2010 was your fault -- our fault. We didn't show up to vote in big numbers so the nutjobs won big. Please stay on top of the game from now on and, for chrissake, don't let that happen again in 2014. There's still a few of us old white guys who will stand with you. You can't let up again. Not ever.
And next time you see some old guy on a Harley flippin' the bird to a Hummer, beep your horn and wave at him. He might be me.