Let me be clear that I feel quite fortunate to be an American first and am quite proud to be one (though I refuse to sing that Lee Greenwood song that the Repubs adopted as their anthem.) However, my entire political career, from running around the house as a 4-year-old chanting "Humphrey, Humphrey, he's our man! Nixon belongs in the garbage can!" to watching Kerry get Swift-boated in 2004, I've spent too many elections being disappointed. And always, I hear my mother's words, and her father's words before her, "You're an American first...."
Follow me below the fold for the rest of the story. It's not "game-changing" and certainly not "breaking" but I think it's a good read...
My mother's first major political memory was from when she was 13 years old. It was the first time she ever stayed up the entire night and it was in Democratic headquarters in Akron, OH, waiting for the returns in the Truman/Dewey race. Sometime in the wee hours, after one more county heard from, it became clear that Truman was going to win. Someone played the national anthem and someone lowered Truman's picture down from the second floor of the atrium and everyone had their hands over their hearts and everyone sang and every single person was crying.
At least that's the way she remembered it.
It doesn't matter that Truman wasn't a great president. What mattered was the passion for certain ideals and for the greatness of the democratic process that my mother came away with that night. Four years later, she was active in the national "Youth for Stevenson" movement and was passionate, in the way only a 17-year-old girl can really be, about her candidate. When Adlai lost, she was devasted. While she lay sobbing on her bed, ready to flee the country, her father--the man who had kept her out all night to see the Truman returns, the man who would have bled Democrat blue if there were such a color 60 years ago--came to her and said, brusquely and without sentiment, "You're an American first, and a Democrat second. You can lay there and cry about your side not winning, or you can get up do whatever you need to do to save your country."
Fast forward. August 1964. 9 months after the Kennedy assassination. I was born.
Fast forward through Nixon, Nixon, Ford and then there was Carter. I wasn't crazy about him, but couldn't imagine a Reagan presidency. So I worked and supported Carter (to the extent that a 15-year-old can) and when Reagan was pronounced the winner the second the polls closed that night, I was almost physically ill. I told my mother I was moving to Europe; I couldn't possibly live in a country that would elect Reagan.
As you might expect, she sat me down and told me (with a little more sentimentality b/c she was looking back on her moment with her father) "You're an American first. Leaving would be giving up on your country. You can cry for a few minutes, but then get up and work for what you believe in."
Fast forward through 12 years of Republicans and then, finally, relative peace and prosperity of the Clinton years. I liked him. Think he did a good job. Stood in the rain 3 hours to hear him speak. Admired his wife. Still do. But I wasn't inspired.
Fast forward, election eve 2004, chatting with my mom and her saying "I'm just sad you've never had a candidate [at the presidential level] that you could really get excited FOR, rather than getting involved in elections to defeat what you're against."
On Dec. 7, 2007, my mother very suddenly and unexpectedly died of heart failure.
We, of course, had talked about the election. We were both excited about Obama in 2004, but weren't sure about him for the presidency so soon. We both liked Hillary. By the time of the California primary, I was torn. I believed that Obama was capable, but I knew Clinton was. His stance on the war was a huge point in his favor. Plus, I knew he'd be better in the general election b/c of the many people who just knee-jerk hate Hillary. Had CA been close, I may have voted Obama. But in the voting booth, with my mother there in spirit, and the chance to vote for a viable, intelligent, capable woman for president, I couldn't pass up the chance.
Early June, 2008: The kids were having dinner, I turned on the TV to check the primaries, and Barack was speaking (we're on PDT). My elder daughter (age 6) asked what he was talking about, so I told her that he had won enough primary votes that he knew he would be the Democrats' nominee for president now. We had talked about this for months, but not in too much detail. Much to my extreme surprise, she immediately burst into wails of despair. Really, the tears were flowing down her face. I asked her what was wrong, and she wailed, "I wanted the LADY to win!"
So, for the third generation, but with yet a bit more sentimentality, I brought her over to the couch and cuddled her, and just knew her grandma had her arms around both of us as I said "I know, mommy wanted the lady, too. But we're Americans first, and what's most important is what is best for our country." Then I explained that Obama believed a lot of the same things that Clinton did, and he would be really good for our country. I don't think I really convinced her until I went to Michelle's facebook page and she saw that not only is Barack the same age as Daddy, but Michelle is the same age as mommy AND they have 2 girls, also! (Sorry for the also. I'm not Sarah Palin. Really. Also. Wink.)
Through the summer I mentally made the move from someone who would certainly vote for Obama to someone who really supported him. Then he chose Biden. Biden has been a family favorite since my dad covered D.C. for the Wilmington News Journal in the 70s. I was born in Delaware and went to college at the U of D (go Fightin' Blue Hens!). Also. The selection of the not flashy, sometimes gaffe-prone, often locquacious Biden on the grounds that you simply can not beat having all that institutional knowledge and foreign policy experience on your side confirmed for me that Obama will surround himself with the best people who can give him the most valuable advice, even--or especially--when they don't agree with him.
By the convention, I was totally on board. After the Palin nomination, I made my first EVER political monetary (as opposed to volunteer time) donation to the Obama campaign. When Biden kicked moose butt in the VP debate, I ponied up some more $ in his honor (on behalf of my dad, who is hanging somewhere in eternity having a blast with mom and toasting, repeatedly, the current prospects of the Democrats and "our" Joe Biden.)
Mid-september: I actually put a BUMPER STICKER on my car. Never, in 22 years of car ownership (and 6 years before that of driving my parents' cars or being in college and car-less), NEVER have I put a bumper sticker on my car. I always figured, what the f*&% do I care about projecting my beliefs to random people who happen to be on the same road as me?
But now my car sports an Obama08 sticker. My yard (yes, my first ever yard sign) proudly proclaims Obama/Biden. This in a neighborhood, I'm sorry to say, that is hugely McCain and "Yes on 8"--we're in the central valley of California. And I sit here in my Obama/Biden t-shirt as I type this.
Apparently, I have drunk the Kool-Aid. I now get tears in my eyes watching those 9,000 people in the rain in Chester, PA yesterday, or the 100,000 people in St. Louis. At first I resisted the "change" and "hope" message as merely an oratorical device. But after months of reading, learning, and assessing, I am convinced that he really means it. This is a man who wants to change things in the way I always hoped we could change things. Whether he can accomplish that, in the climate that is DC, we still have to see (and to work for.) But, for right now, it is Change I Can Believe In.
My 6-year-old Hillary fan (and we still do love Hillary in this house) is now all about coloring the electoral college map and what we can definitely make red and blue now (like our homestate) and what we have to wait for Tuesday to find out. And my 4-year-old can point out the word Obama wherever she sees it. I don't pretend they know that this really matters. But, just like when my mother watched the Truman picture being lowered in that courthouse in Northeastern Ohio, I want them to remember this moment--the moment when the desire to bring people together finally prevailed over the desire to drive them apart--as a defining moment in their own political history.
So, in abut 140 hours, I am so hoping, for the first time in 3 generations [minus the brief Clinton interlude, which could have been great but brought its own problems], I won't have to think, "You're an American first....and so suck it up and work hard for change."
Instead, I can think, "You're an American first, and America is finally starting to agree with you."
This is an historic election. Leave everything on the road.