Last night my husband and I watched the second Obama/McCain debate. I think I did pretty well -- I only threw something (a cloth napkin) at the TV set once, and only started shrieking in outrage a couple of times ("Meg Whitman? Meg Whitman?! MEG WHITMAN??!!!!")
Afterward we treated ourselves to dinner at the local Red Robin. Usually it's a very full and noisy place, but by 8 pm, when we arrived, it had started to clear out and quiet down. So we could hear the conversation at the table across from us pretty clearly. It was a father and his three daughters -- early teen and pre-teen, I'm guessing.
He was giving them a civics quiz. How does the Electoral College work; how is it determined how many electoral votes a state gets; how is it determined how many congressional representatives a state gets; what are the opening words of the Declaration of Independence. Good, solid stuff.
Just before they all got up to leave, came a question from the daughters to the father about the election. He may have said who he was voting for -- I can't honestly say I heard him say it was for Obama, but I don't think he said he was voting for McCain. (If he had, the conversation between my husband and I afterward would have been far different.)
"I was registered Republican before I moved here," he said. "But I NEVER voted for George Bush."
My husband and I watched them go, then I turned to him and asked, "What did you think of all that?"
"There's hope yet," he said.
Whether he meant there was hope because a father was taking the time to make sure his daughters understood how our government works, or because there was a registered Republican who had never voted for Bush, I don't know for sure.
But I figure, either way, he's right. There is hope yet.