Amazing! Below the fold where I tell you why my grandparents fucking rule!
Someone asked which state I and my grandparents live in - Oregon.
My grandfather, a "Goldwater Republican", who hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since FDR and still refers to blacks as "colored" occasionally - voted by mail for Barack Obama!!
He lived through the great Depression, volunteered to serve in the Navy for eight years during and after WWII and was a Goldwater Republican(although, as he grew older, he became more moderate as the GOP turned hard right). Growing up the one thing he and I always enjoyed talking about was politics and it is his fault that I am a history nut and political junky(and he taught me to love chocolate as well). Even when we have had differing views on things my grandfather is very intellectually honest person and was never a member of the "religious wrong". He's always been pro-choice. Something he has never told anyone in my conservative Democrat, Christian, pro-union family(a family who I wouldn't trade for anybody).
He voted for Bush the first time, Kerry the second because of the disaster that the war had become. He now says that George W. Bush has surpassed even Hoover as the shittiest president this nation has ever had. Worse than Hoover folks! Worse than the guy who my gramps blames the Great Depression on! And don't even get him started on the Patriot Act/illegal wiretapping. Just tell a WWII vet who isn't a VFW right-wingnut that their grandson might be under surveillance for posting at a left-wing blog after he fought against that kind of oppression.
When this campaign season started he was disgusted by Giuliani's exploitation of 9/11. He thought maybe Grandpa Fred would be Reaganesque but soon found him to be a good thing to watch if he wanted to take a nap. He thought Huckaby was a nice enough guy but he was even more radical Theocratic than Bush. Of all the Repub candidates he liked McCain the most and supported him when Hillary lost to Obama.
And then McCain morphed from a moderate Republican to farther right than Bush, the worst prezlenitz EVAH!(not his words of course but I'm paraphrasing)
My gramps thinks Palin is a tool on par with a bent screwdriver. He has been retired for three decades so he is on a fixed income but he and my grandmother(also voting for Obama but she has been a Democrat her whole life) both feel the crunch of rising prices and they want answers to how they are going to be able to sustain the comfortable lifestyle they have worked so hard for. My grandfather worked for the school district and for the city we live in after the Navy and lumber mill(which he blames Reagan for destroying). My grandmother worked as a cook for the school district for 35 years and her parents left her a nice house that they still live in and a nest egg that has helped them live comfortably but not to any excess.
The stock market crash hit their pensions and 401k's hard. Price increases also. They don't give a fuck about Bill Ayers or Acorn or names like Socialist - they care about living their final few years as comfortable as they have in the previous years of their life and still have something to leave to their three children and their favorite grandson(me, of course).
They care about their Medicare coverage. Could you imagine at 91 all of a sudden having to be concerned about your health insurance? They have served their country and are a member of what we like to call "The Greatest Generation" but they are concerned that his Wall Street bail-out will nuke their investment portfolio/401k's and McCain's plans to slash Medicare/Medicaid might leave them up shit creek.
My grandparents have been alive for almost half of this country's existence. They survived the Great Depression, WWII and even Reaganomics and no one is more shocked than they are that they are voting for "the colored guy with a funny name".
Obama truly is a man capable of uniting this country(even life-long Republicans in their 90's) and I am so proud of my grandparents for their open-mindedness and their patriotism. They truly are the Greatest Generation!!!