I arrived at the polls at about 6 am this morning. I was second in line (or so I thought). The guy ahead of me was my next-door neighbor and shortly after I arrived, the rest of my neighbors arrived. It was like a big party in front of the school. At about 6:32 we decided that we'd check to see if the door was open so we could go in to vote. It was at that point that we discovered that we had all been waiting at the wrong entrance! There were a couple of hundred people already in line. I listened to people talking amongst themselves. Some of the people had never voted in an election before!
I was amazed. I cannot remember a time when I didn't have some sense of the political process. As a child, I can remember forming political opinions (childish though they were). I can remember deciding that I liked Jimmy Carter because he promised never to have a Press Conference during "Little House on the Prairie" on Mondays at 8 pm. OK...I was six. It sounded like a good political promise at the time.
This year, the debates and the topics are more grown-up and more important than ever before. It only took me about 45 minutes to get through the line at my poll this morning and was well worth the time. I urge you, if you haven't done so already, to go vote. Vote your conscience. Everyone has a voice and everyone's voice should be heard.
I guess our voices just weren't loud enough. As Mr McCain said in his concession speech, "we will join with President-Elect Obama to move our country forward " I thought that was the BEST concession speech I have ever heard. (Probably not but since you only hear them every 4 years it seems so) I was driving home from Cincinnati and almost had to pull over when he was speaking, it brought tears to my eyes. He was SO encouraging, I don't know how he managed the whole thing without breaking, every time the crowd got negative he stopped them and told them (so to speak) to stop it and get a grip and get on with the task at hand, that being to drag our country out of this recession and be adults about the loss. I just thought he was SOOO mature (that's the only word I can think of right now and it's not really the right one, but). And the best part is, that's exactly what we will do. Mr. McCain, and all of the newly elected and returning electees will go back to Washington and we will all go to work and get ourselves out of the doldrums and get on with it, because America can do that. We are free people and, strong because of our ethnic and religious diversity, and because of our desire to remain part of a free world we will work toward that recovery. By working with people who see different paths to that same goal, we will come out stronger and better. We are much smarter as well as more flexible than we were in 1929 and we can figure out what the economy needs to shake off this disaster and get on the recovery road.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, Maybe I could write speeches in my next life!
Sorry to wax on so long, something came over me.
Love
Mom