Erev Election Day

My dearest Sam,

I'm sitting here writing you this letter on the eve of the 2008 presidential election. I hear you babbling yourself down to sleep over the monitor; you are so peaceful and innocent and perfect right now. It is just five days before your first birthday, and I've spent the past month marveling at the changes this past year has wrought, not only in you, but also in me. We've learned so much about each other, and about ourselves, in the past twelve months, and our time together has been the most precious gift I've ever received. 

But that isn't what I want to talk to you about tonight. I want to talk to you about this election. Yesterday I took you with me to canvass for Barack Obama. We knocked on doors, and although almost no one was home, we talked to a couple people, including a former Republican who has become thoroughly disenchanted with his party's abysmal stance on health care and is voting for Obama. I've heard so many stories like that in the past few weeks; the eighty-something black woman who burst into tears after casting her early vote for Obama because she never thought she'd live to see the day when she would vote for a black candidate, or the seventy-six-year-old New York woman who is voting for the first time ever in a presidential election because she is afraid of what another Republican administration would mean to the people of this country. 

Sitting here tonight, I can tell you that this is the most important election of my life so far. I've heard your grandmother and your great-grandfather say the same thing. There are so many reasons why I feel it is crucial that Obama be elected president: he will support a woman's right to choose what happens to her body; he has promised to overhaul our broken health care system; he will help dig this country out of the trillions of dollars of debt by repealing tax cuts; he will restore dignity and credibility to our foreign policy; he is a highly intelligent man who is not an enemy of science; he is a man of faith who is not a zealot or the willing pawn of zealots; and as the child of a single mother who at times depended on food stamps, he can better understand the struggles of the working poor. I am not voting for Obama because he is black, but I will not lie to you; if he wins, knowing that I've helped elect the first black president of this country will be icing on the cake. Knowing that black children in this country, and especially black boys, will be able to look at our president and know that they too can aspire to the highest office in the nation makes me feel that we as a country are taking an important step in the civil rights battle. 

Most people think that Barack Obama is going to win this election, and I agree with them. But I am very aware that it is not a sure thing. I'm very nervous that we will lose this election, and live with another four to eight years of failed policy and dangerous jingoism. I don't want you growing up in a country that hates and fears homosexuals, immigrants and Muslims. I don't want you growing up in a country where many of your friends don't have health care, or where you don't have health care. I don't want you growing up in a country that seems dedicated to eliminating the middle class. I'm scared about the outcome of this election because I want to give you a better country than the one I grew up with, not a worse one.

Tomorrow I'll bring you to the polls with me, and I'll let you watch me vote, and I'll do my best to make sure everyone I know goes out and votes as well. But tonight I'm just praying that our country will make the choice that will lead to a brighter future for you.

Love always and always,

your Mummy

Comments

[caramama]

That was so well said! You have captured a lot of how I feel so perfectly!