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Lea & Liz: Today the conversation continues

February 5th, 2008

Last presidential election, I volunteered some time for the Kerry campaign - on election day, I was tasked with standing outside a precinct with election hotline information in case there were problems like there were in 2000. There wasn’t a single problem so I pretty much just stood there for 2 or 3 hours.

Regardless of your party affiliation, anyone who has ever spent any time at a polling place has had the wonderful experience of standing at the pulse of democracy for a time.

One great sight that day was a mom who came in to vote with her 5 kids, all different ages. I smiled at her and made a comment about what a wonderful opportunity she was giving her kids to participate. She gave me something like a “you need to die, now” look, which I took to mean she was voting for Bush? After she voted, I thought a friendly “have a nice day” might be safe, but her answer to that was a brusk “I support George W. Bush.”

Last week on the day of the Florida primary, my friend Lea honored us by sharing the deep family roots voting has for her. Lea voted in the Republican primary that day, I voted in the Democratic primary. It’s pretty unlikely we’ll be voting for the same candidate come November, but we will both show up as a part of the American family, exercising what is both our duty and our privilege. By doing so, we become a part of the conversation the Founding Fathers knew we’d have to keep having.

The mom with 5 kids, I think, had fallen victim to the hate-peddlers who are making it impossible to have that conversation (even, apparently, to make small talk with “the enemy”).

If you’re in a state that votes today, I say it matters far less which candidate wins than it does that the hate-peddlers lose. I want you to pause for a moment and look around at the others voting nearby. They are Lea who left her sick mother’s bedside to vote, as she knew her mother would want her to. They are citizens who have accepted the Founders high bar to show up for the conversation.

We’d be nothing without them, even if they didn’t vote our way.

-Liz

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