Sweet Yet Sour

I’ll admit that I am a cynic at heart; I generally assume that the worst will happen and I don’t really have a lot of trust in others.  So when Barack Obama began his campaign for the presidency I really didn’t think much would come of his run.   I also thought “anyone could come out and say “we need change” and the country would be excited about it.”

As the months passed though, I began to get more and more hopeful that Obama might just win.  I began to dare to hope that real change would come.

Before Anna was born I did worry about global warming and the fate of our planet, but in a sort of “I hope someone else does something about it” sort of way.  Once Anna was born I began to realize that we all need to do something about it and began to fret about what sort of world Anna would have when she grew up.  Would she see snow on Christmas?  Would there be enough water?  Would the world she lived in be like the scary place in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”?

I started doing little things, for Anna, and for the planet.  I started turning off the water while I was brushing my teeth thinking “That’s Anna’s water.” I started driving less, recycling, and working towards composting.  But I knew that I couldn’t do this myself, so my excitement about Obama grew when he declared that he would like to follow Al Gore’s 10 year plan to solve the climate crisis. 

I understand that I and everyone around me will need to make sacrifices to make this happen, but I need this for Anna.

So I became an Obama Mama. Of course, being a mama, I don’t have a lot of resources… I donated what I could, put a “Red Hot Mama for Obama” button on Anna’s diaper bag, joined the Liberal Ladies of Highlands Ranch, went to a “Women for Obama” rally, and when they opened an Obama campaign office in Highlands Ranch, I signed up to bring in meals for the staff. It wasn’t a lot, but it was what I could do with a limited amount of time and energy.

Last Tuesday night, my sister, who is an Obama mama with a lot more free time now that Brendan is in pre-school, called me right before Anna’s bedtime. She told me that they had kicked everyone out of the Obama office and told them all to go stand on a corner and hold Obama signs. This being VERY conservative Highlands Ranch, my sister and the woman who had joined her on a particular corner were getting anything but a warm response. They had been called “terrorists”, “socialists” and had gotten called all sorts of other things not printable here.

So I drove out to join them, knowing that probably Mike would have a hard time putting Anna down without me (sorry Mike), but thinking that since this was election day, I needed to do this now. My sister and her friend Susan were pretty quiet, simply holding their signs up for the cars to see, and were still drawing insults from passers-by.

When I joined them and began to yell “Obama”, “Mama’s for Obama” and “Vote for Change”, things improved slightly. There were lots of honks and waves from motorists, along with the usual middle fingers, thumbs-down and other expletives. One mother had her son (who looked about 8 years old) yell “NOBama” out the window at us. Nice! The weirdest thing we got yelled at us? “Vote for Obama if you want to give your money to someone who isn’t even really black.” Yep, thanks for proving that you are a) Stupid, B) Racist, and C) Unable to make a left turn and come up with a good insult at the same time…

My throat was really sore the next day from all the yelling (and the cold that I subsequently got), but it was worth it. I am still a cynic and I do believe that Obama will not be the perfect president that I want for him to be, but I have hope that he will do a few things well, make progress in the fight against climate change, have the humility to admit it when he does things wrong and also know that “decider” is not a word and isn’t what he is anyway…