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I just finished checking my email. There's a message in there from John Kerry.
A few days ago, prompted by one more round of listening to Bush quack his way through one more round of lies, I sat down at my computer and went to John Kerry's website. I also took a chance and typed in http://www.momsforkerry.com, just to see if anything would come up. And lo and behold, I wound up at Moms for Kerry.
I spent a good hour reading through the two sites, at the end of which I put myself on the MfK mailing list and signed on as an official Kerry supporter. Since then, I've gotten a few emails from him--well, from the campaign, anyway--which have been well written and informative.
I've never been what you'd call politically active. My dad was a big campaign hound. He worked hard to get Bill Weld elected here in MA (the one republican I think I've ever voted for!), and got us invited to the inaugural celebration as a result.* He told me once that "if you aren't a democrat when you're young, you have no heart, but if you're not a republican when you're older, you have no brain." It was one of a long list of disappointments for him about me that I wasn't politically active, or even politically interested, as a younger person.
I wonder what he'd think today, my being a registered Democrat on the edge of political activism? Because I sat and read through all the information on the website, read through the plan that Kerry has for our country that he so kindly emailed to me the other day, and decided that I feel a need to help this man get elected to lead our country.
And yes, part of that is the "anyone but Bush. Please, Lord, anyone but Bush" thing. Because I think Snickers and Moose would do less damage to the country than he will in a second term. Yes, folks, I'd vote for my guinea pigs before Bush and Cheney.
But there's more to it than that.
I watched his speech at the DNC, and somewhere in the middle of it he went from "better than Bush" to "someone I'm happy to support." Perhaps part of it is that we're one of those families that took a job that pays thousands less just so we'd have an income in the house. Perhaps part of it is the $1100 a month we've been paying for health insurance for the past several months--$1100 we certainly didn't have to begin with, let alone once the unemployment ran out. Perhaps part of it is my fervent need for no woman in this country to NOT have the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy safely and legally. Perhaps part of it comes from watching Teresa Heinz Kerry and realizing that she's a role model I'd be happy for the little girls (and not so little girls) in my life to have in the media day-to-day. Perhaps part of it is my hope that no more Americans will need to die for a murky cause we shouldn't stick our hands into in the first place. Perhaps part of it is the fact that John Kerry, in the late '70's, ran a bakery in Boston--I've never met a cookie I didn't like! Perhaps it's all these things and more.
Whatever it is, it made me put my name on that mailing list. And it's made me try to figure out ways to make my vote count for more than just another Democratic vote in a state that's sure to go Democratic anyway.
Yes, Dad, I have a heart. And a brain. And they're voting together.
*Yes, HSBF Scott and I went to the Inaugural Ball. Of course, my dad then stood us up because he wasn't ready for me to meet his new girlfriend, seeing as he'd lied to her about his being divorced from my mom and a whole bunch of other things, but that's not really part of this story. As a result of my searching high and low for him, though, I managed to run smack into our newly elected governor, who could not have been nicer about it. Especially considering that I ran into HIM...
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