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Becky Ready to Rumble in NW Iowa (Cherokee County, Iowa)

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Just random thoughts that might bear reading...

Remembering Caucus Night

By Becky Ready to Rumble in NW Iowa - May 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am EDT

I'm still proud of what we did that January night. I saw enthusiasm and dedication and hope everywhere I looked.

I like to think of the folks in my small town who came together, PUBLICLY, for Obama at the caucus as indicative of who we are: there was a teacher of the hearing impaired...a single mom who worked at the gas station...a mental health professional...several farmers...a woman poet, in her seventies, who switched from Kucinich--as he asked her to do...a homemaker who homeschooled her kids...teenagers casting their first votes, home from college... a woman from Mexico with new citizenship..

I saw ethical courage that night, as well. For instance, a high school boy home from his first semester at the state college (a friend of my daughters') came out in the cold and snow to proudly vote for Obama. BUT what made me so impressed with his conviction, and so certain that Barack's campaign represented a new direction, was the fact that this life-long small town boy (his graduating class held about 30 kids) was in the middle of the process of changing his gender and identity to female!

Yep. He hadn't told anyone before he left for the city of his plans. He'd hidden his unhappiness from nearly all but his immediate family and closest friends. This is a small, rural town with old-fashioned values, and he knew the change he was contemplating would do far, far more than just raise eyebrows. He'd lived here his entire life.

And, yet, Barack Obama so excited this young person that he found the courage to attend a very public meeting, with over a hundred of his neighbors (and potentially harshest critics) dressed in women's clothing, with his physical appearance already altered from hormone treatment, and stand up proudly and answer for ALL TO SEE to his very masculine name, to cast his vote and ensure that Obama got started on the road to changing the politics of this nation!

That was bravery in action. What was likewise enouraging, however, was that these old farmers and little old cookie-baking ladies and "hot dish" Lutherans--fellow citizens of our community, sharing similar political hopes---didn't bat a eye, when he did. Instead our "family" cheered together--united-- when our numbers were tallied and Obama took our caucus, that night.

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