Republicans for Obama placed a full page add in USA Today yesterday explaining why the GOP should back Obama. Now I have two special needs children, I am unemployed as a result, and well my family has seen some rocky road in the past few years; but this add brought tears to my eyes. Maybe I am just losing the old bearings, but I think I may have my long term priorities straight, possibly for he first time in my life. If Republicans beyond the intelligentsia are calling for an end to partisanship in order to deal with our national crisis, it appears the nation may be recovering from its gated community mentality. Reacching across lines of thinking is difficult for most human beings, it goes against the fiber of our DNA. Fortunately, humans have a higher intelligence that can be called on when default modes of thinking and behaving are not up to the task of ensuring survival.
Survival as a nation is indeed at stake. I am not forseeing Armagedon, but rather a slow and rather painful death of true democracy. People are deciding that compromise may be in order in this election if their own future as workers, as parents, as students, as free thinking people is at stake. You may not agree with Roe v. Wade but the wasteful deaths in Iraq and civilian bloodbath in Afghanistan has begun to nag seem comparable to "innocent lives lost." Hmm. We are thinking. We are still free to express and change our opinions. David Brooks has let us change sides, no get on the same side of justice and the spirit of democracy.
I hope that I will remain as open to changing my opinions about Republicans when the right candidate presents him or herself in the future. I am proud that my husband switched parties, and is voting for Senator Obama, but I will be equally proud if a candidate from another party convinces me in say 12 years, that they have good ideas too.
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