At 106 years old, this beautiful lady in Atlanta can say and vote for whomever she choose, and she chose Obama. It really made me smile, enjoy:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2008/10/18/lemon.106.year.old.voter.cnn
We were sent to a primarily older white blue-color area of Milwaukee. I met an older woman who was a Hillary supporter and felt that Barack wasn't ready, but was not voting for McCain. We spoke about issues that were important to her and at the end she said she was going to vote for Barack. I also met many Barack supporters, and a couple of undecided voters, Not too many McCain supporters.
One older woman told me that she had wanted to vote for Barack but she heard somethings that now she wasn't sure. I asked her what she had heard and she said and told her that they were lies the he was Christian and he led the Pledge of Allegiance in the senate sometimes. So I think she was convinced.
It was a long time ago - the late sixties and seventies. But, there are some lessons we could learn from that time. There were long gas lines due to gas shortages and people believed we should do something to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Nixon (for all his faults) implemented an energy policy that was the best our country has had so far. It was subsequently forgotten. We endured stagflation due to another war - VietNam (so similar to the war in Iraq except there was no oil there). People didn't consume as much as we do today. One cycle consumerism hadn't been born yet. "The Maytage repairman did have a job." Things were repaired not thrown out for a new one.
Journalists weren't embedded in VietNam. They were free to report the war as they saw it, independently. And the news was flooded with scenes from the war as it happened. Subsequently, there was a hue and a cry to end the war. And it was ended without a "win."
I see evidence of a rebirth of some of those good ideas: again, people want independence from foriegn oil; again, people want an end to the war; again people are multi-cycleing (thinking green for the environment); and people, however little coverage the war in Iraq gets, want the war ended.
There is talk Obama isn't appealing to older voters. Maybe they just don't know yet how much in common with the momentum to change. There was much talk in their day of the "military industrial complex." Today we call it defense contractors and big business." All the same, it is time for the middle class to stop paying for everything. All the same, it is time to stop talking about military intervention until all other options are exhausted.
They used to call older people "gray panthers." It was a bad name in those days. I'd like to resurect the name and redeem it as a tag for baby boomers for Obama. Many of us have the same ideals we did back then, and they're still good!
as the MSM continues to rail on about Hillary "trouncing" Obama in Pennsylvania, apparently there are statistical truths that indicate his improvement in some of Hillary's demographic strengths as compared to Ohio.
On 4/24, MSNBC's "Race to the White House", Rachel Maddow was a lone voice in expressing that many of the the actual numbers were positive improvements, and don't support the negative narrative that exists in all the main stream media. None of the other panelists said that her facts were wrong, but they clearly DID NOT MATTER. The possibility of truth was not open for discussion, it did not fit the media narrative about his supposed "weakness" with white blue collar workers, older voters, and white men.
Everybody was on a roll to define what is wrong, and why he's in more trouble not less.
we have to change this!
