If you’re like me, you’ve found yourself moved all week long, sometimes without much warning.
Like this morning, reading the story of reporter Michael Sokolove’s Election Day return to Levittown, Pa.:
I grew up in Levittown, and in the spring had returned there before the Democratic primary to write about how Mr. Obama’s message of hope and change was connecting with its blue-collar population. It wasn’t. My article in The New York Times Magazine reported that his words were coming across as lofty and abstract to people more attuned to concrete concerns like the hourly wage and the monthly car payment. The article was published on the morning before Mr. Obama made his one big gaffe of the campaign, telling attendees at a San Francisco fund-raiser that some blue-collar voters have been so beaten down that “it’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion… .” …
I traveled again to Levittown on Election Day to see how people would vote and how they would respond to what looked like an imminent Obama victory. The contrast from the spring — and, in fact, this new vision of Levittown compared with what I had known in my childhood — was almost breathtaking.
“Obama,” said the ironworker, when I asked how he’d be voting.
“Obama,” said the plumber.
“Obama,” said the chef.
And on and on. Military moms. Vietnam veterans. Abortion opponents. College students and retirees. Bank tellers, pipe fitters, officer workers, machinists, meat cutters, boilermakers and carpenters.
I’ve had moments this week when I’ve been sort of daydreaming, and then I’ll think of something I hadn’t thought of yet: Ruth Bader Ginsberg can retire; poor women in overseas health clinics will have access to contraception; the Iraq war will soon be over.
I thought: My kids will see a Democratic administration in Washington, DC, for the first time.
I have also been thinking a lot about the future of neuroticdemocrat.com.
Which brings me again to Noah, the Torah portion that we read two weeks ago. Near the end of the parsha, we read:
Tera took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.
What on Earth, you ask, does Ur of the Chaldeans have to do with this neurotic blogger?
Answer: The Midrash focuses on the phrase “they settled there,” writing: “So often in life, we set out with the best of intentions, only to give up half-way to our goal.”
Getting Obama elected was never the goal. It was in the broadest sense a strategy, to achieve other goals: ending the Iraq war; turning our economy around; investing in alternative energy as a way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Addressing global warming. Reclaiming our government as an honest force for good in the lives of everyday people, here and around the world.
With that in mind — and with the encouragement of so many of you — I plan to keep blogging for awhile.
(Though probably not much this week. My mom’s going in for surgery — I’ll be spending much of the week in the hospital with her and dad.)
So for now, I’ll leave it with Sokolove:
The people I met in Levittown were not on Mr. Obama’s e-mail list or among his donors, but they may be more likely than his younger supporters and more affluent ones to give him what he most desperately needs: time and patience. Like characters from the songs of one of Mr. Obama’s celebrity endorsers, Bruce Springsteen, many Levittowners have been weathered by life. They haven’t benefited from a lot of quick fixes. Others of his supporters say they’ll be patient, but I sensed these people really mean it. They were harder to sell, but they could end up being pretty loyal.
“How long did it take Bush to get us into this mess?” Mr. Carr, the Vietnam veteran, asked. “It’s a lot easier to screw things up than to make them better.”
We won an election. We earned our country back. Our hopes have never been higher.
Which is to say: Mission definitely not accomplished.
Heartening and sickening. The sickening came first and is reflected in lower job approval ratings (-76%) than Nixon at his resignation (-65%) and only the third time disapproval of a president has exceeded 70%.
The Obama election ahs the potential to lance a fetid boil and none of us can completely escape teh stream of pus.
That being said this is beutiully written and there is real hope that th lance applied deftly will combine with salve applied wisely and intelligence and competence in abundance to actually make this country a much better place.
Loyal
Loyal, Thanks, and I totally agree. -ND