Posted by
Patrick Baldwin on Friday, September 05, 2008 1:00:00 PM
I grew up in a home with a politically lackadaisical Dad and a staunchly Democrat Mom, and yet somehow, and I suspect my paternal grandmother had something to do with it, I have always leaned to the conservative. The first presidential election in which I could vote was Reagan vs. Mondale, though I had been an enthusiastic Reagan supporter in 1980! When 1984 came around and I could finally pull the lever, I was proudly preparing to serve in the U.S. Army, proud because I would be serving under a Commander in Chief that I believed in. I pulled that lever for Ronald Reagan and made sure my Mom knew it. She had been a Carter supporter, and was one of the few Mondale supporters that I ever met!
I happily watched her candidate go down in flames when George H.W. Bush beat Dukakis, and then had to suffer while she gloated when Clinton beat Bush four years later. I suffered through Bob Dole's loss, but then in 2000, after some disappointment with McCain's primary loss, I was able to reclaim the high ground with George W. Bush's victory.
These last eight years of our political rivalry have been rough. She being an ardent Bush hater, and my stalwart defense of my president have led to more than a few heated arguments. This was especially hard for me, since I had come to realize that I was much more of a conservative than I was Republican. As this year's election drew closer, I even found myself flirting with the idea of moving my affiliation to Independent. Once a strong supporter of John McCain, I had been somewhat dismayed by him in the intervening years, and yet he still seemed the best of array of candidates fielded by the Republicans. I had made my peace with having to vote against a Democrat instead of for a candidate I truly believed in. Then, after McCain had secured the nomination, I began to look at potential running mates. After much review, I discovered Governor Palin, and found the candidate I could get excited about. My wife and I both looked at everything we could find on Sarah Palin, and the more we learned, the more we hoped she might get the nod. I shared these things with my Mom a couple months ago in a conversation I was sure she would never remember.
Then, on the day that John McCain announced Governor Palin as his choice, my Mom called. She had listened to Sarah Palin speak and she wanted to know if that was the same person I had mentioned before. I told her that it was and she commented that it looked like I had made the right pick. Now, following Governor Palin's convention speech, and the speech of Senator McCain, I got a call that I thought I would never get. My Mom, the fan of Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore and Kerry, was calling to tell me that she was going to vote for McCain/Palin. She said she had listened to her party's candidates and compared to McCain/Palin they seemed to be offering only the promise of higher taxes and no ability to protect our country. The world seems brighter today, I can see that The One is not inevitable, because even my Mom is voting for McCain/Palin!