Driving Through History
NEW YORK - Here he was, driving through the intersection of history and culture, wearing a face brighter than a thousand, brilliant suns simply because he would be getting a chance to vote on Tuesday, his oldest son's ninth birthday. His name is Francois "Frank" Pluviose, a 42-year-old New York City cabdriver who commutes to work each week from Reading, Pennsylvania -- a two and a half hour bus ride -- and he is totally immune to the disease of cynicism that has managed to infect so much of our politics for too many years.
"I come here from Haiti twenty years ago," Pluviose said the other night. "First my father, he come. Then my mother, she come. Then they send for me. It is, America is, the greatest country on earth."
Pluviose works five straight 15 hour days behind the wheel of a taxi he and a friend from the Bronx lease at a cost of $1700 a month. His wife Natasha and four children, James, 9 Tuesday, Laury Anne, 6, Victoria, 4 and Nathan, 2, remain in Reading while the father hammers out a living in the big city. At the end of his five day shift, he goes to the Port Authority terminal in mid-town Manhattan and boards a bus home.
"This week I go home early," he said. "To vote and to celebrate my son's birthday. I am very proud."
The other evening, Pluviose listened intently to the radio as he headed across the Triboro Bridge toward Manhattan. His favorite station -- 1190 AM -- was playing a recording of Martin Luther King's "We Shall Overcome" speech given in Washington 40 years ago.
"A great man," Frank Pluviose said about King. "Like Obama."
Here we have a guy who arrived in America in 1987 nearly giddy with excitement and anticipation over being able to vote Tuesday for another guy nearly unknown to the country and the larger world around us 24 months ago. It is a story -- this feeling of pride and potential felt by so many people of color -- that those of us who live largely in white America may have failed to record in true depth because we are so busy blogging and talking about the obvious that we ignored what eyesight tells you: the clamor among so many of the young along with huge numbers of minorities to look at Bush and other 20th Century politicians only in history's rear view mirror.
This is because nobody living a normal life -- paying taxes, raising a family, worrying about a future they now define by the month -- could ever prosper or even survive if consumed with the kind of anger that seems to fuel so many on both the left and the right of our politics. It has gone on now for -- what? -- a decade? Two? And it is beyond nasty with too many running for office not content with defeating an opponent; they must demonize and destroy them as well to achieve true success.
So, quite naturally and very predictably, the arrival of this calm, confident Obama on the stage, a man capable of explaining both himself and his positions in clear English sentences filled with verbs that are not employed as buzzsaws, has been greeted with relief and expectation by so many who have spent the past years taping their eyelids open whenever a politician spoke. And he has managed to prod optimism out of millions who felt run down, run over or simply ignored by a politics that took many of their children to war and too much out of their paychecks that had nowhere to grow in the first place.
"I think McCain, he is a good man," Frank Pluviose said. "But Obama, he makes me happy because he is the change. I look at him and I see my son and I think, in America you never know."
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Mike Barnicle, please don't leave the Morning Joe gathering and do continue to make your point, hard as it might be with JS. He doesn't have interest in a different slant on anything and you do the best at voicing it from time to time, His demeanor could possibly not bode well for the show and that might affect ratings. We all know what happens when they fall and I would miss Willie, Andrea, and many of the people who guest frequently and your calm plainly stated influence. Thanks JLG Kenmore NY
Great article! You bring sanity to this morning panel. But, they still don't get it. It will take awhile, if ever to realize that those old ideiogies have to be thrown out the window and replaced not only with new, but with much older ones. "....under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth...." partial quote from The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln.
sorry for the typo, ideologies.
Thanks for the article!
You're the only one on Morning Joe that really knows what it's like to be outside the media bubble. As much as i like the regulars on there, it's been a long time since any of them have had to suffer from paycheck to paycheck, so i'm glad you are there to remind them. You seem to get out among regular Americans more than any of the others (except maybe Willie, but it's only a matter of time for him...).
I am a 59 year old white man, a child of the sixties, married for 37 years with two grown children, a lifelong Democrat, and completely disenchanted with the stranglehold of festering hatred that has placed our American electorate in a state of semi-conciousness. However a young senator from Illinois has induced an awakening from our stupor and infused us with an elixir of hope that entitles all Americans, not just "Real Americans", to a shot at a better life. I have spent the better part of my adult life, with rare exception, voting for the lesser of two evils. I can finally say, with all sincerity, that I am finally casting my vote for a candidate in whom I truly believe. I haven't felt this way since, as a gradeschool student, I stood at the curb of Lorain Ave. in Cleveland Ohio and watched another young senator from Massachusetts pass by in a presidential motorcade. That's a long time between heroes!
At 54, I'm right behind you. My 25 year old was born "getting it". This is the first Presidential election in which my 21 year old has cast his vote. Now living in Oregon, we vote by mail. It was a wonderful feeling to sit side by side, talk about the issues and know we cast our vote in the same direction. There will now be hope for both of my sons.
Obama/Bidon Now
THANK YOU....THANK YOU...THANK YOU..... THANK YOU...THANK YOU...But I'm trying to STOP crying so you didn't help. LOL
Your'e very welcome! Sorry, can't help you with the crying. Therapy might help. Better call today though because there will probably be a long waiting list tomorrow. LOL
I love watching Mike on MJ! His brains and humor make my early morning!
Great story...we need to remember that this election comes down to who will be there for the everyman...the "little" people. And that is Barack and Joe!
Oh and thanks for the Reading, PA shout out! I live in a suburb of Reading!
Speaking of driving Joe the Plumber got stopped in Toledo for doing 50 in a 35, guess what he got off with a warning the cop thought it would be bad for the city. Right, cops discretion, not to many people happy about it. A highly democratic town.
AHamilton, you just proved the author's point.
you missed my point: larger governement means less jobs and less wealth for all as businesses contract to feed the gov't more revenue - my business will likely lose 1-2 of 40 positions next year with the new taxes I will have.
but I will be optimistic that Obama will tack center, and not be irresponsible by being onerous on businesses. I do think he is smart He is also an example of the opportunties available to most people in this country...he worked hard, leveraged his obvious talents, so good for him, it will be an American Dream come true. Which is why people keep coming here, for 200 years now, yet many complain that there is so much "unfairness"...they should apply themselves like Barack and many others that accomplished great things with no head start.
GOD
KEEP
HIM
SAFE
UNTIL
HE'S
SWORN
IN
AND
BEYOND
P-L-E-A-S-E
DON'T
DENY
US
OUR
HOPES
AND
DREAMS....
10 years ago, my 14 year old daughter and I were with my mother when she died. Today, my 24 year old daughter (an Iraq war veteran & spouse), my 4 year old grandson and I will VOTE together and regardless of the outcome, celebrate AMERICAN HISTORY.
I will probably be crying for DAYS, because in the past 6 months, I have experienced the BEST and WORST of America. On the way home from the airport with my son-in-law (arriving on leave from Iraq, in civilian clothes), a car full of young men drove up beside us yelling racial epithets and making obscene gestures. My daughter cried, my son-in-law was stunned and I was devastated.
WHY I am thinking about this today? Because it is such a stark contrast of OUR America and it HAS been very tough to balance my full reign of emotions.
Today, I am so very proud of my country, but honestly prayerful that we can continue understanding and accepting each other, even if we don't look or sound alike.
:and too much out of their paychecks that had nowhere to grow in the first place"...last I checked its the private sector that creates jobs and wealth, not government.
Regardless of who creates jobs it's the people who work the jobs and the people who buy the products or services they offer. It is they who "create" wealth. So spare us your rich people make life better for the less fortunate because that has never and most likely will never be the case. Rich people become wealthy on the backs of others...period.
Last I checked Bill Gates created plenty of wealth for plenty of people...as did the Google guys, as did droves of other entrepreneurs. The gov't has yet to make anyone rich, except for cronies on both sides of the aisle equally.
So, in your view, no one who works for the government, state, local or federal actually has a job? Are you being ignorant on purpose or is this an attempt to make the clumsy argument that private industry is government's superior? The last I checked government and industry make jobs and I don't think one is superior to the other.
and both my parents worked for the city and state gov't...they both encouraged education so I could have a better lifestyle and more control of my life and earning potential.
The governement probably wastes 90 cents on each dollar collected because of beauracratic red tape...private sector is much more efficient with their capital. That is obvious. In lieu of being taxed heavily for governement to waste it, I prefer the rich give to charities - also more efficient with their cash. Governement should suppluy only essential services and create an equal opportunity for all, which Barack happens to be a great example of the opportunities everyone has in this country.
Yes, the private sector creates the jobs,but the tax structure determines who succeeds. The massive redistribution of wealth purpetrated by the Bush Administration to the top income brackets
has sucked the optimism out of the middle class. It has given us the most stratified economy since the days of the robber barrons of the late 19th century, and it has collapsed our economy.
The fear mongerig has made our Nation look mean and petty to the rest of the world, the incompetence in everything from FEMA to the Justice Department to the war has made America less than the sum of it's parts.
Today We the People rise again from this brief Dark Age!
I am middle class in NYC which means Obama will hit my wallet hard. I am also an optimistic middle classer. Those that lost their optimism are jealous of the wealth created in this country, which I am too, but I do not begrudge the success other people have. Largely it has not come at the expense of others and in fact that wealth creates opoortunities for many more.
I agree with Mike Barnicle that we have missed this story and others like it while covering this presidential campaign. Thank you for sharing.
My two young adult children, living in opposite parts of the country, texted early this morning to say they were in line at their polling places.
Both reported lots of voters already there; both of them voted for Obama.
I hope that they will remember forever how historic an occasion this is.
I know I will.
BRAVO MIKE BARNACLE.
Mr Barnicle, I watch you on MSNBC and you are a Wise old Owl!
Great story Mike... Thanks for doing it and completely agree with you about the "everyday joe" out there who has felt neglected over the past 8 years.............
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