As My Household Shows, We're a Divided Nation

I am worried. Just back from the Democratic Convention in Denver, an almost joyous event that was arguably a seminal moment of our time, I have never been this charged up, this excited, this hopeful and this concerned. Charged up that I am a part of genuine movement of people, of citizens, to positively alter the course of history. Excited that I have witnessed a unified front coming from a once fractious Democratic Party. Hopeful that the course of events culminating in the great Obama speech has swayed the fence-sitters to jump off and join in. But concerned that the politics of propaganda and panic will induce the middle of the voting pack to fall back on old rhetoric and Cold War paranoia.

I was oh-so anxious to return home and discuss the week's events with my wife. My wife, Sheila of the Hillary camp, of the middle-American, working-class, Catholic, voting block, of a father who landed on Omaha Beach in June of '44 and who wouldn't vote for John Kerry four years ago because the young Kerry had returned from Viet Nam and while still a soldier voiced opposition to the war; Sheila of an extended clan of old coal miners and blue-collar patriots who believe in family values and God and winning with honor.

We had fought like pack dogs throughout the primary season; myself for Joe Biden early on and then for the ultimate nominee, Barack Obama, and Sheila for Hillary Clinton, a woman she grew to admire and idolize. And throughout the primary season, she persisted in warning me that she, along with an army of Hillary-ites, infuriated by real and perceived misogyny and mistreatment by the press, will abandon the Democrats and vote for Republican John McCain.

Then, as it became clear that the inevitable winner would be Obama, Sheila warned that she would bale again if Hillary wasn't the Vice-Presidential nominee. One day before the convention, Joe Biden, my guy, was chosen. She showed me the emails that spread rumor of dissent, of protest plans and walk-outs. None of it happened. Hillary and Bill were magnanimous and magnificent in their mutual calls for unity and their unqualified support for Obama. And conventioneers rejoiced with a singular voice. I imagined Sheila moved to tears as she watched from home. I thought: done deal! Let's move on and take the whole shebang.

I came home exhilarated, kissed my kids, kissed my wife and with eyes wide open asked: "Well?" She was: "impressed but not convinced"; "moved but not moving"; and, unbelievable to my ears, "still considering McCain". I love my wife... but sometimes not so much. Frustration and fights can muck up a good thing. And just when a thing can move past differences and into the realm of peace and prosperity, another thing - an old idea or new interpretation or any spark that relights the paradigms that comfort us - will keep us where we are, where it is safe. Therein lies the challenge: this promise of change is a scary proposition.

It seems not to matter that we are at the brink of a war that may spread beyond Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran and Georgia and then where? To Syria? To North Korea? To China? That we in America are in economic doldrums and are seeing small businesses fold and houses reclaimed by banks and a smouldering panic that is palpable everywhere. My beautiful and loving wife, despite seeing her own small business begin to show troubling signs of downturn after years of worry-free success, despite her passion on women's issues, despite having a son and daughter who may be conscripted, may vote for the party responsible for the entire mess.

I will sneak out early on election day, vote, get a tub of roses and a vat of champagne and hold my wife hostage in love and seduction until she realizes that the booths have closed and her voting rights expired. Perhaps we can do the same in western Pennsylvania and Ohio and Indiana - we'll have hoedowns and square-dances and prayer meetings and whiskey and make the whole lot of them happily drunk and content enough for inaction.

But the bottom line is that this is where we are: a still fractious and divided nation, split right down the middle, as represented by my very own household. I am moved to think that we, along with the Obama/Biden team, will begin to change the very culture of the way we do business with each other and the world at large. That we should use "Example as power rather than power as example"; that "America's promise [is] of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort."

I ask myself why these tenets are so rejected by the opposition, by my wife. Is it racism? Is it the propaganda of family values and God and the manifest destiny of American domination of the world as a righteous cause? Is it that John McCain is still perceived as a maverick and revered for his heroic war service? Is it the singular issue for some women that Hillary Clinton was castigated in certain media and an object of old-school misogyny that is unacceptable and cause enough to abandon the very politics that she supports?

I can't answer these questions, as I don't understand the thinking and emotional investment that defends them.

My opinion of John McCain is different. Here is a man who had his moment in history already pass him by. After being eviscerated and politically castrated in the 2000 Republican primaries by the Bush PR machine; accused falsely of fathering an illegitimate and racially mixed child, he was given a chance at redemption and a chance to save the world from a man he considered at the time to be dangerous and untrustworthy. He could have run as a third party candidate and taken enough votes away from George W. to seal the election for Al Gore. He passed.

Four years later, John Kerry had talks with McCain about running as his Vice-President; a dream ticket that would surely bring down the Bush regime. Again he passed. When I ask Washington insiders why, they can only conclude that the reason was simple, unadulterated ambition to be President. But what a price to pay. This is a man who could have saved the world from the last eight years of disaster and instead is content to inherit the aftermath. But the other half of the divide chooses to imagine the younger McCain, the independent, free thinking, iconoclast he may very well have been once, long ago.

And now McCain has picked Sarah Palin of Alaska for the office of Vice-President. I'm sure she is capable of governing the frozen tundra of her state (couldn't help myself) and is surely a force to be reckoned with on some level. But no one can convince me thatMcCain has chosen a running mate who is capable of stepping into the Oval Office in the event of the death of the President. And let's face it, that scenario isn't beyond the realm of possibility. And even with this, I hear in real and electronic voices "we like her," "she's warm and personable," she's a soccer mom who has become accomplished and powerful." What?

And so we stay divided: My country, my wife and I. I am stumped. But I am stubborn in my hope that Americans across the great divide, including one who sleeps in my bed, will wake up to more lofty dreams.

I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, "promotes the general welfare" of its people.

When new ideas and belief-altering evidence confronts us, many of us still shout that the world is flat, or global climate change is cyclical, or women belong in the home. I can only remember when great agents of change come to us, it seems as many reject their presence as rejoice in it. Kennedy won office by the slimmest margin in our history to that point. Martin Luther King made as many or more enemies than there were marchers by his side.

Many of us Americans are still inert, isolated and content to stay on our couches and watch on television and iPods as the world goes by. This idea of change means, at least, getting up, going out into the real world and opening our eyes. It seems too much of an effort for many of us. Much to my utter shock, after eight years of what most Americans consider a disaster in the Oval Office, we again face an election that may come down to the wire, neck and neck.

I can only hope that the roses and champagne do their magic and maybe this change I hope for will win by just that one vote. It may be that close.

Originally published in the London Independent

Comments

[pithy]

The last line in your third graph stood out for me:

". . . who believe in family values and God and winning with honor."

Please ask your ife to pay close attention to who launches the smear attacks and who continues to talk policy.

It was the GOP who released a press release about the daughter's pregnancy - and the GOP who arranged to drag the boyfriend to the convention - and the GOP who made sure cameras were on them all meeting on the tarmack - and Joe Scarborough, a former republican congressman who spent the entire next day asking every guest if the girl's pregnancy should be an issue, while info about it ran on the crawl on screen.

HE advanced, promoted, harped on the subject relentlessly. But this is the GOP strategy - deflect inquiry about Palin's legislative background while pumping out the teen drama and then swing it around to insist the "liberal media" has been inappropriate.

Your wife values "winning with honor." Just on this subject alone, the ruthless exploitation of a young woman, should tell her she cannot possibly consider giving McCain her vote.

[TeriMcCarthy]

Good think you live in California Richard. Ask your wife though if this woman is like Hillary Clinton at all, Hillary a Wellesley graduate, then a Yale Graduate and someone who has fought for the rights of women and children? Ask her how Palin and McCain compare to that? I don't know the list goes on, but your wife is being insane. She ought to know that. Democrats stand for people, principles, republicans stand for nothing, as evidence by the Palin pick. They can't even get their story straight on teen pregnancy, geez...
I guess if she is happy with the way things are now, she would be happy with another Republican presidency, and that my friend is very sad.

[ahornick]

Well said -

I've been just as bewildered by this campaign when it seems so clear and obvious to me. How can the Republicans be the party of "Change" when they have been steering the ship for the better part of a decade? Why is hope and optimism bad? Why is having a guy who went from a difficult upbringing to editor of the Harvard Law Review a negative?

I sense you are on to the answer when you referenced our turn to a culture of iPods and tv. We do not have enough "skin in the game" as some would say. The election seems to be more of a tv program or popularity contest with no consequences. Seems your business needs to be on the brink, your retirement fund needs to be evaporating, your healthcare costs have to be crushing, your job gone or in jeopardy, or a loved one has to be in harms way to have a fully engaged clarity. (Those that fall into these categories and still think the Republicans hold the answer but not the fault, well, I'm still amazed.) Look at the focus we finally have on renewable energy when the price of gas hit $4. And you will probably see that disappear when we figure out how to adjust our home budgets for it.

I just hope we all wake up in time for the election.

[DaOne]

Yes, we are divided but can we win? Yes we can.

[PaHairO]

America has the leadership it deserves.

[SethBLiNK]

Okay, Mr. Schiff, I know you love your wife very much.

So let me apologize in advance in case you think what I am about to say is mean.

I am bewildered when I meet people who support the Republican ticket this year, but I respect their right to feel the way they do. If they really think that the war in Iraq is just and winnable... if they really think that universal health care isn't good for our country... if they really feel that cutting taxes for the rich will ultimately help the economy, then by all means, they should vote for McCain.

But... I don't see how anybody who admired and voted for Hillary Clinton can believe those things. I have to believe that anybody who felt that passionately about Senator Clinton feels exactly the opposite on all those vital issues and more.

And so, now that Hillary Clinton is no longer an option, I have no choice but to think any fan of hers who now backs McCain is being petty, selfish and spiteful. They are acting like a spoiled child who didn't get their way.

Personally, I think that some acted poorly toward her, Barack Obama was certainly not one of them.

But no matter, there are two candidates for President now. One will fight for all the things your wife believes in. One will fight against them. It's time for her and all the others like her to grow up and do the right thing.

[sunny555]

I really liked this post. There was a day that I, too, would vote for the most qualified, "best" candidate for president, without regard to race, creed, gender, etc. Those days are over and here's why. I watch my 4 teen daughters and their friends, and see they achieve just as much in school as all the boys. In college, they outnumber men, and have even bridged the gap in math and science (for years, we were told by the "experts" that boys were just better in these subjects because of the way their brains were wired. Ha!)

I think sexism is more rampant than racism, and females are achieving their gains without the benefit of affirmative action. I am tired of waiting around for the Democratic party to do right by women. It may never happen. I am supporting the female candidate now.

[ami]

Any woman who claims to have supported Hillary Clinton and now threatens to vote for John McCain, particularly after being given a peek into the first four years of a McCain administration thanks to his pick for vp, hasn't really given any thought to her vote. While it would be nice to have a woman president or vp, it will be alot better if we have jobs, health care, choice, economic equality, access to birth control, diversity . . . . The list is too long to contemplate. I have a daughter. For her sake, I couldn't even contemplate a McCain/Palin administration. One commentator recently referred to Obama and Palin as the new faces of their respective parties. That should tell you everything you need to know. Come on women. Don't buy the packaging. Read the ingredients. If it's equal opportunity you want, there's only one way to go.

[mouselion]

What I can't understand is why these women are punishing B for H's treatment by some in the media (and some private commenters who will say whatever they like under the mantle of anonymity). This is one situation where "killing the messenger" and not the subject matter is more appropriate. They need to get the message -- their anger is misdirected.

[HKP]

Wow. Great piece. I feel your pain; sometimes, fine men end up with "unreasonable" women (and vice versa). It's not your fault. Let her vote for AOB ("Anybody But Obama"). Deep down, she knows why. It's not easy to escape the weight and tyranny of one's upbringing and socialization. I am dealing with the same issue on the home front. Mine, however, might not survive this election!!! And I am very fine with that too.

[McFlipFlop]

Sometimes beauty and brains go together; oftentimes, they don't.

[neem]

McCain is taking an incredible gamble on Hillary supporters: just how far will they go to indulge their fantasies? Not that they'll vote for McCain, but they may stay home. What an amazing gamble on human psychology! And wouldn't this be the ultimate Democrat-s­elf-sabota­ge!

[long333]

He doesn't need Hillary supporters. He needs his base and the army that got Bush elected in 2004.

Palin pick just gives the POSSIBILITY of Hillary votes. It ain't the main reason.

[ChewyToy22]

It is sad, actually.

I still, like many, can't comprehend how anyone who was a supporter of HIllary Clinton could opt to vote for McCain when the two have opposite agendas, well, except for the war. Is it racism, spite, ignorance?

And all this talk of misogyny is another bowl of crap. The thing is, it's not Obama or his camp that's being accused, but mostly the media, so what justifies punishing the same Democratic party that Hillary belongs to, or the Democratic nominee, who is the only person who will be running in your interest?

It's frightening when persons allow themselves to be blinded by personalities while they miss the big picture, which is the future of their country. There were many candidates and many of them lost their primaries, get over it and move on to the next phase which is electing the Government best for your country. Is that really too much to ask?

You know, there's really only so much you can do. You can try to educate people as much as you want but prejudices and anger seem to block those valuable streams of understanding.

People have got to do what they have to do to see the change America needs. The others who don't and put McCain in office will pay equally for their choice.

[abigail1]

do you by any chance have a dog? Then show your wife video of an arial wolf hunt.
might change her mind.

[long333]

Wolf Hunt. Is that as serious an issue as the economy for example?

[Cerus]

Richard. The glass ceiling has been broken around the world except in the land of the free where all men are created equal. Does that give you a clue about the reason women are so enthralled about the prospect that a woman, any woman, is finally at first and goal? In the country that professes to be the land of opportunity where one's dreams can come true, no woman has yet to achieve the ultimate prize. Please cut your wife some slack. She, like millions of other women, want to see the last barrier come down in her lifetime. It's been decades since a woman got this close. So when you hear "If not now, when?" please try to understand. Maybe if you acknowledge that you "get it" and then let it go, she'll feel your compassion and vote for the policies, the integrity and the ethics rather than the dream. Either way, it's a free country (so far).