My 87 year old grandmother has always been a conservative person with conservative values. We usually don’t discuss politics. So I was taken somewhat off guard when she asked me in a recent phone conversation, “You are voting for the RIGHT one, aren’t you?”

She’s voting for Obama.

My parents have been involved in the Republican party in my home town for as long as I can remember. They’ve hosted coffees, helped pass out literature, and my mom was a precinct chairperson for many years. A couple of years ago, my father said to me that he was ashamed to be a Republican and that he couldn’t support that party any longer. They are small business owners and have been for many years. They’re both very excited about the changes that could be coming to our country.

They’re voting for Obama.

I’ve always voted Republican. I’ve always considered myself to have somewhat conservative values. I really don’t get too involved in politics, but this time around I have felt compelled to express my thoughts and concerns about the direction our country has been taking. I’ve been intrigued by coverage of the convention, debates and campaign. I’m concerned about our involvement in a seemingly endless wars. There are a lot of other reasons, too…but the most important reasons are the two that I just tucked into bed.

I’m voting for Obama.

Not just for me, but for my family. Because I want them to wake up to a different country – the country that we CAN be.

Won’t you vote for change, too?

I’ve been swinging between gleeful excitement and quaking dread for weeks now. Tonight will be like Christmas Eve but who will come down our chimneys? Santa Barry with a big bag filled with happiness or GIANT HOPE-SUCKING BATS?

I have to calm down! Luckily, volunteering has been as calming as yoga or breathing into a paper bag. On Saturday, I participated in a phone bank with my wonderful young friend BH. She turned 18 less than a month ago and is over-the-moon excited about voting in her first election. She brought along a classmate who isn’t old enough to vote yet but very eager to participate as a volunteer. Their energy and cheerful optimism did wonders for my outlook and reminded me that despite much experience to the contrary, I’m an optimist as well.

And optimism is what this campaign has been all about. Hope vs fear. Dr. King’s dream come true vs an endless nightmare. Thoughful and stoic vs impulsive hothead.

I hope people vote with their hearts and heads as well as their wallets. I hope Barry’s Tutu is standing at his side when he’s inaugurated in January. I hope John McCain retires from politics and becomes an awesome and respected stand-up comic. I hope we can win back the trust of the rest of the world. 

I hope.

Kevin helped produce our old video collective Leche Magica. He’s working on this blog now, which has some great stuff!

http://votebama.com/

I have been so caught up in the work and the moment, and a bit of fear of the worst, that I haven’t thought much about how amazing Tuesday could be. Will be. Today I let myself imagine it for a minute. Truly imagine it. I even closed my eyes to help forgot that I was alone in a subway at 3am, going home to sleep for a few hours before heading back to Obama HQ to Get Out The Vote.

I visualized the moment we knew without a doubt, that Obama was the next President of the United States. It wouldn’t be at the concession, you can’t be happy then. It was the moment Obama steps out on stage in Grant Park and waved to the people of my town. The people I joined to elect Harold Washington, the first African-American mayor, the people I danced with in the South Side streets to celebrate the Bulls, those great Chicago people who were now going to send their Senator to the White House.

In my imagination, I felt happier than I ever have before. So happy that it made me wonder if I have ever even experienced happiness. Then I veered off into imagining making out with strangers and dancing on tabletops under a rain of confetti, because that’s how all my “The War’s Over” fantasies end up. Sorry, I don’t have much experience with such things. My wars have always started and ended slowly, happiness arrives almost imperceptibly.

A few days ago, I was joking that I couldn’t wait for the election to be over so I could go back to caring about stupid things, but I realize now that this isn’t quite it. A nice middle-aged black woman who was doing data entry in our office helped me realize that, when she hollered at me for my glib comment. No, of course, I won’t want to go back to caring about stupid things. I plan to hold on to this hope, enthusiasm, commitment on November 5th and into the next decade. There is so much to do and I know, like so many people do now, that politics isn’t something outside of us, out of our control, or even something that you elect the best people to do and then you can happily go about your business. Politics is all of us, every day, staying engaged in what’s happening in our neighborhoods, in the world. Talking about it with our neighbors and friends, and most importantly, doing something. Volunteering creates community, community creates positive progress towards shared goals. We are the government, we are politics. We are what’s next.  I don’t want to lose this. I want to work with all of these people again. I don’t want us to all go back to our own separate worlds.

I’ve worked in offices and fields with lots of different kinds of people from different races, religions, nationalities, which is often a source of self-made divisions. At my job at O’Hare, the white guys called me a sellout when I sat with the black guys (they even had a hand sign for it), the black guys disowned me when they caught me playing hackey sack. Very few of the black women liked me at all, except Doris who still says to say hey, and the white women, well, of course I didn’t want to hang with any group that would have me as a member. In my work in the jazz and comedy worlds, race and gender play a constant factor in many complex ways on and off stage.

But in the Obama office, and in this campaign, I don’t see this. I see people celebrating their differences not as a way to define or divide but as a way to share experience with others who share a common goal.  Our differences are openly discussed, mocked, and celebrated. When we share our experience, it belongs to everyone, so we all feel like we belong, and this campaign really feels like it belongs to all of us. This victory will feel like it belongs to all of us. And this country will feel like it belongs to all of us again. Then we can get to the business of making it great.

Last Friday was Halloween and also the 13th anniversary of my father’s death. My father wasn’t a great father, but he did instill in me some ideas about the world, a healthy blend of ideas inherited from his American Communist mother and self-made Capitalist father. He had plenty of opinions but was never politically active, unless you count wearing a pink triangle on his stock trader’s jacket, an often-misunderstood message of civil rights solidarity. He didn’t even vote, “not since they killed Bobby.”

I had to be reminded to think about him on Friday because I was so busy volunteering for the campaign. When I did think about him, I thought to myself, Pops would not be sitting this one out. I think he would also have felt his hope restored, hope for this country, for others, and for himself. And that won’t be over on November 5th, that’s just the beginning.

Ok back to work and sleep perchance to dream, of strangers and tabletops and confetti.

Help us win this.

My friend Wayne Escoffery plays sax on this great song by Cynthia Scott.