Election '08

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Night of the Presidential Election

Shelley calls her mom to see who she voted for.

Me: Hi Mom. Who did you vote for?
Mom: I voted for Obama/Palin.
Me: You voted for who?
Mom: Obama/Palin
Me: How did you do that? They aren't even running the same ticket. Palin is running with McCain and Obama is running with Biden.
Mom: Oh, well, then I voted for Obama.
Me: Really, why?
Mom: I just heard a lot of people at work talking about him
Me: Hmmm. So how did you vote on that Mill Levy for the schools.
Mom: I didn't. I only voted for the president.
Me: You didn't vote on anything else? There were like 26 things on the ballot.
Mom: I only voted for Obama.

OMG!!!! Seriously. This is how my mom voted. A completely uneducated voter who has no idea what is going on in the world. She just picked her candidate based on people talking about him. She didn't vote for anything else because she didn't care. Well, I guess I should be glad she didn't vote for the other things. At least then only people who voted knew what they were voting for. Every time there is an election my mom has gone down to the polls to do her civic duty and cast her vote. Apparently she really does just view it as a duty since she has no idea what she is voting for and does no research or makes any effort to educate herself on the goings on of America. I guess since she is 50, she doesn't think that most things are going to affect her anyway. However, I really wish she would wake up. What doesn't affect her now may affect her 9 year old granddaughter by the time she grows up. I wish she would make an educated vote if only to benefit those she loves.
It terrifies me to think about all the people who only voted for one of the candidates because they heard good things about them, or because they didn't want to vote for a minority, or they did want to vote for a minority, or they wanted to vote for a woman to be in office, or they didn't want a woman to be in office.