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November 8, 2002/Kislev 3 5763, Vol. 55, No. 11
No voter's remorse for me
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
"Did you vote?"
I can't resist the gentle motherly nudge to civic responsibility that carries over the phone lines. My kids are in four different states, my husband en route from one to another - so my question spans the country as it captures the sheer breadth of the national consequences of the act.
It is one of those questions I can't help but ask.
I come from a long line of voters. My parents were first-generation Americans, members of World War II's greatest generation. They were as proud of their citizenship as they were keenly aware of its inherent rights and responsibilities. They were children of the Depression, beneficiaries of the New Deal.
To my mom, FDR would remain a hero, displaced only by her ardor for politicians like Adlai Stevenson, who glossed the populist policies of the Democratic Party with an intellectual patina. My dad's politics became more conservative as he grew older, leading to often-heated exchanges over the morning papers or the dinner table, but ultimately to the voting booth, where each parent maintained both the sanctity of the vote and the ultimate privacy of its chamber.
So I come to voting naturally, especially this Election Day.
The country roils over issues as disparate and divisive as gun control and social security, education and the environment. It confronts a stock market that won't bounce back, out-of-control corporate greed and a worsening economy. And it faces the prospect of war with Iraq just a week short of Veterans' Day - an unsettling convergence.
As I write, we are immersed in an intense Election Day battle even as voters complain that candidates fail to inspire and their parties fail to articulate clear agendas. Pundits predict the Democrats will hold the edge in the U.S. Senate and the Republicans will retain control in the U.S. House of Representatives. I hope the media hype has not jaded voters and turned them away from the polls, whatever their politics, whatever their proclivities.
So I hang on to the fierce loyalty of my parents to our democratic system and its hope for a better world, and the equally fierce belief that my children can make it so.
My 24-year-old son has spent two months in South Dakota working on a hotly contested Senate race. He has been busy round the clock getting out the vote, driving miles across the South Dakota plains, meeting with farmers, students and housewives, galvanizing his team to man the phones and go door to door, literally pulling voters to the polls.
"The future of the country is at stake," he says in a quick phone conversation between stops. His idealism is as refreshing as a breath of South Dakota November air.
I sent a care package with warm socks and long underwear to Aberdeen, along with some goodies to shore up the troops. And I mailed a check to the Brown County Democratic Party to help keep its phone bank open.
And I took my own advice. I voted.
Contact the writer at vicki_cabot@jewishaz.com.
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