Pin the Tail

“When I am the nominee of this party, the Republican nominee will not be able to say I voted for the war in Iraq, or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or that I support Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don’t like.” ~Barack Obama, at the JJ Dinner in Iowa

Last week, on the Sunrise Limited train fom New Orleans to Los Angeles, I made a new friend. Her name is Christine. She was on her way home from visiting a daughter who was about to be deployed to serve in Iraq. Christine’s daughter has very young children—and a husband who is presently serving in Iraq. We discussed all this serious news moments after getting acquainted over dinner. On a train, the tradition is to meet new people to break bread with over each meal served in the dining car.

We listened about how Christine’s son-in-law has been sending videos of himself, reading some children’s stories, back home to his young son. Thinking over these conditions—really, an entire family in service due to the war in Iraq, is stunning.

Every day is Veterans Day.

When I was in second grade my father had what was called a “hardship tour” stationed in the Republic of Korea. My mom and I stayed behind in Champaign-Urbana but we were able to join my father for the summer and we “lived off the economy.” (Which is to say that we, as a family, did not have the provisions of base housing, etc.) Our situation was interesting because we had family to visit in Korea and Korean language skills, etc. Neither was the ROK actively engaged in a war albeit evidence of the aftermath of the Korean War (think the DMZ, etc.) was apparent (even while South Korea rapidly improved their economy minute by minute.) I only mention this because I have some basic sense of how public service, military service, affects a family. Obviously my experience was mild and safe, no real hardship to speak of.

Parallels between what is these days known as the long-ago “Forgotten War” in Korea— and today’s war in Iraq—- have not been made very often by writers for media. I don’t really know if there are a lot of parallels except for the glaring universal nature of atrocities that result from wars.

But, about the Obama Boomlet…on the Sunrise Limited, Christine and I had a wonderful conversation about her involvement in local politics. She’s a lifelong active Democrat, a precinct committee person, and she described herself as one who never holds back from rallying up her neighbors and community for a cause. She’s involved in contacting her local school board, going door-to-door, get out the vote efforts, and fundraising. In brief, she is well-known as an actively engaged citizen to the people around her.

We bonded over both supporting Barack Obama. One of her daughters even held a fundraiser for Barack Obama which she helped with.

Even so, Christine enthusiastically attended an appearance that Hillary Clinton made in her area of California, made her sons come along, and they all came away deeply impressed. Christine’s description of the event was really fun: the hullaballoo sounded pretty much like an enticing, irresistable rock concert and extremely exciting…still, Obama remains constant and alluring.

And so today I’m planning to write to Christine and to see how things are going. We’re pen pals now and I’m looking forward to hearing about how her Veterans Day passed—and what she thinks about the turn of events with the successful impact of Obama’s graceful oratory skills in Iowa.

Columnist David Yepsen writes about Obama’s speech in a piece titled “Obama’s Speech Could Catapult His Bid.”

I wish that the Presidential Primary Election mattered in Indiana.
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Today there is a County Council Work Session at 4:30 in the County Courthouse.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Candidates, election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.