EDITOR'S BLOG: Campaigning for a Red and Blue America

photo by expatrioact cc  An accidental expatriate, I've lived in Canada a long time.  When I left, the other Bush was president. Back then, maps showed the states in all sorts of different colors.

    Each time I returned, I noticed changes.  More garbage-picking hobos in Venice alleys and chateaus in my native Virginia.  Flag stickers on windows and stop the war signs on lawns.  Oil spend-thrift  SUVs sharing the road with saving–the –world hybrids.  Back in Canada, I'd get treated as a conversational whipping post for all the things wrong about my country.

     The weekend before the election, I went to Erie PA to get out the vote--and got reacquainted with America.  I canvassed in a poor and urban neighborhood and a white working class area—places usually invisible to east coast urban middle class quasi-Ivy educated white women.

    The East Side was mainly African-American, but also multi-colored.  There were crack-houses every few blocks and well-kept Catholic churches. Houses were divided into apartments, windows were boarded up, porches strewn with toys and objects somewhere between old and garbage.  In one back alley, a mailman warned about walking alone, telling still-fresh stories of rape and shootings.

    My canvassing partner and I were clearly visitors, but Obama stickers served as passports. People on the street would chat as we walked from designated door to door.  Kids chanted, "Obama, Obama!"  One 10 year-old girl said she was excited to have the first black president.  The young white guy in a low rider car called us over to ask if it was too late to register. It felt like I was driving an ice cream truck—in fact, an old one outfitted with speakers blared Obama speeches as it roamed the streets nearby.

    As we walked Erie, it wasn't obvious who was red and who was blue: some whites in the city supported Obama, others didn't. I couldn't tell from the truck or hat.  (I did see some high-red though:  a guy chased us into the apartment hall saying he wouldn't vote for that half-breed—you know what.) Among the lakeside bungalows where people were coming on and off shift on Sunday, I thought certain signifiers tipped me off: big cars, or hunting coats meant Red, signs about stopping things (the war, the tire plant) meant blue.  Until I stopped at one house with hunting boots on the porch, the mud still fresh, but the young blond woman affirmed her support for the democratic candidate.  I realized my country-folk weren't so predictable.

    We'd knock on doors, and ask people whether they were going to support Senator Obama.  Such a question could seem invasive—sometimes it was --and lips were pursed immediately and doors shut quickly.  But many people that day, were happy to say, "you betcha, I sure am," with big smiles, as though a vote itself—not a win-- were something to celebrate.  

   So there I was in Erie, a white woman talking to black men on the streets and we were both on the same side.  Despite differences of class and money and education and geography, suddenly we had something in common.  We had common cause.

    Not only did we want to vote for the same person, we wanted a new symbol for America. A symbol declaring that we can go beyond our nasty racial past-- of slavery, Jim Crow and silent discrimination.  Even if we're not there yet.   We can show the bigger world we are a better place than they think—especially my Canadian compatriots.

    Of course, Americans have often come together—as after 9/11. But this feels better than rallying against a danger.  A self-confessed Republican for Obama who worked on the campaign, told how a young blind man did the phone banks, surprised himself by getting good at it, and gained a huge confidence—as the apostate explained that's the kind of feeling Obama creates.  That's what's in the Kool-aid.

    Election night, I celebrated back in Toronto. An African-American from DC (who looked more Italian) called Cliff, cried early and often as the results came in. His white wife wept too, saying her kids could do anything now. She said I could kiss Cliff if Obama won. So at 338 electoral votes—I kissed a man who grew up across the river from me, in a room full of Canadians.  We all turned purple that night, just like Obama said we would.  I hope we stay that way.    Maybe now, I won't  get so many scoldings