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There's the world bush* lives in and then there's the real world -- nothing brought this more into focus than what happened at my partner's workplace today.
We live in the Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania.
My partner has a co-worker that is a single mom with an 8 year old daughter. Last year she managed to buy a very small house (2 bedroom on a postage stamp lot)
She just finished paying her last winter's heating oil bill and was getting ready to fill the tank as heating oil is typically much lower this time of year. Well, it is lower, but not by all that much. She called several other companies and prices are pretty much the same give or take a penny. This got her worried, if prices were this high now - how was she to heat her home when the cold weather hits.
Now this woman is not into politics at all, and as far as who she would vote for - she was on the fence.
This morning bush* was in the area giving a speech. She listened to his speech and decided to write him a letter and also to send the same letter Kerry. Maybe, she thought, someone could help her out in some way.
In her letter she explained her situation and asked for any information they could provide as to where she could possibly get some help. The letters were identical and were sent via e-mail to both campaign websites.
She didn't expect an answer. Within 15 minutes -- the Kerry/Edwards site responded with REAL INFORMATION that she could use. They gave her some internet links of LOCAL agencies and programs, plus links to web sites for how to make home more energy efficient. REAL INFORMATION.
She was impressed, so she went back to the Kerry/Edwards website and read some more. She came across one of Edwards's speeches, where he said (paraphrased) "If you see a single mom, picking up her child from school and heading out to a second job -- tell her help is on the way."
She started crying and said that for the first time she felt that she wasn't alone. She made up her mind as to who she is voting for - she said whether or not the information she received helped her out the fact that they responded so quickly with relevant information showed her that there is someone out there that knows what she is going through and Kerry-Edwards has her vote.
I started crying when I heard this. It is very apparant that we live in two worlds, two americas -- there's the one bush* lives in and the one the rest of us live in. But it's more than just about one single mom trying to keep her head above water -- it's about two parent families that are one paycheck away from disaster, it's about the grandparents that see their kids struggling but can't help, it's the little old lady down the street that must decide between heating her home, eating or buying the medications she needs, it's about every American that sorts their bills between 'pay now' and 'hope I have the money to pay these later' -- it's the wife or husband whose spouse is in Iraq or Afghanistan that sits up nights worrying and struggling to keep a family together. It's the person that was just laid off and no prospect of finding another job real soon. It's the teachers that buy school supplies out of their own pocket because the school budgets have been cut. It's the cities and towns all across the country that are faced with raising property taxes or laying off police or closing down fire houses. This is the real America.
We can do better. We need to do better.
and oh yeah --- as of this post there was no response from the compassionate conservatives over at the bush/cheney site.....
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