Begging

I am too classy to beg. But anyone who uses the word classy isn't classy, so...

I called both of my grandmothers who live in two different swing states to convince them to vote the Democratic ticket.

Good grandma, a south Florida voter who swears she accidentally voted--G-d forbid--for Buchanan in 2000, is in. She's been in a long time. She has arthritis, leaves the house only to go to Publix and Costco (now you know what swing state she's in) and she is all for Obama. I've put her on to convince her older brother, who says he can't vote for a black man. Call in Sarah Silverman and the Schleppers.

Bad grandma (and I say this with all due respect, but she has been pissing me off regularly since I was 3) says that she'll vote Democratic, but with hesitation. He doesn't have any executive experience, she says. Oh wait, she realizes, "McClain" doesn't either. I feel comforted that even if she were to vote, she would see that there's no McClain on the ticket and maybe vote for Obama. For her, I hope that the weather is good enough to go vote, and that there is a handicapped spot out front so that she can get in comfortably.

No matter who you support (really, at this point, I don't care), I want to urge you to vote. I hope to hell you've registered and that you'vemade a committment to exercise your right to vote. I'm sure someone will comment here that this isn't a politics blog but a mothering blog, and so I'll say it:

This election will decide your child's future.

Of course, every election will, but this one, more so than anything else. This election can decide whether or not your child will have a future of clean energy, reduced dependence on foreign oil and a cleaner environment, access to affordable health care and improved opportunities in public schooling, not to mention access to affordable higher education. Who would think that this isn't important to mothers?? Of course it is. And by the way, that's on either side of the aisle.

My grandmothers are both parents (obviously). But one is looking backwards, to the way it was back then when it was "better," and one is looking forward, to a way that it can be someday in the future for her children and grandchildren. I'm an optimist. Let's go with the future instead of with the past.

Last: please take your children with you to the polls. I attribute my interest in politics to one thing and one thing only, being taken to the polls with my parents. Going in that booth, with the curtain closed, with a sacred and private space to exercise my right to be a free person in a democratic country is a big deal. Do it with your kids and show them what being free truly is.

I beg you too.