Amy Branham: Political Conversations

[babylonsister]

Amy Branham: Political Conversations
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 11:20am. Reader Contribution

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Amy Branham
Gold Star Mom for Peace


A few weeks ago when my husband and I participated in the Texas County Democrat Caucuses as delegates for Barack Obama, we had some very interesting conversations with people. We asked them, why are you voting for Hillary Clinton? What is the appeal? Their answers varied but not a single one of them was based on her policies or her decisions or the actions she had taken while in office or in the White House. One woman told me, "I'm voting for Hillary to give her a show of my support. She deserves it after all Bill put her through." A man, who considers himself a New England Liberal Democrat, was voting for Hillary simply because she is a woman. Still others were voting for Hillary because they are "blue dog democrats" (their line, by the way, not mine) and felt it was the party's position at the time.

On the other hand, most of the Obama people I spoke with were voting for change. They liked the fact that Obama openly opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. They liked the fact that he had not been in Washington D.C. and those political circles for many years and felt we really need a change in our country. Most of these people were voting for change. There were military moms in the Obama camp that wanted their sons and daughters to come home. One mother shared that her child who is in Iraq right now called to say she is okay the other day. Her Humvee had run over an IED that exploded but no one was seriously hurt. The daughter is okay. Mom is a bundle of frayed nerves. Not one military parent was voting for Hillary -- at least not among the people that I met that day.

Not a single one of Senator Clinton's supporters really seemed to care very much about the war in Iraq or the soldiers who had served there. They didn't seem to even have much sense of awareness of the suffering of the soldiers and their families or the hardship they experience on a daily basis. When my husband got up and told the group why we could not, we would not vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances, he held my son's dog tags out for them to see. He simply said, Hillary Clinton voted for this war that took our son away from us, his life, his school, and his friends. He did not come back alive. We do not trust her judgment because she should have known what so many of the rest of us knew -- that the war was wrong. But she claims she did not. We are voting for Barack Obama. A few people shed a few tears.

At the end of the day, my husband managed to get himself elected from our precinct to go to the State Convention in June as an alternate.

A day or two later, I got a phone call from the precinct chair who was upset about how things had gone down during the convention. It was a very, very long conversation. At one point, this woman told me she didn't want to go to the State Convention anyway because, well, her daughter was graduating from high school at the end of May and then in June, they were taking her to California to go to school. This daughter is her only child, the woman choked out, and she knew it would be a long time before she would see her again so she wanted to spend as much time with her daughter as she could. Obviously, this was emotional to her and she would miss her daughter.

I could not help be feel a little resentful. What I did not say, as I was trying to be polite, was, at least you know you will see your daughter again. At least you don't have to worry that she is going into a danger zone. This is part of the plan that you and your family have been planning for many years. She is not being ripped away from you to go to the other side of the world to a war zone. You are not saying goodbye knowing that there is a very good chance you will not see her alive again. She will come home to you safe and healthy and whole -- which is a hell of a lot better than most of those soldiers and their families have, thanks to Senator Clinton and all the others who voted for this war.

Nothing was made more clear to me during this whole process than the fact that most of America is so disconnected from the war and occupation of Iraq that they just don't care much about it or the soldiers who are fighting it.

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1616

[Demeter]

1. Powerful Insight

Hillary's in it for what she can get for herself.

Obama's people expect change. That says it all.