My mother's on the road today, heading south to look after my great-aunt who's having foot surgery. I managed to pass on the good wishes of all my friends, online and off (she was toasted many times at my election party*), and ask her if she had any final statements on the election. She'd like to thank everyone who voted and announce that election night tuckered her out. Also, she's made some new friends through canvassing. And her Republican friends are being very quiet about the whole thing.

My brother asked her if she was feeling post-partum depression. She said she kind of was. "Well," he said, "now you get to watch your baby grow up."

She has also acquired a set of Obama dress-up fridge magnets.

Me, I'm gearing up to tackle the gay-marriage ban here in California, but I have confidence that we'll beat this in the end. Feeling pretty hopeful about everything for now. It'll pass, but it's good.


* Of course, after we polished off that bottle of rum, we were toasting puppies, furniture, our own shoes, and the word "maverick."

On the front, candy corn. Inside, she's written:

By the time you get this we should be even closer to the treat of Obama's presidency...despite all of McCain's tricks!

Gotta love that woman.

How successful has my mom's canvassing for Obama in Ohio been? So successful that both John McCain and Sarah Palin are coming to her town to stop her. That's right, she's got them so scared they're taking the fight to Green, Ohio, holding a rally at the high-school football field where I used to march around with a flugelhorn and curse my lot in life. Handicapped parking is at our old church.

As it happens, my mom will not be there, as she and my dad are off on a romantic getaway to Allentown, Pennsylvania. I swear I am not making any of this up.

Will Governor Palin determine that my hometown is part of Real America, or the much larger part of America populated entirely by terrorists and their friends? Tune into NBC Nightly News on Wednesday to find out!

Also, please enjoy the previous installments of Mom's Stories from the Campaign Trail, Parts One and Two.

As dramatized in previous posts, my mother's busy campaigning for Obama back home in Ohio, experiencing all the passion, thrills, and naked racism of politics in a battleground state. In addition to going to local Democratic Club meetings and canvassing door-to-door, she also listens avidly to local political radio, as she's been doing for many years.

Chief among the local radio pundits is Howie Chizek, who hosts the top-rated show in the Akron market and the longest-running talk radio show in America. Howie is a registered Democrat so he can claim to be fair and balanced, when his show is in fact pretty much wall-to-wall neocon. My mom cannot stop listening to him. She sits through his show until she gets outraged enough to switch off the radio, then she calls me to complain about it.

Today's tale of Akron-area talk radio:


Howie blew up at someone today. Usually he screens his calls pretty carefully and he manages to cut people off as soon as they say anything he disagrees with, but this time somebody managed to get through. It was a woman, and at first she seemed to be supporting some of the things he'd been saying about the election. But then she started criticizing Sarah Palin.

Now, Howie, of course, loves Palin. He's always saying, "She's everything a woman should be."

Well, this woman started criticizing her performance in the Katie Couric interview. Howie got worked up and started demanding to know how dare another woman complain about Palin. And the woman said, "She's set the women's movement back 30 years."

Then Howie just went off on her. "How dare you, as a woman, criticize her? I don't understand! I thought that was what you women wanted, a woman who goes out and works! You...YOU BABY-KILLING LESBIAN!" That's what he said, "baby-killing lesbian."

And then he hung up on her, as he is wont to do, and started ranting about all the liberal baby-killing lesbians. Now, Shaenon, can you think of a worse insult? I'm sure that's the worst insult Howie can think of.


Mom's campaign efforts are going well. She went door-to-door on her own for the first time! Three hours knocking on doors with no backup! And not only did she get a whole bunch of Obama supporters among the undecided voters on her list, she convinced a couple of them to join the Obama campaign.

My father, meanwhile, remains undecided.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my mom's going door-to-door for the Obama campaign back in Ohio. Here is her latest thrilling story of campaigning in a battleground state. She interrupted her annual outing to the Yankee Peddler craft festival to call and tell me this:

So we come up to this house. We were here to see a 79-year-old woman. My list, by the way, is a list supposedly comprising undecideds, and we're supposed to ask for those people no matter who answers the door.

She's not sure, she's not sure, because she wanted to vote for a woman. And now that Hillary wasn't nominated, she doesn't know what to do, "and now that McCain's picked that woman, I might have to vote for McCain."

The woman who goes door-to-door with me is really good, and she says, "Well, you know Palin's opinions on most of the issues are exactly the opposite of Clinton's."

She says she knows, she knows, but she just isn't sure. Then, as we're talking, we hear somebody shout, "Who're you talking to to?" and this craggy old man comes to the door. He's 83 years old, which we know because he tells us, and he says, "What are you girls talking about? You're not talking about that warmonger, are you?"

She throws up her hands and toddles away. He says, "Can I come out and talk to you girls? Can an old man come out and talk to you? I promise I won't swear at you or call you any names."

We say sure. He comes out, puts his hand on his chin, and starts ranting about "that warmonger." Eventually we figure out he's talking about Bush. So we figure this is good, right? But no! They are total Clintonites! He keeps going on about "our President Clinton": "he was a great man, and they kicked him out for something they all do! And now Hillary's lost the nomination! Can you imagine what she feels after losing to that one? Do you know what I mean?"

Well, of course we know what he means, but we don't say anything. But he goes ahead and tells us.

"Because you know he's black. I'm not saying that to be mean. He admitted himself that he's black! When in American history has anyone ever voted for a black President?"

At this point we realize we're not going to make any headway here. As we're leaving, he says, "You see, I promised I wouldn't call you any names, and I didn't."

No, you didn't. Thank you very much.


ETA: Many people have commented that they find this True Story of the Campaign Trail distressing or discouraging. I prefer to marvel at the human drama behind our nation's politics. It's so easy to make sweeping statements about Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, red state and blue state, but each individual voter is a separate, complex story. Somewhere out there in the heartland of America is a craggy old man who really hates Bush, really loves the Clintons, and really, really hates black people. What will he do come November? And what of his long-suffering wife, who just wants to pull the lever for a fellow vajayjay-owner before she dies? Think what Steinbeck could have made of this! Or Faulkner!

Also, it turns out Obama could get away with being black if he just didn't admit it. Like Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere.