This princess votes for the paupers

More than half my life ago, I became one of my hometown’s Rock Springs Park Festival princesses by sheer luck.  Any interested teen girl in the town could enter the contest, show up at the start of the fair, and blindly select a carnation corsage.  Red became queen; two blue became princesses; the rest stood as members of the court.  With my title and my sash, I won a $50 savings bond and a ride atop a convertible in the festival parade.  I grew up in the Bible Belt, where life, as this contest, seemed pretty fair at the time.  Everyone looked out for each other; everybody won.  And then, some years later, I grew up, and, especially after graduating from a liberal arts college and an even more liberal graduate school, I came to realize that it is very rare in life when everyone wins. 

Let’s take, for example, the homeless guy sitting on the bench across the sidewalk from me.  I am inside a coffee shop in downtown Palo Alto, typing on my MacBook as I sip a $4 latte while waiting for my hair appointment.  Today, I’m getting highlights that will run me, with tip, about $160.  The guy sitting out there probably doesn’t have sixteen cents to his name.  If I knew that my $160 hairdo would get him a room in a shelter and three square meals a day for, say, a week, would I forgo my haircut and write that check?  On the one hand, I don’t know this guy at all.  He is, in effect, not my problem – he’s not my uncle, my friend, or my brother.  Or is he?  I am a Christian, and there are a host of Biblical stories that fit this situation.  If I am true to my faith, I should Do Something.  But what?  And how?  And does the guy even deserve it?  He might just be crazy and choosing to live on the street.  Or he might be a Vet who put his life on the line in Vietnam.  Or he might be both.  Where does my responsibility to this man begin – or end?

To me, this man exemplifies the Presidential election at hand.  On the one hand, I can vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, hold on to my position in the highest tax bracket, and continue to frequent Starbucks and have nice hair.  On the other hand, I can vote for Obama/Biden, and I can get sucker-punched in the stomach when it comes to my taxes.  I might have to go back to work to make sure that we can pay our property tax bills; at the very least, I’ll have to give up on the fancy hair, and lattes will become a rare treat.  We are living in a place that nearly requires us to live paycheck-to-paycheck, but the Democrats call us rich.  And yet…

… I’m voting for Obama anyway.

When this election comes down to it, it’s economics versus sociology.  It’s money versus people, rich versus poor.  Yes, I’m oversimplifying.  Yes, I understand that taxing the rich more usually slows the economy; yes, I understand that a free market benefits everyone best – theoretically.  But I’ve been living in this free market for almost 35 years, and there are still Americans without healthcare.  There are still Americans, like my brother on the bench, who don’t have a place to sleep tonight or food to eat.  (And no, I don’t care if it’s because he’s crazy, because there should be adequate medical care for the mentally ill, too.  Obama accounts for the mentally ill in his health care plan; shame on McCain, who does not.)  I understand, fundamentally, that not everyone wins in life or in an election.  And if someone has to take a hit this time around, then I say, “hit me.”  I am damned lucky to have what I have in this life, and I thank God for that every day.  I got where I am because I had a lot of things that other people didn’t – a loving and supportive family and a stellar education to name two.  Not everyone needs to go to an Ivy League school, but everyone does need to have food, shelter, medical care, and a helping hand when needed.  Obama addresses these real social issues.  When I visit his website, “poverty” is covered in its own category as well as in others, like “rural.”  Funny, I couldn’t find “poverty” on the McCain website.  Perhaps that’s an oversight, like his seventh house.  Me, I see clearly, and I see a future with fewer lattes and fewer guys sleeping on benches.  Maybe, with Obama, everyone can win.  The lattes were going straight to my waist, after all.

This is an original post to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog by Roxane Dover, who remains politically unaffiliated but is proud to support Barack Obama for President.  Roxane usually avoids political discourse and instead writes of her family’s antics over at Rox and Roll.