At this point in the election cycle, with all of the awful nastiness in the news and the finger pointing and the obsessing over minute changes in polls, sometimes we lose sight of the larger context. For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.
Thanks to Ben Smith at Politico for blogging a report about the following scene at a early voting location.
No matter which candidate you're rooting for to win in the end (and we all know I have very strong feelings about that) you have to celebrate that our country has reached a place where this scene could occur and that this woman and millions more will be able to have that experience.
Becca
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