Is America Ready?

In 1984, my interest in politics began when my then liberal father drove me to Hartford to see Geraldine Ferraro vice presidential nominee to Walter Mondale speak at the Capital. I was 13 when on election night, I went to my room and shut the door to cry over their loss to that stupid actor turned Republican Ronald Reagan. But what did I know? I was only following my parents lead.

My Junior year in high school I wrote an essay that won me a 6 hour train ride to Washington D.C. to attend a week called Presidential Classroom. Students from all over the country attended daily meetings and lectures about the state of governmental affairs. I remember several things about this trip. First, for several hundred seemingly smart high school kids, few of them could pick out Connecticut (my home state) on a map. One girl from Texas didn't even know it was a state. Second, I got to meet with then State Representative, swarmy John Rowland, who went on to become Govenor of CT, who resigned and served two years in jail for something called corruption. Third, I watched heads of the Sandanista and Contra Government in Nicaragua give lectures about what their people were going through. All in all it was very educational week.

Beyond catching five minutes of news on NPR when driving, and perusing the political cartoons in Newsweek, I do not keep up with politics, and I don’t have the time or energy to be knowledgeable about all of the issues. I just want to vote for someone who does care about them. I am the worst kind of voter, I am complacent.

I also make it a point not to discuss politics or religion with anyone, as it always ends in bitter anger, no one thinks different, no one changes their mind, it’s just a bunch of arguing. That and I wouldn't hold up in a debate about politics. There'd be a lot of "oh yeah, well, he sucks" with nothing meaningful to back it up.

That being said, someone recently commented here on what I thought about Hillary Clintonrunning for president. If the democrats chose Hillary as their candidate, I would back her. I do not believe enough people in this country would vote for her, but I would back her if that is who they chose. As a matter of fact, I will back whomever they put in there to run against Cheney. But then I heard Al Gore on NPR the other day *sniff* and he was so eloquent and so caring about some amazing topics that we never even think about. And then I think, would Al Gore do better now than he did last time? I would back Al Gore too.