Ghosts of elections past

If you are looking for giant spider webs, life-sized ghouls or plastic tombstones to adorn your front lawn with, I’m afraid they’re all in Northeast Philadelphia. The voters whose doors I was knocking on may be facing hard times but they’re still looking to give away candy on Halloween. These neighborhoods must be fun for the kids; they’re very family-oriented and many houses are haunted.

Haunted by the past, that is: the time when people had steady work and were optimistic about the future, their kids’ college prospects and their own retirement. Most of the voters I spoke with were talking about the economy, the scare they got when they opened their last 401K statement (George Will said “the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing they did not pay for”). One dad I talked to, the only black voter I met on my wandering, told me to save my convincing for someone else. “I’m convinced every time I talk to my daughter who’s stationed in Iraq and can’t come home,” he said. “I’m convinced every time I look at my bank statement.”

Many I talked to were close to retirement — or so they previously thought. The idea that McCain supported privatizing Social Security was enough to galvanize them, if they weren’t already. The idea of having their money tied to the volatile stock market was far scarier than those Obama masks they’re selling. 

Health insurance was a big topic, too. There was a woman who told me both she and her husband were voting Democratic but their son, also on my list, was in a vegetative state. (“You can put him down too, if you want,” she said.) There was another mom, thinking of abandoning the Republican party for the first time, whose son had been on a methadone program, since closed: she was plenty scared, too. And there was the woman I met whose hair was missing from chemo. She was wearing a Phillies jersey and knitting a giant Phillies stocking as we talked. “Today’s a good day,” she said. “On good days I have enough energy to get mad at the Republicans.”

The fact that their team is heading for the World Series has made a lot of people happy; signs were everywhere and I even met a cat named Philly. One guy, mowing his lawn, stopped to tell me he and his wife were for Obama all the way and he was making a point of talking to his friends who were on the fence. Hearing I was from NY he shook his head about the fate of the Mets. 

“I tell you what,” I said. “You vote for Obama and I’ll root for the Phillies.”

That’s a promise that’s easy to keep when they’re playing the Devil Rays.

3 thoughts on “Ghosts of elections past

  1. A funny thing is, I can probably see him keeping that promise, because Philly fans are the reason why they have plastic beer bottles at stadiums and why everything you buy is uncapped…

    Oh and because they’re so damn loyal to their team

  2. o I’ve rooted for worse teams than the Phillies, and he has voted for worse candidates than Obama. We’re even (though all in all, I’d rather it was the SF Giants)

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