Email From North Carolina

A reader writes:

The email from Indiana finally inspired me to send this to you, although I wanted to the day it occurred.

Two days ago I pulled into the CVS parking lot here in Brevard, NC. I saw a very elderly, very stooped older gentleman getting out of the passenger side of a Ford pick-up truck and hobbling toward a curb. As soon as I parked I walked over to check on him and saw a young woman with a toddler already by his side. She had seen him fall and beat me to him. Another gentleman witnessed this and he, too, came over to help. The older man was so sweet, and a bit disoriented, but welcomed the help from us all. We got him back into the truck, and I was able to glean that his "boy" was inside the store.  We asked them to page his son and when he came forward, I knew it was him instantly.

Even though for that brief second in time, the primaries were the last thing on my mind, if you had stopped me and asked me which of the three candidates I thought the father and son would vote for, I'd say either Clinton or McCain.

White, blue-collar, seemingly not highly educated, small, western NC town folk, born and raised here...,etc. As I left the store, they were just pulling out. On the back of the truck window was an Obama '08 sticker. I cracked the biggest, spontaneous smile and I felt my heart loosen up a bit. I'd been having a pretty shitty, self-centered, emotional day up till then. And then I found myself tearing up. And I felt both soaring hope and some sort of communal, corny, we are the world joy. That moment felt like a MoveOn Obama commercial. You had a representative from nearly every age group involved in the scene, and four or five generations. Apparently, I do not really know what an Obama supporter looks like. I felt like such a judgmental elitist. A hopeful judgmental elitist.