My "Story of Self"

The story of why I have become such a passionate support of Senator Barack Obama and his quest for the Presidency of the United States started 20 years ago in rural Central Kentucky. This is the story of how I evolved as a young man with a simple and basic understanding of what makes American great into a fierce advocated and protector of American rights, values, and families. All of us have a story. All of us have this story of why we're supporting Barack Obama today. Here's mine.

Story of Self (The Beginning)

I first began to become politically aware in the mid-1980’s as a middle school and high school student in Spencer County Kentucky. My father worked in the education business for 28 years before retiring and opening his own real estate business. He also served in the United States Army Reserves for 25 years first in Vietnam and then as a reserve officer or “weekend warrior”. My mother was a Stay at Home Mom for most of the year of my childhood. She worked part-time in the library or in a day care to help bring income to the family, but mostly just took care of 5 children.

I was (and still am) a current events and history junkie. I was the kid who sat in the front row in social studies and government classes and tried to answer all the questions. This is where I began to formulate my own thoughts and ideas right in the middle of the Reagan Revolution. Both of my parents were Democrats as was everyone else in Kentucky. You had to be a registered Democrat to vote in the primaries, because Democrats dominated Kentucky politics. I was dead in the middle of the defection of these “Dixie Democrats” from voting Democrat to voting for Reagan and the Republican Party.

I contemplated as a young man about what I really was or identified with. I asked lots of questions. We travelled to Washington D.C. about every summer to visit my mother’s families and I studied the constitution and American politics. Ultimately, when I got my first chance to vote in a Presidential race in 1988, I cast my vote for Michael Dukakis.

I simply could not make Reaganomics work in my mind. I could not figure out how the wealth in our country would or could trickle down to every American. I was appalled by the deficit that Ronald Reagan created in our country. Coming from a middle class family struggling to survive month to month and forced to work with a budget, I just couldn’t figure out how our country could survive by not balancing its budget. I also didn’t understand how many didn’t feel the obligation I felt to help every person have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.
My political resolved harden in the late 1980s, as I experience the market crash and recession of 1989. I’d joined the Army Reserves in 1986 to help pay for college. I knew what it was like to make $200 a month for a weekend of service, but see the millions of dollars going into weapon systems that many times didn’t work. I knew what it was like to be a college student petrified about leaving college, because the prospects of getting a job were so slim. In fact, I jumped on a graduate assistantship when one became available giving me the opportunity to wait for the economy to rebuild.

I debated family, friends, and classmates long and hard in 1992 in support of Bill Clinton. I did not get involved in the campaign like I wished I’d had, but I worked to convince as many as I could to vote for him. I was dismayed with the “Contract for American” created by Newt Gingrich helped capture the Congress in 1994, but I can’t say I hadn’t seen it coming. The Reagan Democrats in Kentucky and the rest of the south were simply becoming Republicans.
In 1995 and 1996, I entered the work force and this began one of the toughest periods in my life for my political ideology. Working first in Central Kentucky and then in Atlanta, GA, I became afraid to speak about my beliefs as openly as I had in school. I became afraid I’d anger clients, employers, and friends. Though, I kept moving further South. In fact, as my jobs moved me deeper and deeper into conservative precincts (I lived in Newt Gingrich’s and then Bob Barr’s districts in GA.) I felt more and more oppressed.

I wore a Gore/Lieberman button the month before the 2000 election, and caught incredible grief for it. I didn’t contribute in any other way. In my negative state of mind, I could only declare to any who would listen after this election that we’d just elected Hillary Clinton President in 2008. I was incredibly upset that President Clinton’s missteps in the late 1990’s and thus Al Gore’s unwillingness to use Bill in his campaign had allowed George W. Bush to win the election, not realizing that I and many other Democrats were just as much to blame for not working hard enough to support our candidate.

I was determined to become more active and vocal in the 2004 election in support of John Kerry, but again I allowed my job and my community’s ideology to suppress my own. I was more vocal, and I wore the button a little longer, but I did not actively engage in the campaign. However, I didn’t know it at the time, but my life changed when I watched the Democratic Convention in 2004.

My wife and I were transfixed by this young African American man we saw speak at the convention. I remember saying to her that this man was a rising star in the party and wondering where he would surface later down the line. Bush of course won in 2004 and I repeated my prediction from 2000 with even more conviction that we’d just elected Hillary Clinton in 2008, and that I would vote for her just like I’d voted for her husband.
Here is where I began to watch. Here is where I began to believe that there was someone that could change our country. Here’s where I began to see that I needed to change myself and became part of the answer.

[My next post will be about the "Story of Us" as supports of the Democratic Party and ultimately Barack Obama. Please feel free to share your story.]