Contributors (click to read each story)
Katherine Archuleta
I forget that not everyone thinks just like me. I surround myself with women who care as passionately about their families, their values, and their politics as I do. I know that we share the same view of the world. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when I meet other women who don’t – but I am. Take for example the Republican National Convention. Remember that I had just finished playing a lead planning role in the Democratic National Convention and I was most proud about how the Host Committee and the City had reached to all parts of the community to engage our residents in the historic event that happened right here in Denver. Everywhere we turned our communities were eager to be part – any part – of the excitement. We built our plan on the basis of the valuable diversity we have in Denver. And they said we had the most successful political convention – ever!
Four days after the DNC, the Republic National Convention began. I tuned in the first night to see how it was going. I was curious. As the TV screens scanned the audience, I kept looking for people of color who would represent to the Republican Party the concerns and issues of the Latino or African American communities. Suddenly, I saw someone...Read More
Judy Wahler
My husband, Bobby, is dying. He's been battling brain cancer for the last 23
years. Like so many other Americans I am facing a future I never envisioned
for my husband or myself: One of devastating loss, emotional suffering and
plain old-fashioned fear. Today, my husband is living in a nursing home and
we're spending close to $20,000 a month to keep him there. He had been covered
by Medicare and secondary insurance, but he exceeded the benefit limit for
both when his condition was deemed "catastrophic", leaving us no other option but to use our savings to pay his bills. I'm lucky,
I know, because we had money saved, but I can see a time in the not so distant
future when the money will run out. This is why I am supporting Barack Obama. I am not alone in this nightmare. Our healthcare system is broken, and we are all facing a choice on November 4th that will decide its future and our own. Barack Obama's plan includes investing in healthcare information technology, improving our prevention and management of chronic conditions, and providing reinsurance for catastrophic coverage. Obama's ...Read More
Beth Zimmerman
I have a mother who is 97 years old. Year after year in April she becomes distraught as tax time arrives and fears not having enough money to pay what she owes. With an Obama administration and economic plan her fears would be diminished.
UPDATE: Yesterday she waited in line for 1 hour and 10 minutes and then cast her vote for Obama. Fortunately she had her walker which has a seat for resting. She tells me he is such a nice young man and will make a good President and that she will pray for him. In the past she voted for FDR and started saving in Social Security when it started way back in the 30s (my exact history eludes me).
I am hopeful everyone will be as dedicated to the voting process and to Obama as she was.
Lydia M. Peña, S.L.
I was born and raised in Valencia County in western New Mexico. It was a county where Democrats won elections. Nonetheless, my Republican father, Pablo Peña, ran and won several elections for County Commissioner. It was his values, honesty and ability to walk his talk that got him elected time and time again.
As a woman, who happens to be Hispanic and a Catholic nun, I am casting my vote for Barack Obama for President. Here is another man like my father with...Read More
Ashara Ekundayo
My paternal grandmother had 17 children and no education. When my mother was around, she was a spectacle, because her mother-in-law had never known a black person who went to college. She was a single mother in Detroit, but for her education was never a question. In fact, I’ll never forget watching my grandmother graduate from Metro State College, at 65. I’m supporting Obama because education is about more than preparing for a career. It’s about knowing your choices – choices like reproductive rights. I trust him to create these opportunities for every woman.
Nancy Guzman
When I heard Barack Obama deliver his unforgettable "One America" speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, I remember going to bed that evening thinking this is the person we need as president for (as he put it) these United States. So you can imagine how excited I was when he announced he was running for President on the Democratic ticket and then when he received the nomination…well, I was out of control!
It should be known that I was raised as a Republican. My father was an elected official for 16 years. But, like many other Republicans, I changed my affiliation and became a devoted Democrat after the first term of the Bush administration.
Ok…here come some strong words, but this is how I feel....Read More
Carmen Myrtis-Garcia
Having been a Republican for many years, I would like to add my own personal story:
I was raised in a church where women were forbidden any leadership or speaking position, were to be submissive to their husbands, and we were not allowed to vote or partake in "worldly politics." I left this church after 27 years at the age of 39. It was a very turbulent time in my life going through a divorce at the same time and with two sons just entering young adulthood. After a few years of emotional and financial turmoil, I found my way and calling. I completed my bachelors degree in sociology and women's studies at the age of 40 and went on for my masters in student affairs in higher education and women's studies. I became passionate about women's studies and about inspiring/motivating other women who have gone through difficult times to hold onto their dreams, take control of their lives, and to move forward in their lives. After graduation I remarried (a wonderful, supportive man) and I cleaned houses for a living rather than take the middle management job I was offered by a major corporation. Although it offered healthy pay and great benefits, my soul cried out that it was off path. I cleaned houses for 3 years with a master's degree while imagining that someday my dream job would come along....Read More
Laurie Hirschfeld Zeller
I have worked in politics of some form or other for most of my adult life, so it is possible that I have become just a little cynical about many political candidates. A year ago, I was still undecided about which Presidential candidate I would support, and wasn't really ready to commit to any of them. An old friend who is also a politico was working for Obama, and he urged me to take a second look. He called the Senator from Illinois a "transformational figure" - I didn't buy that but I started to pay attention because this friend is someone whom I respect but who is also very difficult to impress....Read More
Lillian Hunt Meeks
Both my parents have built their lives around serving others. My mother is a philanthropist who travels all across the world working twelve hour days to help people in need. My Father is the minister of a small church who has twice made himself very unpopular in the neighborhood by trying to turn the church basement into a temporary homeless shelter. One way or another I was bound to grow up aware that there are millions of people who were less fortunate than I am. That turned into a very personal lesson. My mother's father was an oilman and considered the richest man in the country while my father's father was a baker and anything but rich.
By the time I turned two my father had moved out of the former apartment building that he and my mother had made into a single family home and into a much smaller house just under a mile away. I grew up, moving back and forth, not just between two families but between two worlds. In my mother's world we went to the opera and ate out several night's a week. In my father's world we watched PBS, because we couldn't afford cable and bought most of our clothes at second hand shops. My father wasn't poor, he was middle class.
While my sisters went to the same public school I went to a private school. I've spent some family lunches talking over the distribution of millions of dollars through...Read More
Rebecca Wilkins
I’ve just survived my first mid-life career change. After twenty-some years as a CPA, I went back to law school and graduated this past May. So while I have many reasons to support the Obama/Biden ticket, there are two hot-button issues for me: the Supreme Court and taxes.
During law school I paid a lot more attention to the U.S. Supreme Court. And it was truly frightening. During the past two terms, after Justices Roberts and Alito joined the bench, the Supreme Court has cavalierly disposed of years of legal precedent. And their decisions are alarmingly anti-women.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, the Supreme Court said it was too late for Lily Ledbetter to file a discrimination suit after receiving twenty years’ worth of paychecks as much as 40% lower than men in the same jobs. The Court said Ledbetter should have filed her lawsuit within 180 days of receiving her first discriminatory paycheck, twenty years ago!...Read More
Joan Martin
Since our retirement 5 years ago, as you likely know, Mike and I have been fortunate to travel extensively at home and abroad. On our journeys we have met fellow Americans from all over the US, and though we personally don't ever choose to bring up "hot button topics" like politics or religion, we are sometimes confronted with viewpoints that are so very contrary to ours that we are caused to really look at the source of own values and beliefs - for our own viewpoints are, in fact, based on these.
And while even at home in Colorado, we as friends, colleagues, or acquaintances don't typically talk about our most personal stories, I would like to share mine with you, since it explains why this election is so important to me and why I have worked in support of Barack Obama through the Women's Voting Circles...Read More
Annie Rothkopf
Thirty-five years ago, I moved to Chicago from London. We settled in the Near North, and like so many of our friends, my husband and I were not interested in politics. Then, in 2003, a great friend invited me to a small gathering at her house to meet an "inspiring young state senator." She had met him while she was working with a community organization. There was Barack Obama, and it was then that nearly all of us at my friend's house realized that this was a man who had entered politics not so much to earn a living as actually to make things better for all of us. He spoke of his efforts to reform state government and to help the disenfranchised in our city and state. His thinking was strategic. He was not looking for quick fixes, but for fundamental changes to our systems. This group of people immediately understood that Barack was not only a very intelligent and charismatic person, but someone whose instincts were to make decisions based on the correct moral grounds, and not for political expediancy....Read More
Barbe Chamblis
I have 9 children. I and my children have done our best to earn and pay for college educations for all 9. My youngest child in spite of all we have done has a college debt of 90K at the end of his 4 years. I do not know how or when he will be able to pay it off.
Judith Wagner
My first job was as a high school p/e teacher in California in a smallish school. I had come from that same town and gone to another high school in that town that had tons of beautiful PE equipment. When I tried to get some basic things—like clean showers, volleyballs that didn’t deflate after you blew them up, birds for playing badminton—the head of the department said we didn't have any money for those things. “Why not,” I (age 21) asked? The answer was, "The district doesn't provide anything for this school."
"Why not," I again asked. "This is a minority school" was the ultimate answer. What that did to my understanding of right and wrong was dramatic. I wrote to the superintendent asking for these supplies. I called his office. I tried to make an appointment to see him. I was turned down over and over.
My sense of justice was ignited. I became a committed supporter of those that may have been given less. So, after Hillary Clinton was defeated in the primary season, I was excited to support Barak Obama, not only because he is so clearly qualified, but because this country needs to have an African-American President. It is about time we broke the 232 year stranglehold of white males in this country.
Dottie Lamm
I
know when you look at me you probaby think former first lady, Denver Post
columnist, middle class woman married to the same guy for 45 years, two great
kids, three healthy grandsons, enough money to spoil them and travel the
world at will.Well, yes, that's me. But that's really only half of me. Because I have had major traumas in my life, most of them medical. Diagnosed 27 years ago with breast cancer when I was first lady, I was told that my chances of living to see my children grow up were "about 50/50."
My cancerious lymph node count was 15 out of twenty five, which meant almost certain spreading to other parts of my body. I kept this devastating prognosis from the Press, my children, and even some of my friends, but I could not keep it from me.
Then, five years ago, I could have lost my sister, Jane, who is here tonight to West Nile disease. Told later, that her chances had been about 50/50, and that she might not have...Read More
Pam Smith
I have led a life of adventure and privilege, having lived in 14 towns and cities in 6 countries on 3 continents and have visited countless other places. It has been a wonderful 58 years, with precious opportunities to see how other cultures approach life and how other governments serve their citizens.
But I had a BIG reality check two years ago, just after my husband, Rick, retired and we were building the home of our dreams in our beloved Rocky Mountains: Rick was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Of course we sought out the best physicians and state-of-the-art treatment – doesn’t everyone want that? Luckily, this treatment stopped the tumor, although too late to save Rick’s sight in his right eye....Read More
Laura Leighton
Growing up in Dallas, Texas when the city was still small and most families
were financially well off, my main concerns were doing well in school, being
accepted by my peers, and during my teen years, dating cute boys. My father
was a cardiologist who had helped with the first North American heart transplant,
so I was well respected around town based on my name. My mother earned a
PhD in 1968, when most other women in her class were not even working, and
I felt funny about her constant attraction to things outside of our home.
I was embarrassed by it as it went against the norm of my friends’ mother’s
peers, that of being well kept and responsible to one’s family. My mother
told me she would never be a "kept
woman" but I had no idea what she actually meant by that. When I was 16 she worked
with the Dallas Police to start The Family Place, the first shelter in Dallas
for women and children who were victims of domestic abuse. I wondered why
in the world she would be so consumed with so many other people she didn’t
even know. Yet I felt deeply for women who were beaten in their relationships....Read MoreMarjorie Seawell
When
Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, I celebrated the fact that my
age group, the early Baby Boomers, had finally taken over the reins of leadership
in this country. Bush Senior was my father’s generation so I was unbelievably
excited that now people like me, who came of age in the Sixties, were at
last in charge. Imagine my surprise last year when many people associated Hillary’s candidacy with the Washington Establishment!...Read More
Mary Catherine Conger
I
am supporting Barack Obama because for over 15 years I have suffered with
a chronic illness. At times I have been unable to work. I was fortunate to
get some health insurance before I was diagnosed, since then I have had to
keep my current insurance which is now close to $900.00 a month or not have
insurance. I found out I was uninsurable. Luckily my Grandmother has been
able to help me with my premiums and medical expenses over the years, otherwise
I don't know what I would have done. I have a brother who also can't get
insurance and he had to move home to offset medical expenses. I have a sister
with MS who lives overseas and would not be able to get insurance if she
ever moved back to the United States.Juanita Chacon
Her name is Brooklyn, and she came into my life on December 24th 2005. My dedication to serving children for over 20 years took a personal and more meaningful turn that day.
Having no children, my niece is now my motivation and my inspiration to make sure I do everything possible to support and elect Barack Obama.
"From the first moment a woman dared to speak that hope - dared to believe that the American Dream was meant for her too - ordinary women have taken on extraordinary odds to give their daughters the chance for something else: for a life more equal, more free and filled with more opportunity than they ever had. In so many ways we have succeeded, but in so many areas we have much work left to do."...Read More
Beth Klein
Unlike the powerful posters here I am not famous or particularly notable; I am a lawyer in private practice. It is my life's humble work to make certain that every child has the opportunity to have a fulfilled life. I am blessed to have the opportunity to serve these clients.
Several years ago I was called to a modest home to meet with a family who needed help. I was greeted by an obviously overwhelmed and drained Mom and Dad and two teenage children. The third child, a twin son, was bound in a wheel chair, completely immobile with a brace holding his head steady. Two years earlier, he had sustained a gun shot wound to the head. He was now 21, a full grown man who lived in the coffin of a body what was slowly stiffening and dissolving. This young man who now could only cry the word "maaaaaa" became my client in a battle for insurance coverage and resources for his family....Read More
Swanee Hunt
I
am supporting Barack Obama for a very personal reason.When my mother married my father, he already had a grown son, Hassie. He was Dad’s look-alike, with fair hair and skin, blue eyes, and a tall, sturdy frame. As an adolescent, Hassie was brilliant but difficult. As a result, he was sent to Culver Military Academy, but even that rigor couldn’t prevent his psychotic break. In his early twenties he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. After years in physical restraints, with countless insulin and shock treatments, my father’s firstborn son and heir apparent was lobotomized.
The state-of-the-art frontal lobe surgery to quell aggression was performed on eighteen thousand Americans during the 1940s, since psychotropic drugs that would transform the care of psychotic patients weren’t discovered until a few years later. The procedure left Hassie less violent, but he still clenched his fists and snarled as he muttered angrily to himself about "vicious killers" lurking around him....Read More