I Didn't Vote For Obama

 I Didn't Vote for Obama
 
                                                                                                 
I'm a middle-class white guy living in Jacksonville , Florida   I've got a wife and two kids.   Because the kids had no school today, I took a vacation day from work, and  took the kids downtown to vote early. Fifty-nine minutes later, two smiling children and I proudly sported 'I Voted' stickers.
 
But I didn't vote for Obama.
 
I voted for my ancestors, who believed in the promise of this country and came with nothing as immigrants.
I voted for my parents, who taught in the public schools for decades.
 
I voted for Steve, an acquaintance of mine from Kentucky. (Killed by an IED two years ago in Iraq ).
I voted for Shawn, another who's been to Iraq twice, and Afghanistan once, and who'll be going back to Afghanistan again soon  -- and whose family earned eleven bucks a month too much to qualify for food stamps when the war started.
 
I voted for April, the only African-American girl in my high school -- it was years before it occurred to me how different her
experience of our school must have been.
 
I voted for my college friends who are Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and yes -- Muslim.
 
I voted for my grandfathers, who worked hard in factories and died too young.
 
I voted for the plumber who worked on my house, because I want him to get a REAL tax break.
 
I voted for four little angels from Birmingham.
 
I voted for a bunch of dead white men who, although personally flawed, were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes,
and sacred honor, and used a time of great crisis to expand freedom rather than suspend it.
 
I voted for all those people and more, and I voted for all of you, too. But mostly, I voted selfishly.
 
I voted for two little kids, one who has ballet in an hour, and one who has baseball practice at the same time.
                                                              
I voted for a world where they can be confident that their government will represent the best that is in this country,
and that will in turn demand the best of them.
                                                                                                  
I voted for a government that will be respected in the world.
 
I voted for an economy that will reward work above guile.
 
I voted for everything I believe in.
 
Sure, I filled in the circle next to the name Obama, but it wasn't him I was voting for --  it was every single one of us, and those I love most of all.
 
Who else is there to vote for?
 
Vote like it's about a better America . ....Because it is....