It's Not Easy Being Blue

I am frantic. I have been searching everywhere for one of my most prized possessions. I’m sure it survived the move. After all, it has accompanied me from California to Maryland, to Washington, DC, and then back to Maryland and DC and then to Virginia.

It must be here. Somewhere.

“It” is a letter my grandfather – Daddy Bob, we called him – wrote to me in 1969. I was a college freshman, and yes, likely full of myself. My father had sent his father a paper I’d written for a political science class. As I recall, I was a budding socialist.

The 90-year-old patriarch jumped into action and wrote a long handwritten letter chiding me, pointing out the errors of my arguments, and defending, no, extolling the accomplishments of FDR, the New Deal and government programs that helped those unable to help themselves.

Daddy Bob was more than an observer; he had been a Texas delegate to the Democratic National Convention that first nominated FDR in 1932.

I swear the third man from the left is Daddy Bob.

Yet, I’m a mixed breed, as other Lone Star relatives have been quick to point out. My mother’s grandfather ran for Congress in Texas as a Republican. But, the women in her family were all Democrats.

For me, it’s long been easy to be a Democrat once I left California’s Orange County and went to college (ah, the ‘60s). From there it was – with my grandfather’s letter in tow – to Maryland (blue state), DC (very blue), and then to Virginia’s Arlington County (deep blue).

The parties haven’t always been so rigidly color-coded. The blue and red shorthand came in 2000 while chads hung in Florida and our nation’s future hung in the Supreme Court’s scales of justice. [For a great article on red, blue, G.O.P. and Democrats, see Smithsonian Magazine.]

Last August, before we left blue Arlington for NC’s Catawba County, good Re(d)publican friends took us to dinner. The wife said, “Now you’ll be able to understand how it is for us living in Arlington.”

Those words echo.

To paraphrase Kermit, “It’s not easy being blue.”

At least it’s not here, where signs sprouting alongside the daffodils boast about being the conservative candidate.  There are no signs for Democrats; there are not enough candidates to require a primary.

You can’t watch television with being swamped by political ads. For one, the Koch brothers have poured some $7 million into North Carolina to defeat Sen. Kay Hagan.

Of my new state, Jeffrey Toobin wrote in a recent issue (Feb. 17 & 24, 2014) of The New Yorker, “Few states have undergone as profound a political transformation as North Carolina has in recent years. In the 2010 midterm elections, the North Carolina Senate and its House of Representatives went from Democratic to Republican control.”

In 2012, Pat McCrory, a Republican, won the governorship, the G.O.P. won more seats in both houses, and, Toobin continued, “the Republicans went on a legislative tear, ending benefits for the long-term unemployed, declining the expansion of Medicaid offered by the Affordable Care Act, and cutting taxes and government spending, especially for education.” (The state now spends $475 less per student than just a few years ago.)

And, that was followed by numerous changes, or “reforms,” to voting, including reduced early voting and strict voter-I.D. requirements, which is why the U.S. Department of Justice filed its lawsuit last September.

With my minority status, I find myself thinking more about what it means to be a Democrat. Like Daddy Bob, I was raised left-handed and left leaning. But, it’s more about the values my parents instilled. I was brought up to believe in equality and fair treatment, to value everyone, and to help others who are in need.

I like how Doug Wilson, political director for North Carolina's State Democratic Party, puts it, “Democrats don’t believe in handouts. We believe in a helping hand.”

What I don’t like is what I see happening in my new home state:  the cuts to education, one in five women living in poverty, and that our county is #1 in losing young people since there’s so little opportunity here.

We – and that we means government – must invest in our people and their stronger futures.

That’s why I started going to Catawba County Democratic Party meetings. It’s why I signed up as a charter member of the newly formed women’s auxiliary and it’s why, when no one else stepped forward, I agreed to be the group’s president.

My desire to contribute and give back is also why I put on a white wig and called on my Texas heritage to portray the late great Ann Richards in our group’s inaugural “Lunch With Legends” fundraiser. I stood tall with some remarkable women and I’m not just talking about Barbara Jordan, Rosa Parks, Jacqueline Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Susan B. Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. I’m talking about the charter members of the Democratic Women of Catawba County.

With company like this, it’s not as hard to be blue.

Left to right: Ola Greenard, Lynn Dorfman, Lois Daniel, Carol Hanes,
10th District Congressional candidate Tate MacQueen, Denise Lineberger, Fran Syptak, and Toni Woods