More articles by Brian JosepherWhom are you voting for, part III?Whom are you voting for, part III?
Under a week now until the presidential election. Over the last few weeks, as part of this three-part series on voting preference in the upcoming election, I’ve interviewed both an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who supports Senator Obama and a 31-year-old physician who favors McCain. This week, I’m crisscrossing the country (latitudinally speaking) and the generations and interviewing a 19-year-old college student in Arizona. Amy lives in Tucson. This interview took place over the phone.
Q: Amy, thank you for joining me. I’m just trying to get a sense of what voters are thinking around the country. Have you decided whom you will be voting for next week?
Amy: Um, sort of.
Q: You’re undecided?
Amy: I guess.
Q: You sound insecure about being undecided. Don’t be. I just saw a series of polls taken in Arizona on pollster.com. First of all, it shows that Senator McCain only has a two-point lead which is unbelievable. In McCain’s home state! In Illinois, Obama’s home state, he’s up by over 20 points. But, according to the polls, a full ten percent of Arizona voters are undecided. Ten percent! That’s a big number. I mean, next time you’re on campus… Where do you go to school, the University of Arizona?
Amy: No. I wish. I go to Pima.
Q: Pima’s in Tucson?
Amy: Yes. It’s a community college. It has a reputation as a school for the lamebrain. I’m just hoping to get my grades up and go to the U of A next year.
Q: Amy, don’t be self-conscious about going to a community college. I take classes at a community college here in New York. One teacher in particular is the best language teacher I’ve ever had…
Amy: Yeah but so far in my life I’ve always sort of underachieved and going to a community college just reinforces that view of me. My friends call me Lamey Amy.
Silence over the phone line. The moment was ripe for a psychologist, but the (gonzo) journalistic side of me pressed for the continuation of the interview:
Q: I think your plan is a good one: going to a community college with hopes of attending the state school. But, the next time you’re on campus at Pima, take a good look around. One out of every ten people you see will be undecided.
Silence over the phone line.
Q: So you must be leaning toward one of the candidates. What are you thinking?
Amy: Well it’s kind of tough. I mean, here in Arizona. You know, like this is McCain’s state. I mean, he’s the senator. And he’s like been the senator since before I was born. So I kind of think I should be voting for him. And both my parents will vote for him for sure. So I kind of think I should be voting for him because my parents are. But then there’s this other side. I mean, Barack Obama is like the new kind of politician. He’s like the politician for my generation. Do you know what I mean? He like speaks to you.
Q: What does he say, to your generation?
Amy: I don’t know. To work hard. To hope. To dream. It’s like, he’s that great teacher back in high school. You know, the kind of teacher every student wants as his teacher. And then you get in his class and the time just goes by so quickly. Like the class is just so fascinating. He can really communicate. And he’s just so great with his words. It’s like he uplifts you.
Q: I hear you. He’s very inspirational. Let me ask you this: what issues are important to you? I think when you choose a candidate, aside from choosing one who inspires, you should be choosing someone based on policy making.
Amy: That’s a hard question. I mean, I’m not really politically involved. I don’t know. What are some important issues to you?
Q: To me? Well, foreign policy is paramount. And by foreign policy, I mean true internationalism. I mean knowledge and worldview. With John McCain, I question both. He’s had one kind of experience for most of his life. As a prisoner of war, as a politician, as a senator, he’s always a soldier. He’s never a diplomat. He’s never a conciliator. He’s a soldier through and through, a conqueror. And it shows in places like Iraq. He goes in with force, not with knowledge, not with wisdom. What we need in our next president is someone who knows something about the Arabic world, someone who speaks a little Arabic. I guarantee you, John McCain cannot say “how are you?” in Arabic. He can’t say “how are you?” in standard Arabic and he can’t say it in Baghdad dialect, even though he claims to know Iraq so intimately. I doubt he even knows that there is such a thing as Baghdad dialect. I don’t want the next president to have zero language knowledge, particularly after the last eight years. Zero language knowledge means that he hasn’t studied the country and its history. He’s only studied the reports that have come across his desk. There’s a big difference, Amy, between information and knowledge.
Amy: Do you know how to say “how are you?” in Arabic?
Q: I do. Arabic is actually one of the subjects I study at the local community college. In modern Arabic it would be izzayyak. In Baghdad dialect it would be shloonak. By the way, it’s not just John McCain who’s ignorant. How many pundits or policy makers know even the slightest bit of Arabic?
Amy: Does Barack Obama know how to say “how are you?” in Arabic?
Q: Very, very doubtful. But Barack Obama, at the very least, understands something about coalition building. America is stronger when it has allies. We don’t have allies today. That’s inexcusable. With Barack Obama, not only will we have allies but we will talk to our enemies. With John McCain, we will only threaten our enemies. McCain should take a page from his hero, Ronald Reagan. Even Reagan knew that he should talk to the Soviet Union.
Silence over the phone line.
Q: Another issue, Amy, that’s important to me is immigration, which might be important to you based on your geography. If you study American history, you find that we’re weakest when we turn nativistic. We’re strongest when we incorporate the full spectrum of internationalism into our borders. Another issue is education, which might be important to you based on your age. “No Child Left Behind” is so rigid. It’s full of cracks. It’s like Cindy McCain’s face with all of that makeup…
Silence over the phone line.
Q: Another issue is the protection of human rights. By that, I mean choice. In a democratic society, you should have the choice to get an abortion, you should have the choice to get married, whether you’re gay or straight, you should have the choice to practice any kind of religion, or no religion at all. How would you like to be a Muslim in our society?
Silence over the phone line.
Q: What do you think about what I’ve just said?
Amy: I don’t think I’d want to be a Muslim.
Q: Well, that’s the beauty of what I’m talking about. Nobody’s pressuring you to be a Muslim. In Arab societies, there’s direct pressure to practice Islam. And the big difference that separates our society from Arab society is democracy. If you take away choice, there’s lethal pressure to be one way. In Iran, you take your life in your hands if you’re Baha’i. In Egypt, same thing if you’re Coptic. Here, we’re at the point that to be a Muslim is to put yourself in danger. Is that what America is all about?
Silence over the phone line.
Q: Let’s change topics. Let me ask you a personal question. What would you do if you were Bristol?
Amy: Who?
Q: Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter. She’s a senior in high school and she’s pregnant. Her boyfriend describes himself as a “f-ing redneck.” Bristol’s going to have the child. She’s going to marry this guy. You’re about the same age as Bristol, how would you like to be pregnant and getting married?
Amy: I would hate it. I’m so not ready.
Q: Right. Do you think Bristol has a choice in the matter?
Amy: What do you mean?
Q: Well, think about it. Her mom’s running for vice president. Her mom doesn’t believe in abortion, even in the case of rape. Her mom has to promote that agenda. She has to show she is what she says she is. She can’t preach one code of ethics in the community and practice another at home. So, Bristol has become the poster child of the Republican Party. No abortions. Get married. Raise a family. It’s so monolithic. Do you see how little choice Bristol has?
Amy: Maybe she wants to have the baby. Maybe she wants to get married.
Q: Maybe.
Silence over the phone line.
Amy: Do you think she should get an abortion?
Q: That’s not for me to say. I’m not in her shoes. I don’t usually do this but I’ll share a little bit of my personal life here. About a decade ago, I fell deeply in love. My girlfriend – actually her name was Amy, though she went by another name – got pregnant. We didn’t talk about it. She had the abortion. Almost instantaneously, we lost all forms of communication. There was so much hurt, so much misunderstanding. Our relationship disintegrated. I’m sure many other couples have similar stories.
Amy: Why didn’t you talk about it? I mean, before she had the abortion?
Q: Good question. She thought I’d try to convince her to keep the child. She thought I wanted to be a dad.
Amy: Did you?
Q: Yes, to be honest. But I would never have convinced her to keep the child. You know, a feminist mother raised me and I am very much a feminist and I’ve learned a really valuable lesson. Men need to support feminists, not rule feminists. Our role in the feminist movement is as counselor, companion. That’s what I would have done a decade ago. I would have listened. And I would have supported her choice to go ahead with the abortion.
Amy: But wouldn’t it be better to have the baby?
Q: In our case? No. If the relationship wasn’t strong enough to make it through an abortion, it certainly wouldn’t be strong enough to endure parenthood. And as for Bristol and her boyfriend, they’re teenagers. At that age, you don’t even call it a relationship. You call it what it is: a dalliance. Of course, you don’t realize that at the time. You think this is the be all to end all.
Amy: It’s interesting what you’re saying because I’m thinking about the other side: those couples that can’t conceive, those couples who have to go through in vitro fertilization.
Q: What made you think of that?
Amy: I have some experience in that area.
Q: What do you mean?
Amy: Well I’ve donated my eggs.
Q: You have?
Amy: Yeah. I mean, there’s no other way to pay for college and for my car and everything.
Q: So, did you do it for money or did you do it to help a struggling couple?
Amy: Both, I think. Although I have to tell you that at first I did it for the money.
Q: At first? How many times have you donated?
Amy: Three times.
Q: You made a lot of money.
Amy: About $12,000. I have a male friend who’s jealous. He says, “I wish they would give me that kind of money.”
Q: I remember, back in my college days and after, looking at the advertisements in the college papers and thinking about donating my sperm.
Amy: Did you ever do it?
Q: No. First of all, it didn’t pay enough. Second, I didn’t want to have to go to some clinic and do my thing into a cup. That didn’t seem so appealing to me. And finally, I thought I’d spend too much time later in life looking into the faces of random kids on the street, trying to see some of me in them.
Amy: Yeah, I know what you mean. But see, that’s where your motivations become tricky. I mean, I did it for the money. But then I realized, my motivations didn’t matter to the parents. What they wanted was a healthy egg which hopefully would become a healthy baby.
Q: I see what you’re saying. There are many perspectives to consider. There’s the perspective of the donator. There’s the perspective of the parents. There’s also the perspective of the baby. What kind of life will he or she have? What kind of things will he or she do? Who will he or she be voting for 18 years from now?
Amy: She’ll probably be undecided.
Q: That’s funny. Can I give you some advice on how to decide whom to vote for?
Amy: Sure.
Q: Don’t pick a candidate based on whom your parents vote for. You’re a self-actualized person with your own goals, dream, agendas. They might be in conflict with your parents. You need to choose a candidate who best represents your goals, dreams and agendas.
Amy: Who did you vote for in your first presidential election?
Q: Let’s see. I missed voting in 1984 by a year or so. So the first time I voted was 1988. George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis. I was a college student in Portland, Oregon. I voted for Dukakis and Dukakis won the state of Oregon.
Amy: Why did you vote for Dukakis?
Q: I didn’t vote for Dukakis. I voted against Bush. The Reagan/Bush years began the steady spin toward our current crisis. Zero regulation. Uncontrollable federal deficit. More scandals than any other administration. Unelected, rogue officials given too much power, like Oliver North, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. I think Barack Obama is a very disciplined person and I think he’ll run a disciplined White House. At least that’s my hope.
Amy: And John McCain?
Q: I think John McCain has a bipolar tendency – not quite a disorder, more of a proclivity. And he’s addicted to Ambien. That right there should exclude him from the office. But, Amy, I think you should think about this world, think about what’s important, think about the future, for yourself, for your family, for people you don’t know living in foreign lands, think about what’s best for this earth, and I think you should make your decision based on whatever you find.
Amy: Okay.
Q: I do have one favor to ask.
Amy: What?
Q: However you vote, will you tell me afterward? I like to conclude these types of series with letters from readers and I know that readers out there will be interested in who you choose.
Amy: Sure. I’ll tell you on Tuesday.
I would like to thank Amy in Arizona, Dr. Molly in Alabama and Chaim Kovaes in Montreal for participating in this series. To read those earlier interviews with Dr. Molly and Chaim Kovaes, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “Whom are you voting for” articles to the right.
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