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Like a lot of people here, I moved to this County eight years ago when I retired. I love the place, the people, and my life here after a long career in Atlanta. It feels like where I grew up [in East Tennessee]. It’s more than just the mountains and the beautiful scenery. It’s the comfort of a community where people talk to each other on the streets and read the weekly paper to see what’s going on in the county. I’m a Democrat, one of those Southerners who remained in the fold when the political climate changed some years back. I knew I was moving to a place where I would be in the minority, and I’m glad to say that has not been a problem. Like anyone here that wants to vote, I vote in the Republican Primary for local offices, but in the National election, I’m a Democratic Voter just like when I grew up.
I was particularly glad to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. In spite of what Rush Limbaugh says or what I see on Fox News playing on the public televisions around town, I think he’s a right-thinking moderate man with a good head on his shoulders who really wants to help the middle class – and Lord knows, we need help right now. Our economy has been thrown into a tailspin by the deregulation of our Markets and the rampant speculation of the financial elite. It’s going to roll down on top of all of us. There’s only one right thing to do at this point – turn on the spigot and keep us from plunging into the kind of Depression our parents and grandparents lived through. In 1929, the Stock Market crashed. But then it rallied. Over the next three years, the Market slowly fell to almost nothing, unemployment rose from 3% to 24%. We all know why because it’s happening right now. We’re holding on to what we’ve got. Stores are closing because no one is buying. People are being laid off. And down we head. It’s called a deflationary spiral, and between 1929 and 1933 [Herbert Hoover’s term of office], America tanked. F.D.R. turned things around by massive spending and government programs. Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh are trying to rewrite history and say F.D.R. prolonged the Depression and that things would’ve been fine if he’d left things alone. Well, ask your grandfather about that one. Herbert Hoover did that for four years and it almost destroyed us. So, I’m writing to ask you to give Obama a chance. He’s earned it. He’s facing the biggest challenge as a President that we’ve had since the Great Depression. We’re not the country he set out to govern. We’re a deeply divided country with an enormous problem sitting in our lap – a problem that the middle class did not create. But he’s still in the game, and he’s surrounding himself with the kinds of experts that he needs to give us the best shot at doing the right thing. Myself, I’ll probably cry on January 20th, because living with the Bush Administration’s disregard for the regular American has been so painful to me. I’m not asking you to share my joy at having a new beginning. All I’m asking is that you give Obama as much support as you can muster, and that you not confine your information gathering to only Fox News and Talk Radio. Given the circumstances, that’s not too much to ask. Even Democrats like me rallied behind President Bush after 9/11, and our current economic situation is a bigger calamity than that infamous day. It’s another one of those times for us to be Americans, not Democrats or Republicans…
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I hope they publish it — and that you’ll keep us posted on people’s responses. It should be interesting.