Registering voters at 7-11.

Greetings from Las Vegas, where I, DeAnne Spicer Todd, spent the last two days registering voters.  It was hot.  As I have often said, “I hate sun and I don’t like people.” Yet, here I am with a lot of both. Saturday my partner and I were sent to a “Swap Meet” somewhere on the outskirts of Las Vegas. I kid you not, but one out of five of the people we asked if they were registered to vote said they couldn’t because they were felons.  Seriously! Eventually, I at least quit asking the guys with the tear drop tattoos on their faces.  My partner was getting really anxious because he noticed that cars with blacked out windows kept pulling up and then a guy from the “Swap Meet” would come out and lean in the car window to chat for awhile.  I’m pretty self absorbed so I didn’t notice.  In fact I kept trying to register them to vote. He wanted to leave, but the “Swap Meet” had really good shade so I wanted to stay.  Eventually he convinced me to go by telling me he had seen this sort of thing on Breaking Bad and I had to agree it was feeling as if we were not welcome to stand in front of the “Swap Meet” anymore so we left.

Now I don’t like to racially profile but I’m going to anyway. All of the people at the “Swap Meet” were black or latino and a lot of them looked like gang members.  After learning that a lot of them were felons I am assuming I was not totally off base.  However, the people I talked to there (and I must admit I talked to scary looking people I would not normal approach) supported Obama and were very nice.

Cut to- Smith’s Market In A More Upscale Neighborhood.  Now the felons are white (same ratio of felon to non felon) supporting Romney and quite a few of the older ones are mean.  Not all of them responded rudely to my question, “Do you support our President?” But, I did get a reply from a really fat white guy (again with the profiling), “I support him being taken out and shot.”  From another fat white guy, “Can’t wait until he’s gone.  Someone otta take him out now.” And from, a white woman who waited for me to ask her and then got right in my face and said, “I would rather vote for a goat than him.”  This is just an observation,  but, that the fatter, whiter, and fewer teeth people had the more they hated Obama.  The very people who could actually benefit from Obamacare and have some dental work done are the ones spewing hate and violence.  I don’t understand.

My profiling fell completely apart however with one group.  White women.  The majority of white women I spoke to, surprisingly to me, are supporting Obama.  They are afraid Romney does not care about Women’s Issues and in fact will take away, “Everything we have worked to achieve.” said an older Republican woman.  Lest you think I believe all white men are toothless, violent, and mean I  want to mention a really nice man who answered my question about supporting Obama, “No ma’am, I do not.”  I thanked him for answering so kindly and he said, “I’m really sorry you’ve been spoken to that way.  Most of us have been taught better manners.”  He restored my faith.

The best part of the whole week end was registering a woman who just became a citizen and will be voting for the first time.  Her two daughters were with her and kept saying, “Yea, Mom!” and “Vote for Obama!” It reminded me of the time I stood in the voting booth with my mother and yelled at the top of my lungs, “No, Mom, no! Vote for Nixon!”  I know,  that not my finest moment but registering a new citizen was definitely the moment I have felt the most patriotic.  She was so excited and proud to vote and it was an honor to be part of the process.

As a prize for being so great and coming to Vegas I decided to stay an extra day and get a deluxe anti-aging facial and go see Love tonight at the Mirage.  It is my favorite show ever and this will be the fifth time I’ve seen it.  No matter how the election turns out I hope we can all do as The Beatles say and put our differences aside once in awhile and be kind to each other.  Remember, “All you need is love!”  Love, and a really good facial.