Autumn in Chesterfield County has finally taken on its dusky, orange and yellow beauty, just in time for tomorrow’s election which promises to be historic.
Early in the morning, I’ll go down to the rural Methodist Church, slide past the aggressive campaign workers, show my driver’s license and do my duty.
Here in largely white and Republican Chesterfield County, lawns are dotted with blue and white McCain-Palin signs. They far outnumber Obama-Biden ones but there are a few here and there.
There’s also a bit of tension in the air as the McCain supporters sense defeat. Virginia could very well go blue for the first time in decades. GOP conservativism here has morphed into a sense of entitlement in Chesterfield where rich neighbrohoods slip into the old, rural county. To have a nice house and an SUV seems to be a badge of membership in the GOP.
Yet, one can’t shake the nastiness. A few examples:
Not very far from me is the home of a retired African-American minister who is an Obama supporter. His large Obama sign in his yard was ripped down and a Confederate flag was placed in its spot. The police are investigating.
At the corner of a winding road that I travel to take my daughter to her school bus stop, a homeowner has placed a large McCain-Palin sign right on the edge of his property. It tends to block the view at the intersection where you stop at the stopsign. You have to pull your car out a bit to see past the sign. On at least one occasion, someone has taken a razor to the sign, but it keeps coming back.
Sunday afternoon I went to my gym. I was going to do the aerobics machines, then some weights and then a few laps in the pool. Some treadmills have little televisions over them — maybe seven in all. That day, there were two other middle aged men on machine. Fox News was on two monitors — ESPN was on the other.
I picked a treadmill near a screen with Fox. I dislike Fox News since I find its “fair and balanced” coverage anything but. I tried to switch it, but couldn’t. So I shut it off. After I did so, the other two middle aged guys started screaming at me, even though Fox was still beaming from another monitor.
I wondered: is it illegal to turn off Fox News in Chesterfield County? I understand from gym staffers that the TV conflict is especially bad in the early morning when runners one-up each other between Fox and MSNBC.
On Friday, I attended a luncheon at the World Affairs Council in downtown Richmond. The speaker weas the ambassador from France and at my table sat a woman who had recently arrived and was teaching international relations at Virginia Commonwealth Unuiversity. Her family had come from Spain but she had spent a good bit of time at Baton Rouge at Louisiana State University.
I asked her how she liked Richmond. Mixed, she said. When she arrived three years ago from Baton Rouge, she tried to register to vote. Each time ended with a frustrating failure. Finally she went to the main voting registration place. She was told that “We don’t want any illegal imnmigrants.” She told me: “I was outraged, I was born in the states.”
Odd. Here’s a woman, a U.S.-born citizen, with three graduate degrees. She’s obviously intelligent. And she has to endure racist discrimination for no reason. At least immigrant-bashing seems to have died down in the campaign.
But the season is still beautiful. And, tomorrow, I think there’s going to be a big change for the better.
Peter Galuszka
