"The Secret Ballot"
'This' is the short story/essay "The Secret Ballot" from The Reclusive Leftist. In it an anonymous woman ponders her choices while standing in a voting both. Sounds dry, I know, but read it. Promise me you will.
You'll get this if you're of a certain age because the details ring true. You'll get this if you can remember a time when all women on television stayed at home with their children, and the TV bedrooms of married couples inexplicably showed two twin beds.
You'll get this if you watched "All in the Family" in the seventies, recall the thrill of seeing Geraldine Ferraro on the ballot for Vice President in the eighties,and can remember the optimism that swirled around the same word "hope" used in the first Clinton campaign for president - the Bill Clinton campaign - in the nineties.
Maybe you'll get it if few of the above are true for you.
Rather than adding to the extensive library of the 'Strident Shouting' school of persuasion, the Reclusive Leftist composed a simple and heartfelt story about one woman's internal dialogue about the choice at hand - and why the pre-election polls in New Hampshire may have been so off the mark.
Comments
Maybe she’s figured it out and then just maybe
the Arkansas razorbacks stole it.
Thanks for sharing this – a great bit of writing, some wonderful memories – and it really captures a lot of the wrenching dilemnas in the poll booth that a truly thinking person experiences. I know I had similar experiences just this year in a primary election for a different office . . . . .struggling up until the last moment with which lever to pull. Coming out my daughter, with whom I had discussed my choice before going in, said, “What took you so long?” This story is a great answer to that question!