Among those 47%, my
parents: my father, who is 90, with Parkinson's, a decorated WWII Navy veteran
and a civilian employee for the Air Force for 27 years; my mother, who is 85,
who worked as a Rosie-the-Riveter in the shipyards of Bremerton, Washington. They
are not victims. They have every day of their lives taken responsibility for
their lives. They live on his federal retirement, hers from the phone company,
and their social security. They are patriots and model citizens who happen to
be stalwart liberal voters. If he lives until that all-important Tuesday in
November, my father will be pushed in his wheelchair to the voting booth by my
mother, and they will vote for Barack Obama. -- Robert Wrigley
Robert Wrigley's most recent book of poems is Beautiful Country(Penguin, 2010)'. His seven previous collections include Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems. He has published poems in a number of journals, including Poetry, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, as well as Best American Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
