Wednesday, Kim, Fiona and I drove up to New Hampshire to help with the Edwards campaign on the day of the Democratic Presidential Debate as well as to give Fiona a chance to spend some time with her cousins. It provided a wonderful microcosm of the political landscape.

Read more below the fold.

Red Sky in the Morning, Sailors Take Warning

Climbing into the car at the break of dawn, we saw the sun fighting its way up through the trees. It was a blood red sun and my mind went to the old saying, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Was this a harbinger of rain, or something bigger?

The BIG sign

Up in Hanover, we stopped at the public library where Fiona’s cousin Cici was listening to story time. I got a few minutes on a public computer to put up a quick blog post, and then we headed off to hold a BIG sign. It was on the corner next to the Coop, and Obama and Richardson supporters were there as well. Young Obama supporters chanted and cheered and tried to get people to blow their horns. Kim and I waved and smiled to the drivers passing, whether they gave us a thumbs up, like many did, or a thumbs down like a few did. We chatted with people as they waited for the light to change.

The Balloons

No political event is complete without lots of balloons, so I borrowed my sister-in-law’s minivan and drove off to a local party store to pick up portions of a giant balloon arch. It was broken into eight sections, and it took a lot of work to fit a single section into the minivan. I did two trips before I had to return to family activities and pick up the my sister-in-law and the cousins.

Kids, Unions and Healthcare

Kim, Fiona, and the cousins stood with the Edwards crowd, next to the SEIU. The SEIU is a great union and they were there in force. After the battles with Kim’s Lyme disease, and our manifold insurance issues, we are clearly “Health Care Voters”. I spoke with members of the SEIU about issues in Hanover. The Hanover Inn has a lot of fulltime workers that get paid below minimum wage with the rest being made up by tips. This is pretty standard for waiters and waitresses. The problem is, that this sub minimum wage is also used to calculate vacation salaries and retirement benefits. The SEIU is organizing at the Hanover Inn to make sure that the staff get a fair wage.

The SEIU wasn’t the only union out in force. There was a phalanx of Carpenters for Edwards with large well-constructed signs.

The Issues

Different groups found different ways to get their message out. A group of people marched with homemade signs asking, “What about the Jena 6?”.

FightChronicDisease.org resorted to the airways to get their message out.

Another group resorted to a giant mobile pig to get out the message about the massive amounts we are spending on the military and how little we are spending on the well being of citizens at home.

Divided We Fail, a joint effort between the AARP, SEIU, and the Business Roundtable used a purple elephant to get people to think about “access to affordable, quality health care and peace of mind about their future long-term financial security”.

Having grown up in Williamstown, MA, it looked an awful lot like a Purple Cow and I couldn’t help but wonder if Williams was playing against Dartmouth in some event.

Yet the kids loved the purple elephant, which brings me back to the underlying issues. It is about the kids. It is about our future as a nation and as families struggling to get by.

Fiona and her cousins learned a little bit about the joy of freedom of speech and being involved politically. As I looked on, I couldn’t help but think of the monks in Myanmar who are dying for a chance to express political opinions the way we are privileged to do.

Perhaps I wasn’t the only one to have such feelings. As I looked over the green, I saw a rainbow, as if God was promising never to let oppression flood the earth.

We need to get out and savor our democracy. We were there to support Sen. Edwards. Others were there supporting their candidates, but we were all doing our part and I hope that you will too, especially if you have young children whom you can teach the importance of democracy to.

(Cross posted at DailyKos)