Big Mama for President or you know…not

I’ve never been an extremely politically minded person. I mean I vote in every election and I definitely have my political thoughts and beliefs that I feel strongly about, but I’ve never been one to want to run for any kind of office or even volunteer hours of my time at a campaign headquarters.

Even in high school, I was content to be just a member of Student Council because after all, there were very important issues to be decided, such as prom theme and the various dress up days for Homecoming week. Serious, serious stuff and I didn’t want to be left out of these crucial decisions. But as far as making some poster board signs and pins that said “Big Mama for President. A vote for Big Mama is a vote for Pajama Day and Enchantment Under the Sea Prom theme”?

No, not for me. Way too much pressure. I couldn’t have the final decisions regarding prom and what everyone would wear the week of Homecoming hanging solely on my significantly padded shoulders (remember it was the 80’s).

In college, I was a member of COSGA which stands for something like Conference on Student Government Associations (shout out to Hite who interviewed me which started our lifelong friendship), but that wasn’t about school politics for me. It was about meeting really cool and potentially cute young politicos from other college campuses around the nation.

And oh yeah, it wouldn’t look bad on a resume. I could put it right under “Diamond Darling for the Aggie Baseball Team” so that potential interviewers could see that they were dealing with a serious, academically driven candidate. Right.

I guess I’m saying that I personally don’t understand why anyone would want to be a politician. I mean someone has to do it and I’m glad they do, but I get stressed about having to get to the grocery store and then Target in the same morning, so do I really need to be making decisions about what to do with North Korea or the federal deficit?

However, I will be waiting in line at the polls today because I do believe that we should take our right to vote seriously. In my opinion, if you don’t vote then you can’t complain about the state of the Union and since I like to be able to complain, I will vote. It’s not just about politics, it’s about democracy and freedom of speech. It’s about the ability to have a voice in the whole big system. Our founding fathers and our veterans fought way too hard for our freedom for me to not use my voice.

Heaven knows that if I lived in North Korea, there is no way Big Mama would be able to write as freely as I do. I’m proud to be an American, even if the votes don’t go the way I would like today.

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