"Where's my Ombama (sic) sticker?"

Abby and I tend to be fairly reserved when it comes to politics. More specifically, we're not inclined to engage in public displays of our political leanings. This doesn't mean that we're not willing to argue about politics with various people (e.g., my in-laws, my co-workers, etc.) in private settings, but we don't tend to post signs or engage in politics in overt ways. Among other factors, the politically reserved nature of our families (at least mine) have contributed to that behavior.

In the current election, this has changed somewhat. Unlike the Philly relatives (Rachel appears to have been able to overcome our family's ingrained aversion to public politicking), we're not to the point where we've posted an Obama sign in our front yard. (Actually, as urban elites, we don't have a front yard, but that's immaterial. Still, as evidence of how out of touch we are, Margaret stood slack-jawed while gaping at Uncle Joe as he maneuvered some odd device around their yard during our last visit. Turns out it was a lawnmower, something she'd never seen before.) But Abby donated money to Obama in the primary. And so did I, although I was really motivated by a desire to avoid another Clinton White House following the debacle that was the Ohio/Texas Democratic primaries.

(By the way, it's a bit creepy how you can track down donors on the web. When I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, I was sitting at a friend's house and stunned him by punching his donations up online. Actually, I intended to stay under the FEC's limits that would require such disclosure, and I berated Abby when she didn't do so with her donation. But the Obama website gave an error message on my first donation, so I hit the back button and resubmitted my donation. I ended up giving twice. Which ironically also put me over the FEC's limit and, as a result, made my donation records publicly available online. Abby was much more equanimous about my donation error than I was about hers.)

In any event, today we went into McCain territory. Specifically, we drove "outside the Beltway" to attend the Occaquan arts and crafts show. As I anticipated, the show involved more kitchy arts and crafts than actual art. But that's just me being an elitist. Even more elitist was my impression of many of the people wandering the streets of Occaquan. As I told Abby afterwards, the mean waist size of the men was somewhere over 40 inches, and the women tended to give the men a run for their money. Reminded me of Pittsburgh. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but waist size was also highly correlated with the political stickers that people wore. Those chunky guys and their portly wives tended to wear "Nobama" t-shirts and McCain stickers. I saw a number of beefy guys wearing t-shirts that said "Damn right I'm clinging to my guns and religion because I'm bitter (and I'll keep the rest of the constitution too)." I'm not sure what that last point meant (except perhaps the 2nd Amendment part, although the statement on the t-shirts seemed, to me, much broader), but I wasn't about to argue with them over it. And after spending way too much time north of the Potomac where almost ever sign and sticker is Obama, it was refreshing to see women wearing pink t-shirts saying "Sarah's Team."

When we first reached the outskirts of the festival, there was a booth handing out blue balloons for some Democratic Congressional candidate. As someone not represented in Congress (a Constitutionally correct position, I believe, although I do like to give the rest of the country the finger with our "Taxation Without Representation" license plate), I didn't really care about the balloon, although Margaret was pretty happy to get one. But getting a balloon for a kid isn't really a meaningful political statement, as she would've taken a ballon from Idi Amin. So Abby went to the booth and grabbed a couple of Obama stickers, putting one on Margaret and the other on her own shirt. Feeling a bit uncomfortable about such an overt political statement in Nobama territory, I pulled the sticker off Abby's shirt and put it on the stroller (and got admonished by Abby for doing so.) Margaret, on the other hand, was very pleased with her sticker. Although she complained about many, many things during our visit to Occaquan, one recurrent theme of discussion was the location of her "Ombama" sticker. (Maggie also got a free little basket from a black woman selling African crafts who, when Abby protested and tried to pay for the basket, quietly said, "I like your sticker." Actually, my suspicion is that her gift says more about the mark-ups on her wares than it does about her politics.)

Naturally, Margaret doesn't really know who Obama is. However, since his ads are so omnipresent on the web, I have pointed him out to her a few times when we're surfing the web together, so she can now spot him and say "Ombama." Unfortunately, she doesn't appear to be very discriminating as she has yelled Ombama at various other people (with specific racial characteristics) that we pass on the street. Of course, this happens much more often in DC than it did in Occaquan, so we didn't risk any embarrassment there.

In the end, Margaret's Obama sticker ended up making it's way to the back of her shirt. Since she spent most of her time in Occaquan in her stroller, we didn't get many comments. (Although I heard a group of older women wearing McCain-Palin stickers muttering about Obama. Almost certainly not directed at us, but I was feeling paranoid.) We then went to the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA which is an old prison that has recently been converted to an arts center like the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. Very cool, especially for NoVa (damn, I'm being an elitist again!). I suspect that Margaret's Ombama sticker would have been better received there, but she spent most of the visit snoozing the stroller. We then went to the multicultural melting pot extraordinaire where Margaret enthusiastically ran around with her Ombama sticker on her back, and I'm sure that most of the patrons were at least moderately inclined to favor her candidate. That multicultural melting pot extraordinaire? IKEA.