I live in a pretty blue area. There are Obama bumper stickers and yard signs everywhere, which is fine. On one recent occasion a five-year-old boy was walking on the sidewalk by my house and telling his mother, “Obama is the best,” as she beamed. The next day, a woman pointed to a teacher’s Obama t-shirt at my daughter’s pre-school (“Let Us Pray for the Next President”) and said, “Look, who’s that?” Her daughter shouted “Obama!” with delight.
Cute kids, nice mothers. I don’t know if this sort of behavior is evenly distributed on the political spectrum or across elections; maybe I’m just noticing it because it’s my first presidential election with a child. I just don’t understand the impulse to recruit small children into sharing adults’ political enthusiasms. I have not taught my little girl to pronounce the word “McCain.”