Voter registration is through the roof, and it has the potential to change the political landscape of this country for years to come. But each of these new registrations has a story behind it. Here’s one that says a lot.
Jason Robertson, 29, walked through the voter services door a few minutes after 2 p.m., wearing a stained, long-sleeve T-shirt and a black winter cap. He had extended his lunch break to come here, and he needed to be back at work in an hour. He makes brochures in a small printing shop in a warehouse off the highway. It’s a good job, and he intends to keep it.
Work had become hard to find after he picked up a felony drug charge five years ago. His cousin found him the gig at the printing shop, but it can offer him only 30 hours of work each week. Robertson dreams of opening his own shop, or applying for one of those cushy jobs printing for the state. “It’s crazy,” he said. “They’re paying, like, $15 an hour.”
Robertson always thought the felony charge disqualified him from voting, until his girlfriend picked up a registration form last month at a hair salon and read the fine print (ex-felons may vote in North Carolina if they complete all terms of their sentence, such as probation or parole). She brought it home to the two-bedroom apartment they share with their four children and told him to fill it out.
“You’re always talking about wanting change,” Kim Fowler told him. “Now you can help make it.”
Fowler, a longtime voter, met Robertson at a post office four years ago, and her interest in politics rubbed off on him. She took him to see “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and volunteered at Obama’s local office. More cynical than hopeful, Robertson wasn’t the volunteering type. “George Bush cheated in both elections, and Congress should all be thrown out,” he said. But lately he felt compelled by a new sense of political urgency.
“I want them to answer me, ‘What happened to the middle class?’ You got rich, you got poor, and everybody is going in one of those directions.”
Lately, Robertson has been sliding ever closer to broke. Since he moved in with Fowler, he has supported a household of six, including his 2-year-old son; Fowler’s 10- and 8-year-old daughters from a previous relationship; and a baby they share. A few months ago, Robertson paid $632 — a solid two weeks’ wages — to have the baby circumcised.
Medical bills have devastated their bank account, because Robertson and Fowler lack health insurance. Last year, Robertson’s hand was caught in machinery at work, slicing his right index finger to the bone. His trip to the emergency room resulted in nine stitches, and he has been paying for them ever since. Three hundred dollars for anesthesia. Nine hundred for an X-ray. Six hundred for stitches.
Robertson considered asking his boss for help with the medical bills, but the company doesn’t offer insurance, and he needs the job.
That is why, on the day he registered to vote, Robertson dropped off the form Fowler had given him a few days earlier and turned right back around, headed for work.
Hopefully, Jason’s story will help us all remember what we’re fighting for. I broke my self-imposed ban on cable news tonight because I felt like I needed to get a sense for what people are seeing. And they’re not seeing anything remotely related to what concerns Jason. We can’t do much about that. But we can overcome it. It’s easy to lose focus on the task at hand. We can’t be focused on who appears on cable news or what they say on cable news. Those are just obstacles in our path or distractions that sap our energy. People need health coverage. They need our government to stop bleeding the treasury dry to enrich our Saudi and Chinese bankers. They need change. I just thought I’d remind us all what’s at stake.