Aug.23

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

This Week in Freudenfreude: Still Waters Run Deep

Joe Biden first attended the DNC in 1976, and has been to every one since. If you do the math, that is 13 consecutive Democratic conventions, with #14 in 2028 being an open question.

As chance would have it, Biden is not the only person in Chicago this week who can be described in that way. It's also true of Angie Gialloreto. Who is that, you might ask? Well, at 95, she is the oldest delegate to have attended this year's Democratic National Convention.

Gialloreto, who just watched as a Black woman was nominated for President of the United States by a major political party, was born on February 27, 1929. Think about how different the world was back then:

• Women had had nationwide suffrage for less than a decade.
• The last member of Congress to have been a slaveholder was still living.
• Martin Luther King Jr. was about 6 weeks old.
• "Gay" meant "happy."
• Abortion was illegal in many states (OK, some things haven't changed).
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was, to most people, a barely remembered failed VP candidate.
• Jackie Robinson would not debut with the Dodgers for another 18 years.
• Not one of the songs played during the Democrats' roll call this year had been written.
• There was no Internet. In fact, there were basically no computers.
• Kamala Harris was 35 years from being born.

In short, Gialloreto has seen a lot. And she's been paying attention. While the first convention she attended was in 1976, the first one she followed was the Democratic National Convention of 1944, which just so happened to be in Chicago. She was, as you can imagine, pulling for FDR to be nominated for a fourth term. She got her wish, of course, even if she could not vote for him. Her first presidential ballot was cast for Adlai Stevenson in 1952.

Gialloreto was, and remains, a huge fan of Joe Biden, as you can tell from her shirt:

She was saddened to see him depart the ticket, but is nonetheless excited about his replacement. Her words for Harris: "Go girl! Go get them! I'm ready to go with you."

Although Gialloreto is small and stooped-over, and though she refers to herself as "Grandma Moses," there's the heart of a lion in there. She wants to see younger people do as she did, all the way back in 1944:

It's time young people should have the voice and daggonit, they better have the opportunity to express it. There's been this closed door thing. "Oh, you're too young." No! Do it. Express yourself. Let people know what you want and how you feel. I started at 15. I sure in hell am not going to stop at 95.

Would 'twere that all of us could not only make it to 95, but to be that feisty when we get there.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)