Things At The Core

A TPM Reader writes:

My grandmother voted today. She is 86 years old. A white woman born to hardscrabble cattle ranchers in the most desolate part of New Mexico. Our ancestry goes back through West and East Texas, through Tennessee, the Cumberland Gap, and Virginia. This side of the family rode in the Texas 2nd Cavalry during the Civil War. A dark reminder for me of my family's past, she still has receipts for slaves that our family owned. Her first husband was killed in the Battle of the Bulge, sacrificing his life like so many other young men. My mother was two months old at the time. My grandmother has voted Republican her entire life, but today she voted for Barack Obama.