As a young man born and raised in an Italian immigrant household, politics was my father’s domain. Growing up on the Westside of Chicago during the Daly years, I listened to a lot of political discussion mostly about the direction of that big windy city and whom you needed to call if something came up. Political connections ruled, and it was no different whether you were the CEO of a big company or the owner of a local hardware store like my dad on Madison and Kedzie.
I remember as a 7-year-old going door to door with my father passing out campaign literature, working to insure that Mayor Daly continued to get re-elected. My dad, and all my Italian relatives he helped get to America were Democrats.
So how did I become a Republican? If my memory serves me correctly, as a college student at UCLA, the lightening jolt I received walking to my German class and hearing on the campus loudspeakers (that I never knew even existed) the tragedy of President John Kennedy changed a lot of my life and my party affiliation. You would think growing up in a Democrat household that my young political experience and education would be impenetrable. It all just didn’t matter, I felt that our country needed a new direction and becoming a Republican sounded right for me and it remains to this day.
One other important lesson I learned at home in those years of the 1950s. I was taught and continue to value and believe that when a President is elected in our great country he becomes my President, even if I didn’t support that person in the election.
The same holds true to this day. Senator Barack Obama is our President-Elect and soon to be sworn in as our next new President. My dad would be proud to know that, like in the old days back in Illinois, this new president came from where else but the great windy city of Chicago, and no less from the South Side where my uncle had his barber shop near 69th and Peoria.
Barack Obama will be my President and as a Republican, I tip my hat to the best run presidential campaign I have ever seen. It’s time now for us to all work together. He’s already made history and I will be just as proud to see him as our country’s new leader. God bless him and his family, and continue to bless this great country we live in.