Dear Voter,

As a woman who has had two rare brain tumors and who now lives with disabilities that have made it impossible for me to continue in my 26 year career in high school education, I celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision upholding what Mitt calls “Obamacare.” (I call it “Marycare” and “Kathycare.”  Obama, like Mitt, will be cared for if he gets sick, so it’s not Barackcare and it’s not Mittscare. We the people-- who are sick but are not millionaires-- are the ones who need the care. )

Following the Supreme Court decision, Mitts’ immediate comment that “If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we’re going to have to replace President Obama,” raised my anxiety and my commitment to re-electing Obama.

My commitment is not to one cause, even though this cause is so important to my life. My commitment is to Obama’s understanding of The American Dream in contrast to Mitts’.

 Mitt seems to see The American Dream much like F. Scott Fitzgerald did in The Great Gatsby, a dream of making an obscene amount of money (by at least bending if not breaking the rules of economic fairness) and spending that sum lavishly. (A thoughtful reading, by the way, reveals that Fitzgerald saw the danger of this kind of life even as he lived it.)

Mitt hasn’t said a lot about the American dream. In March, he said, “Nothing is more fragile than a dream. It’s essential to the genius of America that we developed a culture that nurtures these dreams and dreamers, that honors them and, yes, that rewards them. There’s always been something uniquely brilliant about America.” –Mitt Romney, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhA8mpUljpQ

Mitts’ reference to “rewards” attempts to defend a system that pays some people, like him, obscene amounts of money (and does not tax his winnings like it taxed my earnings as a public school teacher working with students living in poverty.)

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty proposes a different dream, a dream where the world’s poor and tired—and for heaven sake’s at least America’s poor and tired—can enter into “the golden door,” a symbol, I believe, for hope for a life free of hunger and poverty. And free of worries that a health crisis may drive any one of us who is not a millionaire into the huddled masses of hungry and poor.

Mitt won’t change his mind. He’s made this issue part of a presidential platform that calls for an America for the increasingly small number of wealthy people.

I am asking you, perhaps a temporarily-abled voter, to take a stand for an American Dream where all of us can participate in an economy that allows each of us to live a healthy life.

 I can’t afford for Mitt to be president. I don’t think our country can either.

 I know that I don’t usually write politically, but this time I have to speak up. Thanks for thinking about it.

 Mary