Hipster Grannies For Obama

A few hours ago, Sweat Record’s Barack N’ Roll Bake Sale + Voter Registration drew an unexpected character: a wayward, 84-year-old Miami granny by the name of Dory.

Amid all the hip haircuts and soy lattes, the wrinkled retiree waddled over to a table of registration slips, and pinned a baby blue Obama ‘08 button on her floral blouse. Munching on a cupcake, she stopped abruptly and turned towards me. Then she confessed her one concern about the Obama-Biden campaign.

“Excuse me,” she says, wiping frosting from her chin with a napkin. “Do you know if Barack has stopped smoking? I just finished his book -- and I liked it very much -- but I’m worried about his health. And all that soda he drinks. Now, I’m not saying this to be a goody two-shoes. We just need him right now.”

Before I could answer, she launched into why her daughter should also quit smoking, followed by something about how fifties actress Debbie Reynolds couldn’t get pregnant, followed by the fact that she used to live with Muslims. And then looping back -- sort of -- to the Iraq war.

I love old people logic.

Stoked to hear she’s voting Democratic, I probed her for how many of her senior citizen friends are down with Obama. “Oh, we don’t talk about those things, sweetheart,” she says. “That’s why we’re still friends.”

The smart old broad, who was more up on breaking election coverage than this reporter, noticed the indie record shop’s event in the New Times, “a trashy paper” that “drops too many F-words.” (Sorry, Dory.) So she came to prove that it’s not just the dumb, young progressive types, who believe we can turn around this past train wreck of an administration.

Nodding towards a table of volunteer signup sheets and a donation bucket, on her way out, she adds: “I sure hope this works.”

-- Natalie O'Neill