14 years ago this January Robert Stacy McCain was in Fitchburg Massachusetts with me covering the Scott Brown Race. Way back then he was a contributor to the HotAir GreenRoom and filed this report available now only through the wayback machine:
Annie DeMartino served 20 years as a city council member here before retiring from office last year. An Irish immigrant, she turned out in the snow to vote this morning in Ward 6 at St. Bernard’s Catholic School. A self-described “diehard Democrat,” DeMartino voted for Martha Coakley, but listen to what she says about the Senate election:
Alas the adobe video is not available but Annie’s key quote was: ‘Mr. Brown Has the Edge Today’
Well it’s almost fifteen years later and today at the supermarket I was in line waiting to order a sub for DaWife and who comes over to see me pushing her carriage but Annie DeMartino. She’s 87 years old but still helping those in need picking up a meal for a shut-in and volunteering at the senior center, which I am now old enough to go to if I wished.
The subject of the coming election came up with Super Tuesday two days away and she asked my opinion. I told her:
- I have no idea who is going to win
- It’s my opinion that the Democrats will replace Joe Biden on the ticket because now the media is ridiculing’s him in public
At that point I asked her what her contacts were saying as she was deep into democrat politics since the 1970’s and she answered: “All my contacts are dead.” This is what happens when you live long enough and she talked about how hard it can be when you outlive everybody you know.
I have no doubt that she will still pull the lever for Biden on Tuesday. There are a lot of people who have left the Democrat party as I did but no matter how much they talk “white privilege ” this Irishwoman who knows what poor really means and still carries her brogue isn’t about to be pushed out of HER party no matter who comes in saying what.
If the Democrat Party was still populated by folks like Annie rather than the loonies who run it now I suspect a lot of people who left might still be there.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 
It is amazing to me how people like your Annie can hold two impossibly contradictory thoughts in their heads simultaneously. Thought No.1 is of course, “I’m a democrat and always will be,” and thought No. 2 is, “The country has gone to the dogs under Biden, but I’ll vote for him because… democrat.” If she has children or grandchildren, she has cursed them to a life of totalitarian despotism under the democrat party banner. But I’m sure she feels good about delivering the “free” meals to the folks whose lives have been ruined by her dear democrat party. I’m not sure if you mean to praise or condemn her for remaining in “her” party no matter what. I have no qualms in condemning her, just as I condemn the old “stariya babushkas” back in Russia who commiserated with one another when Stalin died. It is one thing to bemoan the passing of one’s youth and its attachments, but another thing entirely to cling to the follies of one’s youth once maturity replaces it. It used to be that with age came wisdom, but in too many cases, it no longer does and “meaning well” is no excuse for stupidity.