Waitress and mother of eleven (Howitzer, Glock, Rifle, Tank, Remington, Drone, Grenade, Colt, Nuclear, Hydrogen and a boy named Sue) will be on the Dem ticket
September 3, 2008
Sunny Grinns - UPA
BUTTERCAKES, WEST VIRGINIA - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama astonished the press and pundits today with his announcement of his new running mate. Betty Jo McCoy, 43, mother of eleven children and a waitress from Buttercakes, West Virginia (pop 327), will replace Joe Biden on the ticket. While withdrawing Biden’s nomination, the new Veep candidate is already being hailed as a remarkable replacement for the “elite” Biden.
“A real American family person”
In announcing the switch, Sen. Obama said, “Betty is the real McCoy, a woman every American can relate to – a working mother, an avid hunter and a patriot.” Apparently rebutting former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert’s statement today that Sarah Palin is "the only person that’s a real American family person that’s come out in this election,” Obama said, “If Betty is not a ‘real American family person’ then no one is.”
McCoy’s children have all been home-schooled, doing their lessons at the café, Grub and Suds, where McCoy has worked for the last twenty years and where Obama presented McCoy at a press conference this morning.
Seven children in the military
Seven of McCoy’s children serve in the military. Her 27-year-old triplet sons, Howitzer, Glock, Rifle, and her daughter, Tank, 26, serve in Iraq. Daughter Remington, 25, and son Drone, also 25, serve in Afghanistan. Daughter Grenade, 24, is serving time in Fort Lewis due to her involvement in certain activities at Abu Ghraib. All seven joined the military on September 12, 2001, having stood in line all night after the attacks to be the first to join the next day. 5 children are single moms; 14 grandchildren
Taking after their mother, five of her children are also single moms. Her daughter Colt, 17, has three children and is eager to join her siblings and support America by joining the military when she turns eighteen. Tank has five children, Remington has four; and Nuclear and Hydrogen, ages 12 and 13, most recently became moms. McCoy helps care for them all and welcomes each of her fouteen grandchildren as wonderful new “bundles of joy.”
“Bristol Palin,” McCoy said, commenting on the GOP vice presidential nominee’s pregnant 17-year-old daughter, “there’s something wrong with that girl. Seventeen and only one child and that one's not even gone and got born yet? And what’s with her sister Willow? Fourteen and no kids? What’s wrong with that family?”
Typical family struggles
Both Nuclear’s and Hydrogen’s babies are seriously disabled, perhaps due to their mothers’ addiction to methamphetamine. McCoy is not ashamed of the pregnancies of her daughters or their drug addiction, but says, “We’re just an average American family with family type problems. Stuff happens. We’re tough though and Lord knows I can take on any challenge – I’ve had enough of them.”
Her eleventh child, Sue, a son, 20, is on death row for killing a man in a barroom brawl. He decapitated his victim with a meat cleaver for mocking his given name. McCoy says, “maybe the name was a mistake, but I was plum short on gun names that year.”
Qualifications for vice-presidency: first hand experience
Citing McCoy’s qualifications for the vice presidency, Obama noted with seven children in the military, as opposed to Palin’s one, she is “seven-times the expert on the war and international relations as Palin.” She is also going to be “strong on domestic policy, especially on drugs, corrections and child welfare. She’s been in and out of rehab and jail quite a few times for her own problems with meth and her kids have been in and out of the foster care system for years – a system that needs reforming.”
Like Palin, McCoy, too, is a reformer. “She fought city hall to get a liquor license, which Buttercakes initially denied because of her criminal record,” Obama pointed out. “But it was mostly just assaults and drug possession and she took on village hall like the tough real-world fighter she is.”
Executive experience and leadership
McCoy’s executive experience includes almost twenty years of night-managing the Grub and Suds when the owner is on fishing trips; and she has been elected to preside over the Buttercakes chamber of commerce by acclamation in each of the last twelve years; she has served regularly at this post except when in jail.
Some has criticized her chamber of commerce work as not amounting to much because there are no other members of the chamber, but Obama defended her work at this post by saying, “It’s not how many that elected you that counts, it’s what leadership you show once elected. As chamber president, she mounted an effective campaign to get the parking meters removed from in front of the Grub and Suds for the convenience of its patrons; that’s not only leadership, it shows compassion for the residents of Buttercakes.”
Ebay experience
Also like Palin, who sold her predecessor’s jet on Ebay, McCoy has sold things on Ebay, too, including her collection of Elvis collectibles when she needed cash to get a new transmission for her 1988 Ford pick-up.
Looks like a real American
When McCoy took the make-shift podium at the Grub and Suds, she underscored her appeal to ordinary Americans. McCoy offers a sharp contrast to the slender and some say “elegant” Obama; standing five foot three, she appears to weigh about 250 pounds. Instead of designer clothes, she wore grease-stained aqua stretch pants and a pink floral tunic.
Ready to lead
She said, “While I might not have been voting and all that most my life, I am now for sure. Like so many of you, I never took much interest in politics and all those goings on, but I am fired up now that I am going to be vice president. I got myself to packing already!”
