Journalist Rose Aguilar is traveling through red America and interviews random people. She posts at Stories in America. Her recent "Conversations at the Gas Pump" are quite interesting, but her interview with Jerrie Morales is even more interesting. Some excerpts:

What issues interest you?

I want to know how women are dealing with the war. I know ..

.. what they’re showing on TV is just one group of people. They’re not showing women like me. Those Iraqi women are like me. They’re trying to educate and provide good healthcare for their kids, just like I am. I remember seeing an Iraqi woman whose baby was dying. She tried to throw herself in the grave with the baby. I was there watching it and bawling. …

You are one of the few people I’ve interviewed who have expressed an interest in the Iraqi and Afghani women. I’ve met a lot of people who say we’re freeing the Iraqis one minute and we should kill them the next.

That’s a sign of fear. The more the gas prices go up and the more people aren’t making enough money and the more they’re having problems, the less they’re going to care about their fellow men. The average American is stressed out. I try not to let myself go there. I go to work everyday and deal with people who are dying and I know they [Iraqis] are going through the same thing. We’re supposed to go after one group of people and we get this lady’s four-year-old. That could have been my child. We have our own terrorists here. The first terrorist attack was not on 9/11. We had the KKK. We had terrorism when we gave small pox to the tribes.

What did you think of the Presidential election?

I didn’t trust the Democrats. At the same time, I felt like I didn’t have any options. Let’s face it. This war happened because of oil. I’ve been reading and studying and I’m trying to understand Bush. I’m loyal because he’s my president, but I believe the war was about oil. I saw some of our friends lose their sons in the war and bury them.

You voted for Bush?

I did.

What did you think of Kerry?

I listened to what he had to say. I thought he was intelligent, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to change presidents during war. That was the main thing.

Even though you don’t agree with it?

Yeah, but it’s already happened and we have to fix it.

What issues do you want to hear about in the next election?

World affairs. We have to start caring about the world. In many small countries, people don’t even own cars and we own three or four cars. We have more money and we’re buying up fuel left and right. We need to build smaller communities with sidewalks. We live out in the country and they’re building huge homes in gated communities. We need to start building communities again.