I had dinner over the weekend with some good friends and one of them recounted an argument he had gotten into recently with some McCain supporters who claimed they didn't like Obama because he is "too smooth." Beyond that, they couldn't (or wouldn't) elaborate. This morning, I emailed him this link I got from Lawyers, Guns and Money and it contains this little nugget:
Even the briefest of surveys of the supporters gracing McCain's events underscores the kind of red-meat appeal he's making. Immediately after his speech in New Orleans, a pair of sweet-looking old ladies put down their McCain signs long enough to fill me in on why they're here. "I tell you," says one, "if Michelle Obama really doesn't like it here in America, I'd be very pleased to raise the money to send her back to Africa."We can win this battle, I know we can. For ammunition to use in these encounters with McCain's Neanderthal base, I direct your attention to our gal, Susan at Kiss My Big Blue Butt, who added her own twist to a post she discovered over at Slate.
The diminutive and smiling old lady's friend leans over. "That's going a little too far, dear."
"Too far?" says the first. "Farrakhan is saying they were brought here against their will, and their bodies are still feeding the sharks at the bottom of the sea! I mean, really!"
"OK, sharks still eating bodies," I say, writing it all down. "Could I have your name, ma'am?"
"Janice Berg," says the first old lady. "And lest you think I'm Jewish, the name comes from Norway. Berg is 'mountain' in Norwegian. I'm part German, part French myself."
A few paces away, I catch up with a man named Ron Saucier and a woman who would only identify herself as Mary. Ron says his problem with Obama is the integrity thing. "He exaggerates too much," Ron says. "He's not honest."
"OK," I say. "What does he exaggerate about?"
"Well, like that time he was saying he had a white mother and a white grandmother," he says.
I ask him how this is an exaggeration.
"Well, he was saying . . ." he begins. "As if that qualifies him to . . ."
Despite my repeated prodding, Ron seems unable or unwilling to say aloud exactly what he means. Finally, his friend Mary, a grave-looking blonde with fierce anger lines around her eyes, jumps in, points a finger and blurts out one of the all-time man-on-the-street quotes.
"Look, you either are or you aren't," she says.
"And he aren't," Ron says, nodding with relief.
6 comments:
It's impossible to enlighten folks like this. Best to take their car keys from them on election day.
This is just priceless. I hate to be optimistic; it isn't in my nature, so it hurts to excercise that muscle. But really -- don't we just -- I don't know -- WIN in November?
I know what you mean, Donna! I'm just itching to give myself over to that part of me that says it's going to be a LANDSLIDE....but I just can't. We've been disappointed too many times before, and we are all too aware of what the right is capable of. Cautious optimism is the best I can muster, but there are indeed some very, very encouraging signs.
Don't underestimate stupidity; I was "talking" to a republican type in a bar (I'm surprised too!) and he claimed that our biggest worry was an invasion... by the Chinese.
It's a sad commentary on human nature that the gravitational pull of the "us versus them" motif remains so prevalent.
Hi heydave - welcome back! I will never, ever underestimate stupidity. It was, after all, the massive power of stupidity that brought us two terms of GWB. It remains a dominant force in American life, and always will be I'm afraid. Hey Donna, how's THAT for an antidote to that pesky optimism!
Reading this story the other day about McCain's fundraiser here in San Antonio, I couldn't help but wonder what it would take before people like Red McCombs, Dennis Nixon, Gene Powell and John Steen will quit dumping money into these campaigns?
Really. How bad do things have to get?
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