Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be...
...undecided voters (or Republicans for that matter). This hair-raising account from the psycho middle should chasten mamas everywhere (from The New Republic via E.J. Kessler's blog):
...Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We're giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil. A colleague spoke to a voter who had been a big Howard Dean fan, but had switched to supporting Bush after Dean lost the nomination. After half an hour in the man's house, she still couldn't make sense of his decision. Then there was the woman who called our office a few weeks before the election to tell us that though she had signed up to volunteer for Kerry she had now decided to back Bush. Why? Because the president supported stem cell research. The office became quiet as we all stopped what we were doing to listen to one of our fellow organizers try, nobly, to disabuse her of this notion. Despite having the facts on her side, the organizer didn't have much luck....
Read the rest here, if you dare.
This all reinforces my resolve, in the unlikely event that I'm ever asked to run for public office, to use this slogan: What the $%^& is wrong with you people? (Oh, like "Help is on the way" was SO much better). At least my slogan could double as EITHER an acceptance or a concession speech.
...Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We're giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil. A colleague spoke to a voter who had been a big Howard Dean fan, but had switched to supporting Bush after Dean lost the nomination. After half an hour in the man's house, she still couldn't make sense of his decision. Then there was the woman who called our office a few weeks before the election to tell us that though she had signed up to volunteer for Kerry she had now decided to back Bush. Why? Because the president supported stem cell research. The office became quiet as we all stopped what we were doing to listen to one of our fellow organizers try, nobly, to disabuse her of this notion. Despite having the facts on her side, the organizer didn't have much luck....
Read the rest here, if you dare.
This all reinforces my resolve, in the unlikely event that I'm ever asked to run for public office, to use this slogan: What the $%^& is wrong with you people? (Oh, like "Help is on the way" was SO much better). At least my slogan could double as EITHER an acceptance or a concession speech.
posted by Billf at 10:12 AM
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