I made the mistake again of talking politics with folks I know I don’t agree with. I am the worst debater in the world. I don’t think well on my feet, I get all stressed out (with my sister in law!), and I forget everything I might ever have known about the subject at hand.
There’s a humorous cartoon in the paper today that started the ball rolling. I have no love for Obama, but he is a good looking man and an excellent speaker. And my SIL says, but he’s never going to win because of his name! It’s Hussein! I make sone comment about that’s a silly thing to say, no matter how true it might be… She goes on about how shallow people are and how dumb most people are and they don’t vote with their heads…
This is where I chime in with how like all the Christian conservatives who helped elect Bush? My point being that a big part of Bush’s campaign plan involved getting people out to vote (for Bush, of course) who might not otherwise have voted at all. I have no cite for this, but I know I’ve heard it on NPR or read it somewhere. Both my SIL and her husband shook their heads and said, I don’t know about that…
I, of course, let it drop cause I was having trouble breathing the debate was so thick and heavy (note: sarcasm). Anyway, there was some comments about gay marriage, fairness laws and if Obama got elected the US would go Communist. I might have hinted strongly that agreeing that Obama will lose because of his name makes one stupid (I think I used “silly” and “ridiculous”, but I was hinting strongly). And the subject got changed.
So, am I a silly dupe of NPR and the local liberal rag of a newspaper? Or is the idea that the conservatives got more voters to the polls by mobilizing otherwise non-voting Christians?