I’ve been married to Vern for close to 30 years. I’ve always been a liberal Democrat; he’s always been a lackadaisical Republican with little interest in political minutiae. We agree on most issues of importance to me – abortion rights, separation of Church and State, universal health care, and even tax policy (well, mostly). We vote the same on local and state issues and state government people, I know because we sit and go over the ballots together on the couch, with our wonderful vote-by mail system here in Oregon. At Vern’s instigation we even gave re-election money to our Democratic representative in state gov because he knows her personally and likes her. So it’s never been clear to me why he consistently voted Republican at the top of the ticket.
More below the Kos-squiggle
In 2008, Vern voted for Obama. He thought McCain was an old fool, and the choice of Palin for VP candidate sealed the deal for him. I really thought he was going to stick with Obama this time around. But on Tuesday this week we did our vote by mail, and he voted for Romney.
I am really upset. More upset than when Vern voted for Bush in 2004, I think because I never had any hope that he would vote Dem that year. This year I thought I had made true inroads in convincing him that the Republican Party has moved so far to the right of him that it didn’t deserve his support. But no.
I see only two reasons to vote Republican this year: 1) You support the conservative agenda on issues, meaning you’re anti-woman, anti-science, and pro-Christianist. Or 2) Issues don’t matter at all and you’re voting entirely on personality (i.e. hate Obama). Either way, I’m totally disgusted.
Can’t discuss all this with Vern, since I’m not speaking to him, but I had to get my mad/sad off my chest. So despite being a Kos-aholic since the beginning of time, this is my first diary. Thanks for listening.
Kaina in PDX