I have a 62-year-old brother, a good catholic, who has been struggling to keep his airline job until he can retire. (Used to work for TWA and is hanging on with American). He admits that the Dems are better for him economically, but is basically pro-life. He has been pretty uncomfortable with Obama, worried about McCain’s age, and about a month ago told me that the VP pick would probably decide his vote. I got a phone call the other day; he was really UPSET with the Palin pick.
I carefully told him about her experience, how Alaska is a very small state, half the size of the city he lives in. I talked about how the town where she was mayor was even smaller than the small town we grew up in. Our Dad was mayor, and it was an unpaid part-time position, meetings were at night. I said that she was certainly pretty, and seemed bright enough, but really didn’t know diddly about foreign affairs. I basically tried to just reinforce his own immediate reaction with facts, and avoided the pro-life and family issues. My brother didn’t know much about Biden, other than he had good experience and would be able to be president on a heartbeat. My brother did not know that Biden was catholic, so I tried to reinforce the good catholic family man thing, plus the fact he is very supportive of blue-collar types of workers. All in all, I think my brother (and his wife) will go ahead and vote for Obama.
Re my hairdresser... Hairdressers tend to talk a lot. She again is from a middle class family, and they are particularly struggling with the gas prices. She is one of those low information voters, catches the news occasionally on TV. In truth, she probably gets a lot of her "information" from her clients. She has expressed worry about Rev. Wright and has quietly asked me several times if I was sure Obama was not Muslin. Thursday night she was flipping channels, and saw Al Gore was speaking. So she watched, and then kept it on to see the Obama speech. She volunteered to me that she felt a whole lot more comfortable with Obama after watching his speech. Regarding Palin as VP, she just shook her head, and told me if you make the decision to go ahead and have a Down’s baby, that is wonderful, but you ought to stay home and take care of it. Even without the baby, she thought the choice was bad, as McCain is "old" and there was no way that gal could be President if he died in office. She also expressed that since she is worried that Obama could be assassinated in office, she liked the choice of Biden. Again, I carefully added to her ideas with facts about Palin and Biden.
I’m still worried about the election. I think that Palin was a bold choice, and will in fact stir up the dynamics of the race. I am also very worried about the diaries that I am seeing here about the young daughter and her pregnancy, and would add that I hope they scroll off quickly and are NOT repeated. Let the National Enquirer take care of the gossip mongering. We need to reinforce the qualifications of Joe Biden as VP, and the lack of qualifications of Sarah Palin. Talk about the size of Alaska, the size of her hometown. Talk about the flip-flop on the bridge to nowhere. But give the other topic a rest!
Be kind, I don’t do many diaries. But I wanted to share about my brother and hairdresser.
Grandma Jo