Let me start by noting that I'm not a pessimism troll--this is the most emotionally fraught election of our lifetimes, and I'm not about to apologize for getting in a tizzy about bad poll news, for God's sake. I've been suffering along with the rest of you through the nauseating McBounce over the last week. Tonight, however, something happened that filled me with hope, and took me back to those wonderfully idealistic months of the primary, when it seemed that anything could be possible if only Barack could scrap his way forward. What happened tonight, though, was not about emotional uplift or the yearning sting of wishful thinking.
What happened tonight was about swing voters.
Let me set the scene.
A retirement community just outside a mid-sized Virginia city. Not a nursing home, mind you, but a retirement home--a nice (even sheeshee) place for mostly middle class retirees with a bit of a nest egg. Mostly widows, but a few couples, and the kind of dining room where everyone still dresses for dinner. The kind of place where men sport colorful jackets (many of them green--think Augusta National), plaid pants, and golfing shoes. Kick around their handicaps over a pre-dinner Manhattan. In other words, a conservative place.
Damn conservative.
My hunch? A good 80% of the residents voted for George Bush in the last two presidential elections.
Around a table in the middle of the room sit six women. My wife, the youngest by a good forty years, talks politely to the blue-haired ladies about this and that, not really listening, until the conversation turns to the election.
And then they pounce.
"Oh, we're all undecided," one says. "Least we say we are."
A few grim chuckles.
"Not anymore," another chimes in. "John McCain--I don't know. I just don't believe him like I used to. And Obama, well..."
"And it's not just about having a black [yes, "a black"--give em a break, they're in their eighties] in there for the first time," remarks a third. "It's this lady. What's her name?"
"Palin."
"Right, Palin. I mean, does he think we're all fools?"
"Why, she has no more business being the Vice President than my little granddaughter."
Titters, enthusiastic nods of agreement.
"How IS your granddaughter, by the way?"
And the conversation drifts on to other things. My wife followed up with her grandmother when they were alone after dinner, and this is when it hit her: if five old ladies in Virginia, the swing state of swing states, dependable Republican voters all their adult lives, believe they're being hoodwinked and lied to, I say screw the polls. Give em hell, Granny.
Know hope.