My parents live in a small town in Kansas. Up until 2004, they were staunch Republicans; since then, they've become increasingly irritated and cranky Republicans who really hate George Bush and his administration. On my last trip home I was shocked to hear them bandying Cheney's name around like a curse word; they are now completely convinced that the administration lied their way into Iraq and have wrecked everything.
The big question mark this year has been whether or not they'll connect their negative feelings about Bush with McCain. I'm working on it, believe me, but it's a touchy subject because they really want to believe that not EVERYONE in their party has completely lost touch with reality.
Dad is in a mood when it comes to politics and doesn't want to talk about it anymore, which could go either way. Lately I've concentrated on Mom.
My mom is not the most logical voter in the world. She's not a great issues voter. Mostly, she's just nervous. She distrusts politicians on the whole and spends a lot of time constructing worst-case scenarios about what horrible mistakes they could make. Mom tends to vote Republican because she always goes for the most conservative choice, the person least likely, in her opinion, to make sudden movements that haven't been thought out well. Needless to say, the past eight years have been very surprising to her and made her even more nervous.
I caught my mom alone on the phone for a while last night and asked if she'd seen the debates. Oh, sure. I braced myself and asked what she thought.
Well, she said, at first she liked some of the things that Obama said, and then she liked some of the things that McCain said, and then-- and here she sounded very surprised-- she said she thought she caught McCain in a lie! Mom, of all the people in the world, had actually watched the program where Kissinger had made his remarks on not making conditions for the opening of negotiations. She was not impressed by McCain huffing and puffing about how he'd known Kissinger for thirty years. At best, she thinks McCain was confused about what Obama meant, that they were actually agreeing that lower-level negotiations, up through secretary of state, shouldn't require conditions.
If McCain intended to make my mom and people like her think that Obama was dangerously off the rails in this department, he failed. The most concern she could find on the subject was a vague concern that maybe Obama hadn't made himself clear about what he meant, back when he originally said it. (Anyone have a link to what he said, originally? It would help a LOT. I'm already collecting examples-- Spain!-- on why McCain is far more likely to create an international incident by being misunderstood.) The repeated refrain of "Obama doesn't understand" didn't make any kind of impact on Mom; she came away from the debate concerned about McCain understanding things. She's convinced that McCain is the confused one (she didn't say "old", but it sounded like she was hinting at it).
Mom was iffy on the rest of the specifics of the debate. She did say that she could always follow what Obama was talking about, that he was very good at explaining things. She liked that. And as my dad likes to say, the one sure way to test whether or not a person knows something well is to have them try to teach it. Obama passed that test. McCain, on the other hand, kept going off on tangents that were hard to follow, and confused her a lot. She didn't like that so much.
Mom thinks that Obama is very good at explaining things, and thinks that maybe he was just having trouble getting McCain to understand things. Add these two things together, and it's a knock against McCain's abilities, not Obama's.
Like I said, all candidates make Mom nervous. She briefly veered off-course to mention Biden, and that he'd been saying belligerant things all week that "scared [her] to death". I couldn't get her to explain further. I mentioned that I was more scared by Palin, but sadly Mom has not seen the Katie Couric interview and still holds out hope that Palin can get up to national-government standards soon. I didn't press. Mom does enjoy the SNL skits with Tina Fey, and likes to quote "I can see Russia from my house!", but she finds it hard to believe that anyone can be as bad as they say. I'll forward her the Couric interview later.
She heard about McCain versus David Letterman-- she laughed and laughed when I mentioned it. Her favorite part was McCain getting caught on TV prepping for his interview with Katie Couric when he was supposed to be on a plane. Never underestimate humor and a good visual, folks. The "liar" label has stuck on McCain for her; she keeps seeing him get caught in fib after fib. The one problem there is that it just makes her assume "politics as usual", instead of completely turning her off; McCain loses his "straight talk" points, but for Mom, he never really had them-- she never believed any politician could tell the truth. No real help for us there.
McCain doesn't scare her as much as Biden, but his actions in the last week or so have confused and baffled her. She doesn't know what he's donig from day to day anymore and it seems to be wearing her out. The only candidate of the four that she isn't nervous about is Obama. He's "calm"-- she used the word several times. She likes that she can always see him thinking and making careful judgments about what to say before he says it; she appreciates a careful man. I mentioned that it would be good to have someone calm and steady in charge for a change, and she agreed.
In short: I don't think she's completely sold yet, because Mom is so wary of all politicians, but Obama went a long way in that debate toward getting my mom's vote. She still worries-- Mom always, always worries-- but Obama seems to worry her less than McCain does. Progress!
I'm concerned about the VP debate on Thursday, though. On the one hand, it's bound to be an unmitigated disaster as far as Palin's readiness; on the other hand, I'm scared of what Biden will do. It's such a fine line to walk. Here's hoping that prepping Mom with the Palin/Couric video will convince her ahead of time that Palin is a gibbering idiot!