Republican volunteers and us

Hellow, my fellow Americans. Oops, this whole campaign rhetoric is getting to me.

So, what's up?

I'm okay, I guess. Slowly recovering from missing the biggest Obama rally in the history of the greatest country on earth.

Anyway, there is a huge lot to talk about. Some serious stuff, too. The campaign has become very very disturbingly ugly. Quite incredibly, what has dominated the campaign this week is racism. At a shocking level. I will write about that in a post later next week because I suspect this is not over.

There would be a lot to say, also, about Palin. Again. And about her shopping spree. $150,000 dollars in high-end clothes stores in the last eight weeks. But here again, I think Palin is not done yet with her daily blunders, so I'll write a comprehensive Palin post before Election Day.

I also need to write about Socialism, the new S word. Obama is accused everyday of being a Socialist, of wanting to "spread the wealth." Oooohh! Bad Obama, bad!

I could also talk about the new candidate, Joe the Plumber. Remember, my fellow French, in our last election, we had a lot of talk about "le plombier polonais." Well, that was nothing compared to how many times we hear the candidates refer to Joe the Plumber this week.

Anyway, a lot to write about.

But today, I would like to tell you about my last own adventure. Get the kids away from the screen, because it is kind of scary. But you know, I am an adventurer, and I am not afraid to face danger. I have spent a year in the Guiana rainforest, two years in the Libyan desert, including a night in a Libyan jail. Let me tell ya, that was nothing compared to today's adventure.

I paid a visit to the Republican headquarters in Norman, Oklahoma.

I did that quite innocently. I went in because I was looking for the best button ever, the one that says "Our VP is a hot chick."

But I went in with my wife, LeAnn and my two-year old daughter, Alyenor. And LeAnn loooooves to argue. Oh yeah, she does! (Love ya, honey).

There were a man and a lady in their fifties there, sitting at a table covered with pamphlets, leaflets, stickers and other campaign attire. I told them the object of my visit.
I wanted to pretend I was an independent voter and engage into a discussion with them. LeAnn could not refrain from saying we were from the other camp.

Havoc ensued. What follows are bits and pieces that I grasped when I could not turn a deaf enough ear to the whole conversation.

The lady said to LeAnn that she was a one-issue voter, that she was against abortion in all cases and that she could not vote for anyone, Republican or Democrat, that is "pro-abortion." I knew then, of course, that that lady would not be convinced by anything. LeAnn tried anyway.
I looked at the stickers and the buttons. The man looked at me looking at the buttons. And the ladies went on.

In the meantime, the lady would point at Alyenor and asking LeAnn questions like "Would you have aborted her if your life had depended on it?"
The question is so obviously stupid that I am not going to waste my time to comment on it. It is sad, though, that people make up their political minds on such generalizations and skewed interrogations.

LeAnn was trying to tell that lady that on such an issue, people cannot convince each other because they start from fundamentally different premises, etc, etc. She was right of course, so right that she did not convince that lady.

At some point, though, I could not refrain myself. The lady said that those Obama people don't care about babies. I had to say that this was nonsense and that people should not be characterized in such a way.
She said they were "pro-abortion." I said if they were "pro-abortion," they would encourage people to abort, and of course, they don't, so it is also nonsensical to use that label against your opponents.
So then, she asked me what experience Obama had to be President.
I said none. Obama does not have more or less experience than McCain and Palin, but Palin does not know what a Vice-President does.
She said that Palin is not running for President.
I said, No, she's running for Vice-President, and she does not know what a Vice-President does.
"Yes, she does."
"Well, she was asked that question several times, and she could not answer the question."
"Yes, she did."
"Well, I'm sorry, but she didn't"
"She does know what the Vice President does."
"Well, no, she doesn't. My French students know what the role of the Vice-President is," I lied, "and Palin does not. It is simply unbelievable."
"Well, it was nice talking with you. You have a nice family," said she very nicely, without an ounce of irony or sarcasm.
I said "Thank you" and that was the end of our conversation about whether or not Sarah Palin knows what the job she is applying for is about.

At the end of the day, I am thinking, that lady was a nice lady. She is the average citizen, with an average everyday unnoticeable life, like you and me. Really, what I am trying to say is that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that person. She was not mean to us, she was not aggressive. I might actually have been more aggressive in my trying to prove a point, which does not make me a superior to her.
But she is ignorant. I don't mean that disrespectfully. I am not saying she is stupid. She is just a misinformed voter who believes the lies she is being told because they tap into her core values.
Either you think beyond your core values, or you don't. Nobody, I am sure, enjoys the idea of abortion. At the core of everybody, there is the idea that abortion is not a cool thing. And then, some of us go beyond our core value and try to think and to get informed about the reality that abortion implies, the reality faced by women who consider an abortion. And although that reality does not resonate much with our core value, we think, we ponder, and we make up our mind.

Now, if you don't think and ponder beyond your core value, you are going to vote for the person that tells you that abortion is murder.

As LeAnn concisely put it to me on our way home, "I should have told her it is easy to be agaisnt abortion in all cases. Because it prevents you from facing the reality of the women who consider abortion."

The other day, Michael Moore said that Obama is not running against McCain, he is running against ignorance. He's right. Many working-class, struggling, Joe Six-Packs and Joe the Plumbers are going to vote against their best interest because they are lied to and they are not informed enough to see beyond the lies.

As a final note for today, I would like to write for my Presidency-and-Congress-class students who might happen to read this blog: When I ask what you know about the American Constitution and more specifically about the role of the Vice President, please don't be ashamed not to know anything about it. There is not shame for you not to know since one of the two Vice-Presidential candidates this year thinks that "the Vice-President is in charge of Congress" and can work with Congress at "policy-making."
Don't be ashamed not to know, but if you ever write that answer in your papers, don't be surprised if I call you Sarah, and that won't be a compliment.