SHE PAUSED FOR A BEAT and in a confessional tone began talking about how she had been supporting McCain but very recently had begun having second thoughts about that. This was clearly a bombshell dropping in her own life. This person is 65 years old and I could tell just by the way she was talking that this was no small decision to her.
LAST NIGHT I was at a local joint and enjoying a beer and some popcorn chicken and ended up in a conversation with a woman sitting next to me. Now I don’t know what my fate is lately with older Republican women but this is actually the third time I’ve ended up sitting next to one and getting into conversations about politics, and in two instances, the women confessed to leaning liberal. Now I know that’s a safe confession to make to someone (who looks/talks like) me, and they knew it. Long hair, ink, etc and it’s a safe bet I’m not backing the Republicans. They knew that. And they probably were happy to have someone outside of their circles—which undoubtedly are comprised of staunchly Right wing friends and family—to hear them out on this. But it makes me laugh.
The first time, as linked above, was in the hotel in St. Paul. She didn’t talk of voting Democrat, no. She was in St. Paul for the RNC convention, after all. But it remained an interesting conversation. We spoke of Spanish, and the history of migrants, and I feel good that I was able to perhaps present a different or nuanced take on the issues. Her feedback let me know I am not being presumptuous in that thought.
The second time was on a plane back to Oregon.
This time it was at Turtles, right down the road. I asked her name enough times so I could remember it. It was “Carolee.” First she said I was her son’s age. As usual, when I told her how old I was, she had been guessing about a decade younger. So she took that back, but we sure talked about a lot. Mexicans, migrant workers, familia, her last name (turned out to be Garcia!) She was a white “Hispanic.” (Again the word confuses me because I told her about my family coming from Mexico and then right after that she asked me if I was Hispanic. I paused…said “Well, my name is Spanish.” And told her I prefer other words for “what I am,” words which you know by now. I went on my usual talks about the pyramid we like to ignore, about how our comforts are built on the pains of others, about how due is coming around, about how the only people solidly in McCain’s camp now are people afraid. Afraid of the culture changing, of immigrants, of a black man coming into power, of the Middle East. This was before I knew she was Republican! Whoops. But hey, she did write down the URL to my blog, so maybe I didn’t offend her too much.
As I talked about people in my life, she asked “So, they are voting for Obama, too, right?” almost shoring up…reinforcement. Because the interesting part happened when I asked who she was voting for. She paused for a beat, and in a confessional tone, began talking about how she had been for McCain but very recently had begun having second thoughts about supporting him. This was clearly a bombshell dropping in her own life. This person is 65 years old and I could tell just by the way she was talking that this was no small decision to her.
“I’ve voted Republican my entire life,” she said looking in my eyes. “But…” And the rest was implied in that silence.
“What happened to change your mind?” I asked.
“It was…the last debate,” she said. And then mentioned something about McCain’s health plan, but…to be honest, the way it was delivered…well. It didn’t feel to me as if that were the (at least not the entire) Big Reason. As a writer of stories and characters who need credible motivation for catalytic movements, it really wouldn’t hold up in a book. Not for such a switch in a person’s political convictions. But maybe I’m wrong, because she wouldn’t be the only woman McCain is losing over similar reasons. No matter, because even if my hunch was correct, I didn’t use the thought to pry more. I was just glad to hear that she was moving away from McCain. As far as I’m concerned, she could have said “I’m not voting for McCain because he seems insane to me” or “He scares the hell out of me and I don’t know why.” But whatever. “Health plan” works for me. In fact, I challenge anyone to find a good reason to vote FOR McCain…that ain’t grounded in fear.
She told me one of her daughters was for McCain and one was not. Amazingly, her phone rang at that moment with one of them calling and I turned away and let her take it. She said “This is the one who is not” before answering.
I sipped my cerveza, which—wholly unrelated to McCain’s personal health—was called “Dead Guy” beer. I listened to Carolee talk to her daughter. “Yeah…I’m voting for Obama,” she revealed to her. Then she turned to me as I got up to leave, relaying her daughter’s response. ”She says ‘About time!’”
I smiled, we said goodnight.
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That’s what I told her. I find those kinds of connections very satisfying. If the world were as small and predictable as I sometimes end up imagining it is, this life would not be able to contain a third of the joy and opportunity that it offers as-is.
Great story! I have been collecting these stories for myself because they remind me that–while we sometimes want to make jokes or rant or rail against the hardcore stupid–people can surprise us. I have had or witnessed similar encounters in the last few months. It is giving me heart.
What a cool connection, Nezua. That quality connection with strangers happens rarely with me, but when they do, as you said, they are interesting and most satisfying.
My hunch, and perhaps wish, is that there are numerous closet Obama voters out there, just waiting for the curtain to close behind them on Nov. 4. My hope is that there are more of them than we can imagine, and that Obama will win by a landslide. Anyone with half a brain and open to new ideas cannot vote for anyone else other than Obama. McCain is insane. I am copying something sent to me via email. Cannot vouch for its authenticity, but it looks real.
“Sent: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 7:18 am
Subject: Conservative endorsement for Obama
From a well regarded conservative publisher—
Subject: The National Review’s Former Publisher Endorses Obama
A Conservative for Obama
My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country.
by Wick Allison, Editor In Chief, The National Review
THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S.
Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no
political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why
I am a conservative and what it means to me.
In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for
Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the
conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was
invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I
later became its publisher.
Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a
recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions.
Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it
represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the
benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of
time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes,
doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to
test any political program against actual results.
Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do
this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it
works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling
good rather than doing good.
But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political
programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts-a solution for
which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the
nation went to war-led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in
the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative”
credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that
once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of
government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using
conservatism as a mask.
Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity
about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says
America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s
mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.
This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced
financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral
authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make
worse.
Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the
maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still
hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the
ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on
many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a
deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which,
it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without
realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me
comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have
a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as
McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an
ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am
convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American
national interests are directly threatened.
“Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a
business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause,
conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a
complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the
instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.”
A great story. I had similar encounters back in Michigan, but it was the other way around. People who I assumed (incorrectly) that where liberals (or at least center-left) went for Bush instead of Kerry.
At least you kept the conversation going, Nez, and in these dark days of race baiting and fear mongering we need to keep the conversation alive.
er, is it weird for me to give a head’s up that there’s a google ad for Mc Cain t shirts on your side bar right now? I’m guessing you can’t control what ads come up, and am not knocking anyone’s wanting whatever income a person can get for having google ads on their site. I just thought it was, well, funny in a terrible way actually. But I’m like that.
not weird. but nothing i dont know about. i can control what ads come up. but those mccain ads have so far been big draws on the click and i dont know why but it does pay me and i dont mind having the crazy bastard help me bring in the beans. nahmean? when i first designed UMX for ads (this iteration) i was thinking i would only have ads up i like. i think i even wrote that. but…rent and bills have a way of making one terribly pragmatic and until there’s a purer way, i’m having to go with this.
I do know exactly what you mean. But I don’t think having T shirt ads for a candidate you don’t support is “impure,” for the record. People a) are allowed to vote, period, and that includes voting for that guy and b) are allowed to wear T shirts expressing as much. I thought it was darkly funny for, well, I guess obvious reasons, but then I didn’t know if you would feel the same or not care or what. In retrospect right now it seems kind of obvious that you would of course have known it before this. Sometimes I’m a dork.
adorkable sort.
lol aw thanks
i have a question. (i’m a dork myself) would maybe a positive aspect of the google thing, be; that it could bring a number of closet obama wannabe’s out of the closet, by bringing them here, as well as expose unlike minds to a new realm of thought with nezua’s wisdom? do you know what i mean?
nezua, that had to be really cool to be present to witness and experience, someone struggling with a questionable conviction, and then change to the relief of a decision of merit. giving real meaning to the slogan, “change we can believe in”.
it was pretty wild. i was glad to be a part of it.
that is just a beautiful story.
good for you!
good for her!
i think/hope it is being replayed countless times all over the country.
and oh yeah, take their money and use it against them! reappropriation ain’t just a literary device…
gracias, charles!
charles…thats exactly what i was thinking, all for the better way 
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When I was younger I always had the sneaking suspicion that my tattoos and body modifications made me a bit unapproachable. As I get older, most of the piercings have gone and the ink has increased, but I’ve noticed something very interesting: people will tell me *anything*!! I’ve had total strangers reveal more to me than anyone not intimately involved with them should ever know.
Incidentally, some of the most electrifying and interesting conversations I’ve had have happened during chance encounters with people who do not typically share my worldview. It’s always fascinating to see another’s perspective on the world.