Usually reliable Democratic voter to cast her vote for Bush *sigh* [View All]

[Seeking Serenity]

I had lunch with a girlfriend today who is usually a reliable Democratic voter. She has voted for Democratic candidates for president in every election except one since she's been old enough to vote (at age 18, she cast her ballot for Reagan, bandwagon-style). She votes for Democratic House and Senate candidates. She's not, however, exactly what we'd call an activist or a political junkie.

Today, she dropped this bombshell on me: She's decided to vote for * in November. "Why?" I exclaimed, almost shouting, with utter disbelief.

She said she's begun to feel sorry for Bush because of all the stories coming out about him. She had particular scorn for the Kitty Kelley book, which she said was a bunch of scurrilous and outrageous charges and no one going on the record to assert the claims.

I was stunned. She said that she had the feeling that there was a "piling on" at work, and that she was going to vote for * as a protest against what she sees as "politics of personal destruction."

"What difference does it make what anyone did 35 years ago?" she said.

I said, "What about what they did to John Kerry all through the month of August with the Swift Boat liars and Zig-Zag Zell?" "I didn't like that, either," she said, but this latest round, especially the TANG documents dust-up, pushed her beyond her capacity, she said, She said the CBS story appeared to be like revenge on CBS' part, sort of a make-up for the Swift Boat crap.

I was flummoxed. "You're too smart for this crap," I said (she is smart, she ran her own business before deciding to become a SAHM, but she also has a strong sense of empathy about her, too). She said she was tired of the mud throwing and that the charges against * are going beyond the pale.

"Using forged documents to slam someone? A well-known gossipist (did she coin one there?) taking cheap shots at someone using unnamed sources this close to an election? It has to stop. I want to show them that, at least for me, it's not going to work," she said.

I told her that they're doing it, too, and much more ruthlessly. She said it didn't matter. She said John Kerry wasn't enough of a draw for her to change her mind about her protest vote. She did assure me, however, that she would be voting for Vic Snyder and Blanche Lincoln.

I thought to myself, "Big whoop. There's no way in hell they'll lose. But Arkansas is still in play. Every vote matters."

What do I do with her? How can I convince her to see the errors in her thought? And, is it possible that this latest round of negative Bush stories, one after the other, could have other voters feeling sorry for him, too?