I think I finally convinced my neighbor to vote for Kerry!

[fudge stripe cookays]

This guy has been the most amazing neighbor. He and his wife and daughter came over one of the first days we were in here, introduced themselves, and his wife gave us a little sack of shortbread cookies she made. He's let us borrow tools, he helped us plumb our bathroom when I got artsy and pulled out the sink and vanity for my own creation, and he's going to help me with my new pond pump.

He seemed very cool so I let him in on the fact that we were progressive a year or so ago. When I was volunteering for Dean, I gave him a video to watch and some info. He seemed to really like Dean.

But since Kerry won, he's been wavering. He was in the navy in Vietnam, and HATES Kerry (for his hanging with GI Jane, he says). I knew no matter what I said about that, he would cling to what he'd been told, so I tried some other tacks today.

Mentioned that I'd been in DC for the march and was going to Houston in June for our state convention. He thought that was pretty cool that I was getting involved. But when it came round to Kerry, he just seized up.

I tried a couple methods. The Kerry = real military hero vs. Bush = AWOL didn't have much effect. I asked him how religious he was. Grew up Catholic; not as into it now.

I told him that if he didn't want to live in a theocracy, he'd better vote for Kerry, since Bush was completely in bed with the religious right. That got a little more attention.

THEN, I said, "The Republicans have the presidency, the House, AND the Senate. There will be nothing to stop Bush if he doesn't have to worry about re-election next term.

If he gets re-elected, he will replace at LEAST one of the Supreme Court justices with someone JUST LIKE Scalia, Thomas or Rehnquist.

That did it!

"What? Republicans? All of em? Supreme Court too? I hate Thomas."

"Well, if you vote for Bush, that's what you're going to get. Only worse. All it takes is one of those judges retiring."

"Well, it doesn't look like it's gonna be Bush, then."

Phew. My work for the day is done.

FSC

[Killarney]

1. Good work!

[malatesta1137]

2. Fantastic!

good for you.

[Ladyhawk]

3. Good job! (nt)

[Ignis]

4. Ah, details.

Stories like this warm my heart. Good on you for trying!

More importantly, they remind me that the Republicans (and the US right-wing/corporate media) have only been able to do so well in their PR campaigns over the past few decades because they keep the public discussion over politics at a very, very general level. I remain convinced that we'd see a lot more votes for Democratic candidates if we can just push the public discussion back toward the particulars.

Given the media stranglehold on policy information, it takes real effort to find out the details of what a vote for/against a certain candidate actually means in terms of policy. This makes it very easy for John Q. Voter to cast a vote simply on the gloss, timbre, and packaging of a politician.

But Americans really aren't as conservative in their policy desires as their votes have shown. See The Emerging Democratic Majority ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743254783/qid=1084150390/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4945368-1749755?v=glance&s=books ) for more data on this subject, if you're interested.

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. Thanks for the link, Ignis!

I'll have reprehensor put that one on our list of books to buy.

FSC