I was canvassing the area around Bristol, Pennsylvania. Support was quite strong for Obama in the area I canvassed.
As I was walking along, dressed in my Obama gear, a person, call him Joe, stops me and says why isn't he on my list? I explained to Joe that campaigns sometimes make mistakes based on how information was keyed into their computer system and offered him Obama literature. Joe laughed and said no way. Okay great, I sense someone who wants to argue ...
So, I asked him why did he stop me? Joe claims he used to be Democratic but just registered as a Republican. I wished him a good day and started to walk away.
Joe says to me that I should know that Obama is really a socialist. Okay, please do explain ...
Obama wants to re-distribute the wealth according to Joe. I calmly explain that all Obama is doing is setting the tax brackets for the upper 5% to where they were before Bush's cuts; you know, the cuts that McCain was against before he was for them! This really ticks Joe off.
Joe then says he's an economist and I obviously don't know what I am talking about. Interesting ... I didn't think you need to be an economist to explain tax policy.
Joe was an older person - I estimate near 70. I asked him what did he think of FDR? Did he think he was "socialism"? He said yes he did.
I asked him so why you ever a Democratic supporter? He didn't have an answer and then changed the subject to Obama's associations.
We then went through the standard litany of:
Bill Ayers - I countered with Palin's ties to AIP.
Reverend Wright - I countered with McCain's ties to Parsley and Hagee.
He was getting real flustered with me at this point. I then told him that I used to be an Independent who sometimes in the past voted for Republicans but am registered in the Democratic Party now because I can't imagine I will ever vote for a Republican again. Joe was totally stumped.
I don't believe for an instance this was a Democratic supporter that turned Republican. He knew the Republican talking points too well and was brainwashed in Republican ideology.
But, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and he proved himself to be an idiot.
Morale of the story. Don't waste time with these sort of people. I can now see where he is getting his nonsense from:
McCain compares Obama to European socialists
http://www.comcast.net/...
This article of course is total trash. McCain is nuts if he thinks Obama's policies are even close to European "socialism". Clearly, this jerk that stopped me was just repeating today's GOP talking points.
What pisses me off about this article is that it's linked from Comcast web site. For the past month, I noticed nothing but negative articles about Obama linked from Comcast. I would love to drop these turkeys but it's the only high speed access in town right now and I need it for work. If anyone has an idea on how to get even with companies like Comcast, I would love to hear it. I always say don't get mad get EVEN.