My friend Mick wrote to me all lathered up in a fever (or maybe all fevered up in a lather) about his frustration at trying to convince hardline McCain supporters among friends, family, and cow-orkers. His first message asked for comments on a long and over-heated rant he wanted to send them.
I replied that he needed to take a couple of deep breaths, re-assess what he was trying to say, and maybe even visit over here at Daily Kos. Among the Kossacks, I figured, he could find some useful arguments and re-assure himself that the world wasn't populated entirely by Kool-aid-sipping wingnuts.
The rest of this post is his next message to me and my reply. When you get those panicked messages from your friends, maybe this could help.
Mick wrote:
Thanks. I will look more at Daily KOS. I read both articles you recommended - especially gladdened by Will's last sentences.
My sister's making trips to NH to register new voters in what could be a critical piece of the electoral mix. Sometimes I wonder if that kind of effort might produce more results than trying to convert McPainers.
Mick
Dear Mick,
Finding and registering likely Obama voters is a great way to spend your efforts. Deep-down convinced McC supporters have a lifetime of psychological structures between their committment and your efforts to change it. (Imagine the shoe on the other foot -- one of them trying to convince you.)
Some McC voters and independents will change their mind as they see more of their man in the debates. Some of them are losing patience with him over his switch from "no bailouts" to "yes to this bailout". His own moral compass has become unhinged, or unpinned, or whatever compasses become, and he is simply drifting with the winds. As those winds get even gustier and stormier coming up to the election, more and more people will see him as unfit to deal with the challenges of the office.
If he had picked a solid steady known-quantity Republican, (say Olympia Snowe -- btw, absolutely the best name in politics), then GOP voters could say, "what the hell, he's losing his marbles, but at least when he dies or goes looney, then someone stable is there to take the wheel." But by choosing the Abominable Snow-Woman, he's taken away even that clutch-straw.
So if Republicans are going to say, "Thay-inks, but no thay-inks" to the McCain/Palin ticket, they're going to do it on their own, after a lot of internal cognitive dissonance forces them to, and they're going to be unhappy about doing it, and certainly they won't want to tell a gloating damn Obama-crat about it.
I'd say, send them the most focused, clear, concise, readable set of bullet-points that you can pull together, and then wish them well and leave them alone. Then put your efforts into registering new voters, or working with the folks trying to make sure the voting will be run and counted fairly, or go to the Obama website, or MoveOn, for whatever volunteer opportunities they're offering. That will be a much bigger payoff than arguing with committed wing-nuts.
And you'll be happy instead of all frustrated and teeth-grindy, too.