Thank You Republicans! (poll)
Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:45:03 PM PDT
Something struck me today as I was making calls for Jim Webb's campaign. Many of my fellow Americans are going through something very painful. Something they've relied on throughout much of their lives has fallen apart in front of them, and despite their best attempts to cling to it, it has failed.
Even though most of the Conservative Agenda is glued to the American Psyche through Fear, that fear is existentially valid (even if it is a fear we have a harder time empathizing with). As republicans grapple with an administration and congress they now know, or perhaps suspect to be corrupt and inept, those republicans seeking out alternative to their usual straight (R) ticket deserve our respect and consideration.
While I am an admirer of well crafted prose, this diary is not about language, or the image of Daily Kos as it pertains to any particular group. You all can act how you want and I'll still love this place; that's Kos's problem. I want to write about the swing
from the right.
It seems to me that we're talking a lot right now about the swing to the left. We're asking "how many house seats will we take" 15? 25? 38? Could we take the senate? Is it all about MO, VA, TN, and NJ? This is where our focus should be until November 7th. Hopefully we've done enough.
To that end, I've been calling for Jim Webb, and come across what seems to me to be the swing from the right. Disheartened republicans undecided about who to vote for, or saying that they are going to vote for Webb. This is one of the hightlights of phonebanking, right up there with people who don't know the candidates' names, people who needed absentee ballots, and people who didn't know when election day was.
These conversations are priceless, talking about policies, learning about political history and local Virginia politics. By just getting on the phone and being polite you can change people's minds one person at a time.
Many of them have been republicans in my experience, and I really can't help but have a sorrowful almost pitiful tone in my response when I say, "Oh, I'm sorry." Many of them, however, seem to be examining their position, and doing something difficult and admirable, albeit quite late. They are changing sides.
If polls are to be beleived, this has to be happening to millions of people all over the country. That is a spectacular number of people going through some pretty intense introspection! What would it take for you to switch parties? Probably a stolen election, an illegal war of aggression, child predation in congression, scandalous environmental practices, secret prisons, suspension of habeas corpus... Ok for all probably just one would have been enough.
As the Replican Party abandons ship, we should incite the mutiny. Along with passing the drowning leaders the anvils (or perhaps tossing them), we should be approving the refugee papers for the escaping mutineers, in whatever way possible!
If that means that we should avoid publicly shouting "I hate republicans," then, well yeah, you should probably do that. Come to think of it, any sort of over-generalized statements about any group can be hurtful. So don't do it. If a republican wants to become a democrat, I'm right with them. My dad took four years to turn. Now he wants to be best friends with Barack Obama and is on his email list.
So, Be nice to Republicans. They're turning blue!
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