I will be spending a week around Christmas back in the very heart of Bush Country, Central Texas. Furthermore, it will be mostly spent among Bush's core constituency, middle to upper-middle class evangelical Christians, the majority of which are Southern Baptists.
My parents know that I consider do not consider myself a Southern Baptist these days and might be aware that I registered Democrat up here, as to better participate in local elections, but no one else in the community is aware of this; I still show up with my family at church when I'm home and do not talk about my politics. People probably pay what I say more attention than it's due given my age (I'm in my 20's).
So, basically, what should I be doing to make the most of this? I know I'm not going to turn them into Deaniacs or Clarkies, but what seeds should I plant to perhaps make them not so excited about coming out to vote on November 2 or, more importantly, write those $2000 checks to Bush? According to a quick zip code search on opensecrets.org, most of the more influential members of the community, many of them friends of my parents, have already given, but our local billionaire and his wife have not yet... and said local billionaire and his wife sit adjacent us at church.
Or, should I just keep my ears open and solicit further discussions with "the folks back home" to help keep tabs on what the other side is doing to keep the party faithful toe-ing the line? What use would you make of the contacts I have? Especially if you lived in the DC area?