I’m doing a diary about this conversation only to show that Palin and McCain have so many negatives that even the most staunchly Republican people can be persuaded to reconsider McCain's candidacy. This diary focuses on me trying to convince my mother to vote Obama today, and can be used in this way: When we talk to people we know personally about the election, we can tailor our arguments to them and turn the gaffes and lies of the McCain campaign into personal issues for them. And once people lose confidence in a candidate because they disagree with them on a personal rather than an ideological basis, it becomes infinitely harder for them to vote blindly. Suddenly, they find themselves looking at the other candidate and saying, "Maybe he isn’t so bad after all. At least he has a plan!"
And after telling my Republican mother, who’s worked in banks her whole life, about how little Palin knows about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I got her to reconsider her support of McCain and to question his judgment. I got her to say about Palin’s statement:
That’s pretty stupid.
She's a Republican and has been for I think all of her life. She raised me Republican, and I grew up in the South, so I was constantly surrounded with that stuff. Of course, I'm now as far-Left as it gets, and I see just how high the stakes are for getting Obama elected over McCain. So I've been trying to convince my mom all summer to turn away from McCain, and until he announced Palin as his running-mate, my best bet was hitting McCain hard on his war-mongering. When I talked to her about Obama's acceptance speech, I mentioned how McCain only a few weeks earlier had indicated that he would have no trouble picking a fight with Russia, actively wanted Iranians off-the-planet, and didn't know we were in a war with Afghanistan. I told her how he wants to stay in Iraq for who-knows-how-long and want to spread our troops thin. That seemed to have the only effect I could get out of her, which was, "We don't need to be getting into any more wars."
Then Palin showed up, and my mom, the avid Fox News and CNN viewer, ate the pick up. She "thought she was a pretty strong woman," and when I told her about the ridiculous claims of sexism coming from the media in light of Palin's inexperience, she said, "Well, they have been sexist!" When I asked her whether she thought that the coverage of Hillary Clinton was sexist, she said, "No, that woman's just a witch!"
Right.
But today I had my opening, and it was perfect. It was reef the dog's post about Palin's Freddie & Fannie gaffe. My mom has been hit hard by the economy, losing her job twice and now earning less wages than I, a 20 year-old part-time receptionist, do. After working all her life as hard as she could to raise my brother and myself on her own, this is how she's repaid. She was a mortgage loan officer (yup, but for businesses mostly), and the panhandle of Florida where I grew up was booming. I was in college, my brother in New York, and finally she was earning enough to live comfortably on her own while still helping us out. Then one day it all came crumbling down. But as hard as I tried to convince her that Bush's deregulation had a hand in her being laid-off and in the economy tanking, and for as much as she knows about how the financial sector works, which is a lot and I often call her to explain things to me, she still couldn't come to blaming the Republican party at least partially for her woes.
But I talked to her today on the phone immediately after I heard the news of Palin's gaffe, and I said to her, "Mom, what I'm going to tell you will prove to you two things: 1) That Sarah Palin is uniquely and supremely unqualified (thanks Carville!) to be the Vice President of the United States of America, and 2) That John McCain has such poor judgment in choosing her that he is unqualified to become the President of the country."
Her voice always gets soft when I speak politics because she doesn't like to hear me attack her party. But I asked her, "What's the biggest thing facing America right now? What happened over the weekend?"
She responded, "Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were seized."
"Well," I said, "Sarah Palin doesn't understand just how Fannie & Freddie work. She thinks that they've been taxpayer funded all their lives. She said today that the companies had become 'too expensive to taxpayers.' Freddie & Fannie are their own corporations, right?"
"Yes, but they're backed by the government, maybe that's what she meant?"
"But she didn't. She said that before they were seized, they were a burden to taxpayers, implying that the takeover would actually be a tax cut! But taxpayers have never paid a dime into F&F, right?"
"Right."
"So what do you think about Palin's statement?"
Softly, "I guess it’s pretty dumb."
"I mean, I trust you more in the office of the Vice-Presidency than I trust Palin. At least you can tell me what Freddie & Fannie do and how they operate. Isn’t it ridiculous that, with the economy being the most important issue right now, along with Iraq, that a vice-presidential candidate wouldn’t know how the two corporations function?"
"Yeah, it’s pretty stupid."
"And don’t you think that if John McCain really cared about the economy, he’d want someone who knows something about it by his side? He’s already said that he doesn’t know much about the economy, so wouldn’t it make sense for him to choose a running-mate who did?"
"Yup. It’s interesting."
"And, you know, Obama chose Biden precisely because they often butt heads on issues, because he wants someone challenging him in office. But John McCain won’t even choose someone who knows about the economy when he’s said he doesn’t! Isn’t that dumb, too?"
"Yup, seems like it."
"And what about the spike in turn-out at McCain’s rallies caused by Palin? The base of the Republican Party wants to hear her say things like this. What do you think of that?"
"It sounds pretty dumb. I guess I’ll have to look into it."
"Well, you can go to barackobama.com, and he has what he thinks up there, and even if you disagree with it, at least he has a plan, because you won’t find one on John McCain and Sarah Palin’s website."
"Ok, I’ll look into it."
"I hope you reconsider voting for John McCain."
"I will. I will. But I have to go back to work now."
"Ok," and the conversation ended, and I felt pretty happy that I got to her to call Palin stupid after only a week earlier she thought she was "a pretty tough lady." It just goes to show how thin Palin’s support really is and how it can be changed if we focus our attacks.
So don’t let the polls get you down, but get out there and fight for the Democratic Party!