So after a night with my usual 4 hours of sleep I staggered out of bed, stumbled to the shower, and headed out for Monday morning classes at my local university. Something you should know about me: I'm a sucker for buying political t-shirts I'm only going to wear once. Today I sported my "McCain 1908" t-shirt with a mix of confidence and pride.
I live in southern Maine, which is a fairly liberal area, so it was a fun little experiment. The words "McCain" leap out at you from the t-shirt, and it's only upon closer inspection that the "1908" is apparent. This sparked a few fun instances where a classmate arched a brow and came over to take a closer look at my shirt before smiling and saying, "Just checking."
After a fantastic class on economics I made my way down to the campus lawn for a cigarette (yes, I know... filthy, nasty, trying to quit...) and some autumn sunshine. There was a hell of a wind, so my matches proved ineffective, and I asked this young woman next to me if I could borrow her lighter...
I lit up, exhaled a plume of smoke, and leaned back, relaxing, when suddenly I heard her chirp out, "Oh my God, are you for McCain?!"
I looked down at her and smiled, "Of course not!" I said, pointing to the 1908 below his name. She frowned at this, so I asked, "Are you?"
"I'm TOTALLY for McCain!" she proclaimed.
I'm not used to running into McCain supporters on my campus. Republicans haven't fared well here. The University of Southern Maine is located in a very Democratic district, and after the 2006 midterms, the Young Republicans extra curricular activity group dissolved. Myself being a general good-natured person smiled, "May I ask why?"
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised with the first answer:
"I don't want him to jack up my taxes."
This one took ten seconds to swat away as I responded, "Do you make over $250,000 a year?"
"Well, no..." At this point she quickly shifted gears, "I grew up in a redneck area of Massachusetts and I don't want my guns taken away." So we're off to defensive talking point number two.
I smiled, "Obama isn't going to take your guns away. That's been a standard talking point for years, you know. The most you really see sometimes is Democrats working to ban assault weapons."
She switched gears again in a surprising new direction, "Well, Obama wants to give rights to violent criminals. He wants them to be able to get assault weapons and to vote."
Now this stumped me for a moment. I assured her that violent criminals getting their hands on AK-47s wasn't part of his platform. I told her that I'd never heard of this charge, so I couldn't comment on it, but that it sounded to me like a talking point that you'd see on the Drudge Report, and I've learned through experience that 95% of everything Matt Drudge says is either taken out of context or complete bullshit. She smiled at this, and I felt that she may have actually conceded the point. But just for the sake of argument I went philosophical and asked her if she believed in redemption. Here she waffled a bit, "I believe in redemption, yes, but... see, I grew up in a ghetto in Boston..."
Ding.
I could tell the root of the problem here. She wasn't comfortable voting for a black man. She continued, "There's just so much we don't know about Obama. With his Aunt, you know..." Another red flag - there's no deeply held convictions here about why Obama isn't qualified for the office of the Presidency on legitimate grounds. Not if you're adopting a talking point that's not even a week old. If you don't like Obama based on merits, fine, but don't bullshit a bullshitter.
At this point I could see she was getting a little uncomfortable - she was stuttering a bit, and flushing. I assured her that I wasn't getting in her face, and that we were just having a polite exchange of ideas - a disagreement, but a casual and friendly one.
"And then there's that part about how his birth certificate is all, you know, sketchy..."
I smiled and explained that as a Presidential candidate Obama is one of the most scrutinized people in the country right now, that there's no question that he's a legal citizen of this country, etc.
Then she moved onto energy independence, "We need to get rid of our dependence on foreign energy. Palin is in support of domestic drilling." I nodded and agreed with her - we do have to become energy independent - but the way to do that is through investment in new technologies that will also create jobs. I explained that even if we drilled domestically and offshore, the resulting oil would only be a drop in the bucket of our actual energy use and wasn't a worthwhile venture.
Then I asked her about Sarah Palin. "Seriously?" I asked - "Palin?" I explained that the Vice President needs to be ready to replace the President on day one if necessary. I asked her if she saw the interviews, I brought up the fact that Palin doesn't know what the Vice President actually does, etc. She awkwardly smiled and conceded my points in silence.
I really, really wanted to probe her a little on whether she was uncomfortable voting for him because of his skin color, in a gentle, compassionate way, but unfortunately she had to get to class.
While I didn't change her mind, I left with a spring in my step. This is the kind of support McCain is down to. Die-hard right wingers (which I don't think this girl is), and people that for whatever reason (circumstance, upbringing, etc.) just aren't comfortable voting for a black man and will scour the depths of the sea to find placeholder reasons to not vote for him that don't involve racism.
Tomorrow's going to be a good day.