Well, they are gone now. It was actually a nice visit. Over a breakfast of dutch apple pie and coffee, I started coaxing him a little bit, and we started
the conversation all over again.
(Bear Balls are two huge scoops of vanilla ice cream rolled in chocolate cookie crumbs and sitting in a puddle of chocolate sauce, vanilla sauce and raspberry liquer.)
Read on... if you dare!
See the original post here, if you haven't read it. It has the history that gets us here... including the bear balls.
My Republican father-in-law is very upset about the state of the military... an issue that many of you touched on in the previous post. I asked him where he thought our all-volunteer army would be in ten years, and he became pretty quiet as he thought about it, then shook his head wearily.
He is also extremely upset about the amount of money it takes to run for office in ths country. He'd love a system that would allow people to rise to the top because of their beliefs, as opposed to their ability to raise millions of dollars.
He talked quite a bit about unity, which was a recurring theme in many of the wonderful posts I read. He thinks we (the people) need to take back the system and totally revamp it. He vigorously slammed Delay, Lott, Thurmond and other divisive, bigoted representatives (and former). He thinks that all these lifer incumbents (on both sides of the aisle) should be out on their asses. Start over.
I very gently suggested that he check out a few of our candidates, because I felt that the debates weren't a fair place to judge them. He lives in Phoenix now, and went on about the terrible debate format that they had used. He thought that the questions were so leading and loaded that it would have been impossible for anyone to sound intelligent answering them. (He had tried to get tickets to the debate in Phoenix, but couldn't, so he watched it on tv.)
I mentioned Dean, and he said that he felt he was too idealistic. When he says that, I think he means "anti-war". My father-in-law is no war-monger, but I think he feels comfortable with a president that isn't "afraid" to use force. This was my understanding. I know that this isn't necessarily true with Dean, but I wasn't looking to argue... not yet.
We talked a bit more about Dean, and then I mentioned Clark. He was dismissive at first because of seeing too much of him on CNN, but then he asked me to send him some more info on Clark. I'll send info on both. (I'm still torn between these two, myself.)
They had to head to the airport soon, but before he left, I had to ask him one more question.
"So... what are you going to do come election day?" I asked.
"Go ahead and send me some information," he said, "but I'm probably going to sit this one out."
That's almost as good as a conversion. Bush gets credit for that. Thanks, George!
Apple pie never tasted so good.
Yum!
