My son and I were out canvassing today. Our list was comprised of registered D's, so we had little contact w/ Goopers. One incidental contact we had, however, took me aback.
We walked away from a house w/ a registered D and encountered the next door neighbor on the sidewalk. She asked us what we were doing, and we told her we were canvassing for Obama. She told us that she would never vote for Obama, as he is "evil."
I have grown to dislike McCain more and more over the course of this campaign. I would never call him "evil," however, to a family member, much less to a total stranger. I think that Palin is many things, but "evil" is not one of them. After 8 years pre-emptive war, torture, domestic surveillance, the looting of the federal treasury, and a whole host of other horribles, I still would not call W "evil," esp in public. Cheney, admittedly, may be another story.
What has Obama done that could possibly cause someone to call him evil? He has never shot anyone in the face. He didn't ham it up over a b-day cake while a great American city was literally drowning. He never went to war over oil or over weird Oedipal complexes.
Obama, deep down, has been a fairly convential senator. No one would ever confuse him w/ Bernie Sanders or Russ Feingold or Tom Harkin. There are reasons why the Chicago Trib chose him to be the first Dem they ever endorsed for prez, and there are reasons why Powell will apparently endorse Obama tomorrow.
I did not engage this woman in conversation. My guess is that she's seen the e-mails calling Obama a Muslim terrorist, and she believes them. Perhaps she's simply a virulent racist who thinks that any black man who would come this close to the WH has to be evil.
Whatever the reason for the comment is, it's evident that the Secret Service has its hands full in protecting Obama. It's even more evident that, assuming he does win, he will face a minority that will never accept his legitimacy under any circumstances. There may be another Timothy McVeigh--or maybe several McVeighs--out there during an Obama WH.
There's a lot of hatred out there, and I worry a little about what that hatred might produce in coming years.