Grassroots Gab
As the polls closed and the pundits pontificated Tuesday evening, the grassroots gab was flying fast and furious in the cramped study of a modest, lily-white, suburban ranch home somewhere in the Deep South:
Fourteen-year-old son: So Dad, what’s the deal with these primaries?
Pater Familias: They’re the process that each party uses to select its nominee for the general election. In most cases, the candidates are competing for that state’s delegates who would then have to promise to vote for the winner at the convention next summer.
Son: Okaaay…so Pops, if Hillary wins, are we going to move?
PF: Move where?
Son: You know, Canada, or someplace like that. A lot of the kids at school are saying that.
PF: Well, first off, someone running away from Hillary wouldn’t be better off by moving to Canada. And secondly, if Hillary wins, we’re not going to move.
Son: Does Alabama have a primary?
PF: Yes, but hardly anybody ever pays any attention to it.
Son: Do you think Alabama will vote Republican again this year?
PF: Is the Pope Catholic? Is SEC football the best in the land?
Son: Gotcha. Say, Big Dog, do you know who you’re going to vote for?
PF: First off, let me say this: I love it when you call me “Big Dog.” But to answer your question, no, not yet. I’m still watching and listening and trying to make up my mind.
Son: Don’t you always vote Republican?
PF: Hardly. I’m more of an independent. I’ve voted for both Democrats and Republicans in my lifetime, depending on the person and the circumstances.
Son: What do you think of McCain?
PF: I like him. If there was ever a bona fide American hero, he is one. And if he says waterboarding is torture, I’m not going to argue with him.
Son: Got that right. Hey get a load of my Huckabee imitation: “Hey evrabody! I’m a Baptist Preacher–Vote for Meeeeee!”
PF: (chuckling) That’s pretty good. I think he’s funny, and I think he would be a great guy to run a 10-miler with. But I’m pretty sure I don’t want him to be my President.
Son: If you vote for a Democrat I’m going to kill you.
PF: Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
Son: Most of the people at church are Republicans.
PF: So I hear. But there are a few Democrats.
Son: No way.
PF: Yes way. I know a few of them. They just don’t go around talking about it. It’s not the kind of thing that you mention in polite company-it doesn’t get you very many invitations to Sunday lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse.
——long pause————
PF: You know what I think would be fun?
Son: What?
PF: Putting an “Obama ’08” bumper sticker on my car and driving it into the church parking lot just to see what kind of reaction I get.
Son: They would think you’re nuts!
PF: So what else is new?
Son: Dad, if you do that, I want to get an Obama t-shirt and wear it to youth group.
PF: (smiling) It’s a deal.
6 Comments
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greg
there’s some people at twickenham that might ask you not to come back if you did that over there 🙂
bibliophilist
You might not get lunch invitations from one group, but I’d wager you’d get them from the other. They’d be so happy to see you that you might be set up for life with free lunch. 🙂
Mike the Eyeguy
g–I know a few of those folks, but I know even more there that would never let politics get in the way of some table fellowship at Bellacino’s.
As for my current ecclesiastical location? I’m not so sure.
b–Free lunch for life–I like the sound of that!
JRB
I’ve got an extra, unattached Obama ’08 sticker lying in my office as I type, just longing for some North Alabama exposure. You say the word, and it’s in the mail, Big Dog.
As for my rather public support for Obama, I was cautiously anxious about making a splash in my employment community, but so far the opponents are generally pleasant, and I am getting a lot, I mean a lot, more love than I expected.
I have embraced my outlier status in our world, and people tend to treat me as the eccentric cousin whom they enjoy but don’t take too seriously. Being a lifelong holder of minority opinions, I’ll take that as reasonable harmony.
Big Dog
I’ll send you my address. This has the makings of a blog series.
Yes, the eccentric cousin (whose roots–and Daddy–are somewhat in question), the one who could, at any moment, do just about anything.
In the Deep South, the eccentric cousin keeps people on their toes and gives them something to gossip about. And gossip, as any true Southerner knows, is fine art, higher even than pink flamingos and gnomes.
Big Dog
Anybody out there got an extra McCain sticker?
I can see it now–McCain on the right side of the bumper, Obama on the left. That would really get me some stares going up and down Bailey Cove every morning.