Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had the opportunity to talk to some old friends on the phone over the weekend. All of them, for purposes of this blog, happen to be long-time Democrats. What follow are anecdotal stories about people your Maximum Leader happens to know.
With all of them your Maximum Leader chatted and caught up before politics came up. In most cases, your Maximum Leader didn’t bring up politics.
The first one is a late 50’s, female, resident of Ohio (of all places). She mentioned if your Maximum Leader was tired of the election yet. Your Maximum Leader said he was getting tired of it; and asked her if she had seen enough of the candidates to make up her mind. He even suggested that she didn’t need her mind made up. Your Maximum Leader then got an earful! And what a surprising earfull it was. This intelligent woman (who hasn’t ever in her life pulled the lever for a Republican nationally) said that she was going to stay home. John Kerry made her feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Your Maximum Leader pressed a little and wanted to know why. She said that while she cannot abide by Bush, Kerry worried her because, “All he knows how to do is talk.” She said that if a chemical/biological weapon were set off by terrorists in the US (which, by the way, she doubted would happen) she was convinced that John Kerry would talk with everyone in the world about what to do and equivocate until it was too late to do anything. That is what got her goat. She didn’t trust him to act when called upon to act.
This was interesting because no fewer than 4 or 5 hours earlier, your Maximum Leader was talking to one of Mrs. Villain’s relatives (a Democrat, male, resident of VA) who indicated that he planned on voting for the President for the same reason. He didn’t trust Kerry to act even if we were attacked. (This man in a veteran with no great love towards the President.) But he said he couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for Kerry.
The third Democrat your Maximum Leader spoke to was the most interesting of the bunch. She is a liberal (communist practically) living in Florida. (She is a 30-something mother of two living in South Florida with her “husband.” She likes to call him her “Partner” because “husband” is a sexist term which suggests submission to male authority.) In 2000, this woman called your Maximum Leader nearly every day after the election telling him how the Republicans were going to caught in their dirty little tricks to steal the election and how the power of the Bush family would be broken. Anyway… This woman informed your Maximum Leader that she was voting for some odd third party group of which your Maximum Leader had never heard. He asked why she wasn’t voting for Kerry. She informed him that, “If I wanted to vote for some pandering bastard murderer I’d vote for Bush.” Your Maximum Leader felt the likely follow-up question to that statement was, “Pandering bastard is understandable, but where do you get the murderer from?” “Look,” she said to your Maximum Leader. “If I wanted to elect some assult-weapon wielding Nazi I’d vote for Bush. It disgusted me to see that footage of Kerry out where ever he was in his outfit boasting about killing that helpless bird.”
The conversation then trned to Thanksgiving plans (or non-plans as the case of your Maximum Leader’s friend might be).
So, for what it is worth. Three Democrats your Maximum Leader knows. None of them voting for Kerry.
Of course, do these stories mean anything in the grand scheme. Probably not much. They are just anecdotal evidence of some people being dissatisfied with their candidate. But if there is non-anecdotal evidence of something going wrong for Kerry, it seems to be coming from Hawaii. Your Maximum Leader has read a number of articles about this poll showing Bush and Kerry neck-in-neck in the Aloha State. If Hawaii goes for Bush… Well… Your Maximum Leader would be gobsmacked. Just the prospect of it is as likely to your Maximum Leader’s thinking as would Saddam Hussein winning a popularity contest at a neocon cocktail party.
Carry on.
