Sitting (as ever) with some other parents at the natatorium a couple of nights ago, I decided to brazenly broach the subject of politics.
Polimom: So — are you following the primary campaigns?
Mom 1: Not really. I’m pretty uninformed. Who do you like?
Polimom: I’ve decided to support Barack Obama.
Mom 1: Oh really? Name one thing he’s done.
LOL!!!!
“Uninformed” turned out to be ridiculously far from the truth. In fact, she’s a former Republican who is thinking of voting for Hillary Clinton… or maybe I should say, she was.
Because unlike this bozo, Polimom didn’t flounder and gasp and flop about like a landed fish, and as a result, that Mom and I spent the better part of the next hour discussing issues and positions… and occasionally our kids.
Thanks to all that time spent talking, unfortunately, Polifamily ended up having to eat take-out that night for dinner. Maybe next time somebody asks about Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments, I’ll just refer them to hilzoy.
(Too bad nobody shared that url with the hapless Kirk Watson, eh?)
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Added: Looks to me as if a whole slew of folks could benefit from a review of hilzoy’s posts. Even Ed Morrissey, who usually doesn’t so easily buy into easy one-liner campaign slogans and smoke, blows it:
Obama simply doesn’t have any record to show. He has been in the Senate a grand total of three years, one of which he’s spent running for President. He has no record of even attempting to bring any of the themes on which he’s running now to the Senate for consideration as actual legislative product. Why didn’t he act when he had the chance?
Sigh… C’mon, Ed. Are you seriously just gonna regurgitate the easy talking points?
Update II: Sen. Kirk Watson immediately steps up to the plate. Good for him — and he did it with humor, yet. That has to have been a really hard piece to write…
I haven’t read your blog in ages, so I find it coincidental that you are supporting Barack Obama on the day I actually went to vote for him (no lines at 8:00 am).
You may also be interested in Molly Ivin’s point of view, circa 2006: http://freepress.org/columns/display/1/2006/1304
Hi CLG — Great to hear from you! Yes, Molly Ivins would have added rather a lot to all these discussions, wouldn’t she? Thanks for sharing that.
How does that expression go? I’m not sure I remember it exactly, but something like, “Better to keep your mouth closed and have people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Keep your sense of humor!
Ed’s been going off the deep end lately. Exhibit A
It says you’re acting like an idiot Ed.
Actually, Davebo, I have noticed that Ed is showing himself to be rather more partisan-centric and less thoughtful / reasoned in the last month or so. Dear Husband (who I would describe as a Capt. Ed fan) and I had a conversation about exactly that recently. DH is not impressed with him lately either.
I have always called Ed “Captain Kirk lite”, supporting what seemed to be a macho military position without much knowledge of the real issues. His advantage is he wasn’t as crazy as most of the other guys I read on the right.