I'm new at my job, just three months, so I haven't gotten to know everyone there yet. This morning I asked the guy at the next desk if he watched the convention last night, particularly the Palin speech. Now, this guy is a mid-50s Latino -- completely Americanized -- with two teenage boys. He sings in his church choir (hint -- very religious) and is by all accounts a fairly mannered and honorable man.
In answer to my question, he said he had seen Palin's speech, but wasn't too concerned about what she said, but rather how it was delivered. Hmm, I thought, an opening for an interesting discussion. I asked, "And what did you think of the delivery? I thought it seemed a bit snarky." He didn't disagree, but acknowledged that conventions are full of snarky commentary because that's how they energize their bases. I agreed.
Then he said, "But essentially I'm a one issue voter. I look at how many lives have been lost during Clinton's year as opposed to the Bush years." Great, I thought, he's talking about the war and will tie it to his college-age son who had been thinking about the military.
WRONG! He clarified, "It's all about abortion for me. Whoever is on the right side of that issue gets my vote; I don't care about anything else."
As my friend Titus used to say, "M.E.G.O." That's "My Eyes Glaze Over." I drifted back to my desk after realizing that my neighbor is a True Believer who heard what he needed to hear last night.
All Politics is local.
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