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McCain is the guy for the Republicans this election. He's the reason my parents who have never voted for a Democrat in any elected office since I've been alive (I'm 33) will vote for Barak Obama (if he wins the nomination). If Hilary wins, my folks said they won't even vote. Either way, I'm happy.
See, ya have to understand why this is a big deal for me. These are the people that I pleaded with to vote for Kerry in 2004. They wouldn't because he was "too damn smug," whatever the hell that meant. I printed out tons of information about Kerry from links here on DU (from reputable newspaprer, tv and magazine sources) and took it to them to read so they could make an informed decision in 2004. My mom, without even looking at it, dropped it the garbage can in front of me sating, "I'm not going to read that shit." And here they are, wanting to vote for Obama.
And the Republicans did this to themselves. My parents hate the Clintons thanks to the Right Wing Smear machine from back when Slick Willy was in office. They dislike McCain because of the Right Wing Smear Machine during the 2000 Republican Primary. That brainwashing has been so thorough that they cannot accept either Clinton or McCain as good people. And they can't even tell you why they don't like them. They just don't. So now here they are willing to vote for Obama.
Even more so, this is huge for my folks. They're a wee bit racist. I mean, they don't hate black people but they see no problem with the "N" word. To them, that was just a word another word for black. I grew up in a back water, hick, coal cracker town in NE Pennsylvania where I never saw a person of color in real life until I went to college in Philly. And that was the mentallity of the region where I grew up. It was a 100% white community; a Polish, Russian, Slovak, Ukranian area with a bit of Itallian tossed in for flavor. See, the people from my neck of the woods never confronted race issues because there were no minorities. No one ever stood up and said the "N" word was wrong to them, so they never saw a problem with using it. I mean, after years of working on them, I finally convinced them to stop using the word around me and my family. They refuse to say African American, though. They hate political correctness. Heck, in my little hick town, the Pols call each other Pollacks, so PC ideas kinda escape the whole region. And to just further illustrate the mind set of the area I grew up in, my parents practically disowned my becasue I was going to marry a Protestant. I'm Catholic. Oh, the horror.
That's the way their parents raised them. And the way their grandparents raised their parents. And the way their great grandparents raised their grandparents. Blacks stay with blacks. Slovaks hang with Slovaks. Itallians stay with Itallians. Catholics stick with Catholics. So while I get pissed at them and argue over the sheer idiocy of that mentallity, I can't hate them for having those ideas; ideas that have been hammered so hard into their heads for most of their 75 plus years on this earth, that it's almost impossible to undo it. And that's why it's amazing to me that they both want to see Obama Barak in the White House. I'm amazed, proud and confused all at the same time.
Thank you, John McCain.
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