My project: Get one Repub to vote for Lamont.

[femmedem]

Okay, I have a couple of other little election-related projects, like registering some of my younger friends and making sure they get to the polls.

But my pet project is to get my Republican friend (Let's call him JD for John Doe) to vote for Lamont.

JD's not a freeper. He's a CT Repub, meaning he's not a fundie, he believes in global warming, he thinks the war was a mistake and he disapproves of the Bush Administration's massive deficits. Our political discussions are polite and respectful. I think we both approach them with a certain curiosity about how the other side thinks.

Now I should mention that I mostly run into JD at the coffee house where I work part time. He's a customer, I'm working, so we usually have time for only a few sentences at a time. My project is progressing slowly.


Right now I'm at the listening stage. Why does he support Lieberman rather than Lamont? He thinks Lamont is a one-issue candidate. He thinks that even though the war was wrong, we can't just pull out now. And he's really bothered that Al Sharpton was on stage with Lamont on primary night.

I said I wasn't interested in changing his mind about Sharpton, but did he know that Lieberman had asked for Sharpton's endorsement before the primary, and that when Sharpton refused, Lieberman attacked Lamont for having Sharpton on stage with him? "I didn't know that," JD said. He thought that was sleazy.

The next day I asked what he would say to someone like me who believes that Lieberman and everyone else who went along with the war showed such horrifically bad judgement that they didn't deserve to be reelected?

"I'd say you have a point," he said. "But they were working with faulty intelligence. Everyone--almost the whole world--thought Saddam Hussein had WMD's and proved a threat to humanity. That turned out not to be true. But everyone thought so."

Hmmm....I thought. Here's something to work with. But I wanted to have some articles or links to give him before I started in on "NO, that's not what the whole world thought." Instead, I asked, "Did you know that Lieberman publicly called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 1998?"

"1998?" JD said. "I didn't know that. That's interesting."

To Be Continued...

[William769]

1. Talking about Lieberman?

[skipos]

2. Good luck!

I am glad you are up to the challenge.

[femmedem]

3. Thanks! I'm viewing it as a test case.

I figure if I can learn what arguments will sway him, then I'll know what arguments to use in letters to the editor or op-eds.