By now, you've probably heard about Sarah Silverman's call to action of Jewish youth to visit their parents/grandparents in Florida to convince them to vote for Obama. Well, this lapsed Catholic and her non-practicing Episcopalian husband will be heeding the call and traveling to Florida this weekend to convince as many loved ones as we can that Obama is the way to go.
My parents and brother need no convincing. They were all Hillary Democrats, but seamlessly made the transition to supporting Obama. But I do have hometown friends that aren't as politically tuned in as the rest of us or have other, shall we say, nefarious influences in their ears. My objective is to at least provide a counterbalance to the right wing talking points and at most put everything I learned in my persuasive speech class to good use.
My husband has a tougher go of it. He will be trying to convince his mother to vote for a Democrat for the first time since Bill Clinton. You would think she would be itching to vote for a Democrat after 8 years of Bush, but there are multiple dynamics behind her switch to "independence". One is that my father-in-law, after spending his whole life as a Democrat, woke up one day a die-hard one-issue Republican. I know people say one-issue voters don't exist, but I can personally vouch for one. He votes solely on the abortion issue. No one knows what led him to this revelation after so many years of not caring about it, but there is no convincing him to stray from his belief. He has only recently stopped idolizing Bush, but thinks Palin is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The other issues behind my mother-in-law's soft McCain vote has to do with her quiet homophobia. She will never, ever blatantly say anything homophobic and treats everyone nicely, but if the subject turns to gay friends or whatnot, she will get the heebie-jeebies and leave the room. What makes this even sadder is that her own brother is gay but she absolutely refuses to acknowledge it. But she treats his significant other of 30+ years as a member of the family, so who knows what goes through her head. She is a woman of logic and facts though (especially regarding finances), so I believe she can be swayed. She has voted the opposite of my father-in-law many times so his influence isn't absolute.
I find it fascinating that my very conservative in-laws managed to raise three Democratic sons. Of course, my two brothers-in-law split for the blue states of Massachusetts and California as soon as they could and we ended up in the reddest part of the South. It has given us an advantage though in that we know the mindset from the inside out and can be more persuasive in our arguments. Here's hoping at least.
I will update next week after our adventures in Floridaland.
