they decided to indulge me and invited me inside. the mother was convinced that by Revelations an obama victory would hasten the end of the world, and why would you want that? (somehow the idea that he was a muslim and then having control of the country was projected to bring on armaggedon). her daughter was more concerned that his running mate was an idiot and had only one thing decided for sure: to vote for anyone except mark udall (democrat for senate), who taxes dead people. the two also had a relative in the military who had recently been beaten by a black man.
we went over the issues: tax breaks for the middle class, grants for college in return for service, a universal health care plan. i had them ask me questions about any policy of either candidate and explain them in detail. they started to get concerned that i was too convincing and that they could hear the same thing from a mccain supporter, so i decided to play a new role: i pretended to be a mccain supporter and they would ask me the same questions. i answered them with how i would help the middle class: no medical plan, no tax breaks, no money for higher education. they enjoyed it. it was hard for them to argue.
some interesting confessions followed. the daughter mentioned that she had the whole ballot filled out and she went through 3 pens to finally get one to mark off mccain on the ballot. she was convinced something was wrong with that.
the result: the 2 of them will go to early voting tomorrow and trade in their pen-marked ballots for early ballots and vote for obama. and they will try to convince the rest of their family to do the same.
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