Beauty shop politics
I was just having my monthly hair trim at the neighborhood salon here in small town Oregon, and as wisps of hair tumbled to the ground, the talk turned somewhat surprisingly to politics. Usually, it's all about Little League, or the high school dance team, but I guess there is a sense that Oregon's votes might matter on May 20. Anyway, this was the essence of the conversation I overheard:
Client: Well, this election's turning out to be quite something.
Beautician: Yes, it's been pretty interesting so far, hasn't it?
Client: That Obama, he scares me. He just scares me.
Beautician(clearly a beauty shop diplomat): They ALL scare me.
Client: Obama has just too many ties to the terrorists. They want to see him elected because they can push him around.
Now, my tongue is already purple from my having bitten it over my mother's backing of HRC. It got a lot purpler today, because i didn't want to drop a bomb in the middle of all that beauty shop bonhomie. But I have to wonder a) how typical those sentiments are, i.e. that Obama is in league with "the terrorists;" b) whether this kind of disinformation is responsible for some of the problems he has had with elderly and/or blue-collar voters, and c) whether or not superdelegates and others ought to take into account these kinds of sentiments in helping to choose the nominee. Is it really too much to expect of American voters to embrace someone quite different from the "normal" presidential candidate, even when the situation in the country demands quite substantive change?
What do you think?
Client: Well, this election's turning out to be quite something.
Beautician: Yes, it's been pretty interesting so far, hasn't it?
Client: That Obama, he scares me. He just scares me.
Beautician(clearly a beauty shop diplomat): They ALL scare me.
Client: Obama has just too many ties to the terrorists. They want to see him elected because they can push him around.
Now, my tongue is already purple from my having bitten it over my mother's backing of HRC. It got a lot purpler today, because i didn't want to drop a bomb in the middle of all that beauty shop bonhomie. But I have to wonder a) how typical those sentiments are, i.e. that Obama is in league with "the terrorists;" b) whether this kind of disinformation is responsible for some of the problems he has had with elderly and/or blue-collar voters, and c) whether or not superdelegates and others ought to take into account these kinds of sentiments in helping to choose the nominee. Is it really too much to expect of American voters to embrace someone quite different from the "normal" presidential candidate, even when the situation in the country demands quite substantive change?
What do you think?
posted by buckarooskidoo at 12:53 PM
2 Comments:
i had a conversation around the issue in the doctor's office with my sister. a nice little older lady broached the subject of watching the PBS special on healthcare systems around the world- and how ours' stinks- after having heard me say to my sister that i was glad that they had switched the channel off of fox since the last visit. apparently, she had gauged it safe to speak liberally with strangers after hearing a denunciation of fox news. sigh. i just wonder when the left is going to start going after mccain instead of after each other. that is what mind boggles me. how many simpletons must we have that we don't put clinton's rumors to rest?
The beautician scares me.
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