Irrational fears

On my flight back from Seattle yesterday, I sat next to a woman who we instantly started up a conversation. Usually on my flights, I zone out with my ipod or read but this gal clearly wasn't going to let this happen so I went along with it. She was a grandmother in her early sixties who was on a trip to go meet up with her sister-in-law for a road trip. We got to talk about a lot of things on the 90 minute flight, and politics came up.

She's from Seattle which is a hot bed of liberals and she's about a conservative Christian as you can get. Raised in the Midwest (Indiana), Catholic and married to a Boeing worker for the last nearly 40 years. She served in the Army out of high school and was an X-Ray tech before committing to being a stay-at-home mother.

We were talking about the gubernatorial race in Washington and how she felt that Gregoire had "bought" her election by paying for two subsequent recounts (past the initial one paid for by the citizens of Washington). I knew nothing of this other than it spurred me on to ask what she thought of the upcoming presidential election.

She flatly told me that Barack Obama scares her (with genuine fear in her eyes). I asked why and she recanted that it all spurs from the blip of controversy over whether or not Obama would say the Pledge of Allegiance (this made the news last year). I then asked her that maybe it was taken out of context and that he has also sworn oaths for his seats in the Illinois State legislature and the US Senate and that those should fall as proof to his duties. She told me it didn't matter.

What was really interesting to me was that how one incident is the crucible for one person's overwhelming opinion. Or more in that how John McCain seems to have won over an entire segment of our society by preying on their fears as white, Christian conservatives. In that he's Republican (how this group became the standard bearer for Christians is absolutely amazing to me and how blindly they group as a whole follows it) and that he has some interesting stories of faith (but not examples of his own).

I know that this presidential election will be close. There will be a huge segment of society that will vote party lines because they feel that the Republicans are the embodiment of Christianity yet I rarely have seen Christian motives from the group. Poor fiscal management, alienating the poor, giving the best options to our wealthy in a thought that it will trickle down (it does - just overseas to non-Americans). Where is the Country First that McCain talks about? How is it that the Republicans can blame it all on the Bush Administration and the rest of them had nothing to do with it? I find that argument the weakest in that the Republicans as a whole SHOULD have stepped up and ousted the guy if they felt he was doing such a crappy job. It's really ridiculous the entire platform for "change".

Sometimes the best person for the job is the one that is the most unlikely. Even if you don't agree with the entire ideals package. I just hope that whoever wins that the weight of the nation is realized and it is put to use to actually do something before it's too late.