Hey, quiet! You'll wake the swing voters
We were sitting around in the coffee shop talking about the swing vote.
"How many people here already made up their mind?" asked Mike. Everybody's hand went up.
"So who the hell are these swing-vote people?" Mike asked. "Anybody know any of them?"
Jack spoke up. "I know a lot of people who aren't going to vote at all," he said. "Maybe the polls count those people as swing voters."
I should tell you now that the coffee shop is split between Kerry and Bush voters. Passions, fueled by caffeine, run so high that we all took a pact not to talk politics over our bagels. We struggle to keep our promise, and we often fail.
"Well," said Dan. "Anybody who heard those great speeches about George Bush's resolve to pay back 9/11 - I can't imagine how you could hear that and still be undecided. You vote for Bush, the payback guy."
"But he paid back the wrong people," I said. "He was great when he paid back Afghanistan. But Iraq was a war nobody wanted."
"Hey!" yelled Frank. "No politics, remember?"
The conversation lulled while we all had another cup of coffee.
"I think we were talking about the swing vote," Frank said.
But nobody wanted to talk about that. So we took a kind of unanimous time-out. What we talked about for the rest of breakfast was the wonderful summer we have had. We talked about cool days and rainy nights and how well our gardens grew under those conditions.
Since we were all aging vets at the table, we talked about our years in the service and how most of us (but not all) wouldn't have traded them for anything.
We talked about the aches and pains of getting older. We compared the various pills we were taking to try to stave off Father Time.
We talked about how, when we were younger, life seemed a simple plan. And we talked about how, the older we got, the more complex it got.
And the more we talked about these things, the farther we got from talking about the election. Some of us had been in Korea, and some of us had been in Vietnam. But as harsh as those experiences had been, we'd all come gratefully home to America. America was the welcome mat for us, as it is for most of the world.
Then Mike went back to the subject of swing voters. And that broke the mood.
Suddenly we were arguing over our bits of bagel - all yelling at once, like the talking heads on the TV shows do. The rules of coffee shop détente had broken down.
"Kerry is a traitor," somebody said. "His wounds were only nicks. He faked his way out of Vietnam."
"Bush was a drunk and a draft-dodger," somebody else said. "He used his old man's influence to get out of Vietnam."
"Kerry is a flip-flopper," somebody said. "He got into the Senate and never took a firm stand on anything."
"Bush is a nitwit," somebody else said. "He went to Yale but can hardly speak English. He got his job through vote fraud."
Mike banged on the table. And we all shut up because we knew we had violated coffee shop protocol.
"We were talking about the swing voters," Mike said. "Where are they?"
"I told you already," Jack said. "They're not going to vote."
"Why not, do you think?" I asked. "Is it because they can't separate the truth from the lies?"
"No," said Jack. "I just think they're lazy. They've had it too good for too long. They don't want to know the world has changed. They don't want to hear it. But it has."
"And they are the swing voters?" I said. "The ones who may decide this election?"
"Yeah," said Jack. "And they don't even care who's pushing the swing."
We were sitting around in the coffee shop talking about the swing vote.
"How many people here already made up their mind?" asked Mike. Everybody's hand went up.
"So who the hell are these swing-vote people?" Mike asked. "Anybody know any of them?"
Jack spoke up. "I know a lot of people who aren't going to vote at all," he said. "Maybe the polls count those people as swing voters."
I should tell you now that the coffee shop is split between Kerry and Bush voters. Passions, fueled by caffeine, run so high that we all took a pact not to talk politics over our bagels. We struggle to keep our promise, and we often fail.
"Well," said Dan. "Anybody who heard those great speeches about George Bush's resolve to pay back 9/11 - I can't imagine how you could hear that and still be undecided. You vote for Bush, the payback guy."
"But he paid back the wrong people," I said. "He was great when he paid back Afghanistan. But Iraq was a war nobody wanted."
"Hey!" yelled Frank. "No politics, remember?"
The conversation lulled while we all had another cup of coffee.
"I think we were talking about the swing vote," Frank said.
But nobody wanted to talk about that. So we took a kind of unanimous time-out. What we talked about for the rest of breakfast was the wonderful summer we have had. We talked about cool days and rainy nights and how well our gardens grew under those conditions.
Since we were all aging vets at the table, we talked about our years in the service and how most of us (but not all) wouldn't have traded them for anything.
We talked about the aches and pains of getting older. We compared the various pills we were taking to try to stave off Father Time.
We talked about how, when we were younger, life seemed a simple plan. And we talked about how, the older we got, the more complex it got.
And the more we talked about these things, the farther we got from talking about the election. Some of us had been in Korea, and some of us had been in Vietnam. But as harsh as those experiences had been, we'd all come gratefully home to America. America was the welcome mat for us, as it is for most of the world.
Then Mike went back to the subject of swing voters. And that broke the mood.
Suddenly we were arguing over our bits of bagel - all yelling at once, like the talking heads on the TV shows do. The rules of coffee shop détente had broken down.
"Kerry is a traitor," somebody said. "His wounds were only nicks. He faked his way out of Vietnam."
"Bush was a drunk and a draft-dodger," somebody else said. "He used his old man's influence to get out of Vietnam."
"Kerry is a flip-flopper," somebody said. "He got into the Senate and never took a firm stand on anything."
"Bush is a nitwit," somebody else said. "He went to Yale but can hardly speak English. He got his job through vote fraud."
Mike banged on the table. And we all shut up because we knew we had violated coffee shop protocol.
"We were talking about the swing voters," Mike said. "Where are they?"
"I told you already," Jack said. "They're not going to vote."
"Why not, do you think?" I asked. "Is it because they can't separate the truth from the lies?"
"No," said Jack. "I just think they're lazy. They've had it too good for too long. They don't want to know the world has changed. They don't want to hear it. But it has."
"And they are the swing voters?" I said. "The ones who may decide this election?"
"Yeah," said Jack. "And they don't even care who's pushing the swing."
