The Real Politically Correct

I really didn't want to write this now. It's Saturday night and I'm in the process of thinking about getting ready to go out and grab a drink with friends. But...I've just finished reading a friend's blog about politics and it struck a nerve with me.

Let me preface this by saying that I truly like this friend of mine that posted this blog. I even support the candidate she's been campaigning for but I have my own favorite. What strikes me is how she goes about supporting this candidate. It's a little naive and somewhat ignorant. Let me explain what I'm talking about.

Her blog (Don't give her shit just because she's a girl. I know - what's up with me being nice?!) talks about going out to bars with her brother on Thanksgiving eve and passing out fliers and pamphlets to people waiting in lines to get into said bars. They were trying to drum up a dialogue and create awareness about their candidate. I applaud the grass roots effort, I really do. Here's my beef though.

Her reasoning for wanting to go out on Thanksgiving eve to these bars to discuss her candidate is because all the college and just-out-of-college kids are back home for the holiday and tend to go out to bars that night to catch up with friends they haven't seen in a while. She figured she'd capitalize on this high concentration of young(er) people and campaign for her guy (guess you realized it's not Hillary!).


Here's the problem though: while wanting to get young people to vote is hard enough, you're trying to get them to vote for your guy and are doing so while they wait in line at a bar. Do you really think the majority of these people give a rat's ass about some solicitor of anything regardless of the fact that (maybe even especially because) it's about politics? The importance of politics cannot be overstated (I don't know if you've been paying attention the last seven years...) but there is no way in hell you're going to get a positive reaction about politics from people a) waiting in line to get into a bar, b) on Thanksgiving eve when they're thinking about family, friends, and football and nothing else, and c) who are generally under the age of 27 and for the majority of their lives are sick of people telling them what they should do and/or trying to be sold something.

Yes, I get it. You feel strongly about your candidate. Fantastic. You really want to promote your candidate and want to do it grass roots style. That's very commendable and I applaud that effort and enthusiasm. But let me explain something to you about people in general: they are fickle. If they aren't in the mood to listen to something they will be more turned off to it than before you started trying to sell them on the idea. So even if I was remotely interested in your candidate before and I was standing in line at one of those bars I would have probably told you to get lost because I'm not there to have a dialogue about our crappy monetary system or the pros and cons of the troop surge. I'm there to bullshit with my friends and get drunk. Get back to me on Monday when the holiday is over and my head's back on straight.

I'm not knocking my friend and I'm not knocking her candidate despite the fact I plan on voting for someone else. I'm knocking her tactics. This story about the bars and grass roots campaigning, for me, is just the latest and greatest of instances where I felt I've been beaten over the head with political campaigning. Virtually everyday I'm told how great this candidate is and the more I hear it the more I get annoyed. I don't like her candidate any less but that's because he's a commendable candidate. Not the best (in my view) but if he were a complete assbag I'd have probably berated her by now with how obnoxiously stupid she's being. Fortunately she's picked someone fairly worthy of The Office.

The general theme here? Be smart about your political campaigning. No matter who you support be considerate of everyone else. And that doesn't mean having the mindset of "I respect your opinion but I just want to have a dialogue about the issues...and how great my candidate is in regards to them." Maybe the idiots of this country need to be beaten over the head with constant campaigning but I don't. And I'm pretty sure many of my friends don't. I'd like to believe that even though many young people are fickle they are at least intelligent enough and cognisant enough of the issues to be able to make a wise decision about our future. When you beat me over the head with "check out _____!!!" it makes me want to check it out less a) because I don't like being told what to do and b) anything repeated enough becomes obnoxious.

I have my candidate and I've mentioned to my friends who I'm supporting. They know who I support and I've definitely said I think everyone should vote for him for X, Y, and Z. But then I leave it at that. If I've done a good enough job explaining why my candidate is so fantastic then they will take it upon themselves to search out more info on this guy and make their own decision. But the moment I get bombarded with MySpace bulletins and IMs and emails and texts I'm going to get annoyed and not want to learn about that person despite your incessant requests/demands (depending on how you look at it). I got a text from her on Thanksgiving saying "Happy Thanksgiving everyone and don't forget to vote for _____!!" I thought to myself, "I love you but give it a rest. It's freakin' Thanksgiving. Take a breather, babe."

So please, I beg of you, do your own homework. Support your candidate. Do some grass roots campaigning even. Just know when enough is enough. Know the tipping point with certain demographics. You can probably push the issue more with older people because they will have more patience. You'll have to play a different card with younger people. Don't be naive and think everyone's the same. They're not. To win the White House you need to be smart about the issues but you also need to be smart about people. This applies to candidates and supporters alike. Remember that the next time you plan on ambushing 300 thirsty twenty somethings on the eve of a major holiday.