Office and Politics

I don’t talk much politics around the office. I mean, that’s one of those sure-fire ways to cause enmity and friction, and it’s not really what office relationships are supposed to be about.

However, inevitably, during my trip to India, the subject of the US presidential campaign came up

Five American IT professionals from a multi-national engineering firm. Middle management. One from Texas. One from the “Squirrel Meat Belt.” One a VP. One an immigrant from India. One from a middle-class suburban Catholic background.

Every one of us was voting for Barack Obama.

The biggest (and most encouraging surprise) was from the gent from Tennessee, who has been a life-long Republican, from a family of life-long deep-blood-red Republicans. He’s decided to cross over for this election. His argument:

I’ve always just hated the way the Democratic Party panders to the electorate, promising them stuff they know they can’t deliver. But the Republicans have become even worse, pandering in a way the Democrats can never match, and doing fear-mongering, too. And the pick of Palin was just the final insult. 

For what it’s worth, he still thinks McCain is an honorable man, but says (a) his time has come and gone, and (b) it’s a deep shame how his campaign has “forced” him into running in such a negative way.

I didn’t argue the matter.

He also thinks Obama is genuinely inspiring, not just another Democratic pol, but someone who can lead the country.

I can’t argue against that.

I suspect that, had you polled this same group four or eight years ago, you would have had a very different mix.

For what it’s worth, the Indians who were in the room during any of these conversations were all pro-Obama, too. None of them seemed to feel McCain’s foreign policy chops were all that much to their benefit.