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.<\/p>\n
However, inevitably, during my trip to India, the subject of the US presidential campaign came up<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Every one of us was voting for Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
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.<\/em> <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I didn’t argue the matter.<\/p>\n He also thinks Obama is genuinely inspiring, not just another Democratic pol, but someone who can lead the country.<\/p>\n I can’t <\/em>argue against that.<\/p>\n I suspect that, had you polled this same group four or eight years ago, you would have had a very different mix.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2008"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":443,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/14\/oil_and_water.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":0},"title":"Oil and water","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Apr-03 12:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While Scott and I seem to be on different planets regarding Iraq, we can both heartily agree that this story is disturbing India, her older siblings, Tyla and Garrett, and...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12780,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/29\/still_home.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":1},"title":"Still home","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 29-Sep-08 8:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"My original plan had been to go back into the office today, with the idea that the landscapers will be finishing up their activities. Game plan has changed, though, for...","rel":"","context":"In "Home Improvement"","block_context":{"text":"Home Improvement","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/home-improvement"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12738,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/07\/getting_ready_for_india.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":2},"title":"Getting ready for India","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Oct-08 2:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm off on Sunday to India, and the 17-million-strong city of Mumbai (Bombay). Getting all the last-minute details ready -- checking out the consulate info, state department info,...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/india.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30253,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/13\/tweets-from-2012-09-13.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":3},"title":"Tweets from 2012-09-13","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Sep-12 10:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trader Joe's confirmed for 8th & Colorado, Denver. Still waiting for a SE metro location to be named. Link # Weather remarkably cool and pleasant this morning. Figures that I'm about to head off to monsoon season India for the week. # I wish I were such a frequent traveler\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30254,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/13\/tweets-from-2012-09-13.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":4},"title":"Tweets from 2012-09-13","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Sep-12 10:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trader Joe's confirmed for 8th & Colorado, Denver. Still waiting for a SE metro location to be named. Link # Weather remarkably cool and pleasant this morning. Figures that I'm about to head off to monsoon season India for the week. # I wish I were such a frequent traveler\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129896,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/22\/john-oliver-on-filling-the-scotus-vacancy.html","url_meta":{"origin":13698,"position":5},"title":"John Oliver on filling the SCOTUS vacancy","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Feb-16 11:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And doing so in his inimitable fashion.Two notes:1. Heard a brand new GOP excuse this week: that the presidential election is getting so nasty that it would be disrespectful of the office of Supreme Court justice to hold a confirmation hearing in the middle of such political smear campaigns and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}