Last week, in an attempt to see what the “other side” thought of the debates, I headed to the Life lounge on Wilshire, where the Southern California Republican Club (SCRC) was hosting a debate party.
I initially thought I was in for an hour and a half yawn-athon with the suited-up, business-class crowd, but as the evening wore on, and alcohol accumulated, these conservatives loosened up — and started talking.
We had just finished watching the showdown on the big screen, when Wendy Randall, a Brentwood, California resident, launched into a screed. She was glad that McCain had finally taken the gloves off.
“The Obama people are such scum and such lowlifes that [McCain] finally acted the way he should have acted from the very beginning,”she said.
“Instead of [McCain] being passive and trying to be a gentleman, he acted like a real man…and stood up for what the Republican Party stands for,” Randall continued. “He wasn’t a sissy.”
She talked on as though poor John McCain had suffered most of the beating during this near-done run for the White House. Last I heard, McCain and his lipstick-loving sidekick were the ones throwing the word “radical” around at rallies, while dropping a trail of tiny “terrorist” tidbits from stump to stump across the country. Last I heard, the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies were yelling threats and hurling obscenities at Barack “Hussein” Obama. Last I heard, well, it didn’t matter what I heard—because Randall wasn’t about to listen.
“Republicans are the best,” she said with a smile. Minutes earlier, Randall had whipped two plastic cards out of her wallet, one with McCain’s smiling mug stamped on it, to prove her involvement with the Republican National Committee and membership in the “Inner Circle”—whatever that means.
“[McCain's] a gentleman, first of all,” she gushed. “And he’s a class act. Obama is an embarrassment.” In another breath, she asserted, “Everything that’s affiliated with [Obama] is tainted.”
And Michelle Obama? Oh, don’t get her started.
“[Obama's] wife is a racist. I’ve read her thesis, she’s a very angry lady. And I’m sorry for her that she has to carry that anger around. She’s gonna need a face-lift if she continues to do so.”
Randall went on to call Barack Obama a liar and describe him as a “frightening guy” and a “radical imbecile.” She went on about Acorn and Jeremiah Wright, and then suggested that an Obama presidency would lead to another 9/11.
Wait, what?
“I hope to God I’m wrong,” she added.
When I had my fair share of Obama bashing, I ventured across the room in search of someone a little more nuanced, and sparked a discussion with Jasmine Rose, a young thirty-something who happens to be a Jill-of-all-trades: owns a modeling agency, freelances as a professional photographer, sings, acts, and sells real estate on the side. How this woman has time to follow politics, I don’t know.
“My entire life I’ve always heard people say that they want somebody down to earth, somebody more like us, and we finally get somebody in there—Sarah Palin—and then they’re suddenly saying that she’s not intelligent enough and it’s ridiculous. She’s very intelligent. She’s sharp,” said Rose.
When Palin rallied a crowd of 20,000 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California earlier this month, Rose was one of the pack. She claims she didn’t hear anyone scream the derogatory remarks the press keeps harping on and on about at this particular event. Like most other Republicans, Rose considers the media a bit biased. I asked why she thinks the press, along with the academics and most of Hollywood, has a tendency to lean liberal.
“You don’t have to be intelligent to be an actor or singer or whatever,” she replied, though she is one herself.
I approached Austin Dragon, the founder of the SCRC, and asked him what he thought about the crowd his club attracts. From where I stood, I saw a room full of mostly older, fairly well-off, white folks. Stereotype accomplished. (For whatever reason, I was under the impression the SCRC was a more diverse group.) Austin took a quick look around.
“You don’t see a diverse crowd? I see a diverse crowd,” he replied.
I could have counted the number of black people who attended the event on my right hand—and still have had a finger to spare. This crowd for McCain was nowhere near diverse, and Dragon knew it. He e-mailed me over the weekend:
“I did want to give you another piece of political insight. You had mentioned to me about the ‘diversity’ of [the] gathering. Having been both a liberal Democrat and now (and forever) a Republican conservative, let me let you in on another secret . . . The reason you see ‘diversity’ in Democratic gatherings is because someone sits down and says, ‘Let’s have some Blacks stand here, some Hispanics here, a few Asians here, let the visibly gay guy stand here and we’ll [put] the wheelchair gal over there.’ The Republican gathering simply says, ‘All Republicans are welcome!’ I’ll let you be the judge as to which is more ‘truthful’ and which is more ‘noble.’”
Maybe someone should let Austin in on another secret: When a politician is attracting 100,000-strong crowds for his campaign rallies, as Obama did in St. Louis, Missouri this past weekend, I don’t think the Dems have to go out of their way to stage anything.
The surge in the polls speaks for itself.
Tags: mccain, obama, republicans, sarah palin