why has your mom voted R in the past? why was she considering voting for obama? what issues does your mom care about the most?

without knowing anything about your mom, it’s hard to know what arguments might work best.

McCain proved he has very poor judgment in choosing Palin. It was a crap shoot, and he is a gambler. This is no time for gambling.

I have the same Mom problem. She lives in Fla. Panhandle and keeps Fox “News” on. I think it’s too late to alter her actions for this election; I think she’s already voted absentee.

She got all upset by the ginned up fake ACORN news, just as targeted by Fox. I’ve printed up lists of point by point rebuttals, along with some of the outrageous actual acts of voter suppression from her beloved GOP.

The thing is, that she’s not a hateful selfish person as I picture the faceless Fox masses. She’s just easily mislead. But I want to use this election as an object lesson for her; sit down and spend some time helping her understand exactly why I say that Bill O. is not her friend.

She’s 84, and very health thank goodness. Maybe I can make a difference for her future.

I think Mom always voted R because Dad said it was the right thing to do. So she probably has some guilt even thinking about a Democrat now that Dad is gone. Mom directly cares about healthcare, medicare and social security due to her experiences the last few years and her age of course.

go straight for the mom jugular – mothers are smart enough NEVER to reward bad behavior

…and work that Greatest Generation angle. did friends, neighbors, loved ones perish on the beaches of Normandy and the islands of the Pacific just so some dry drunk child of privilege could come along and piss on the very freedoms they sacrificed so much for ???

Ask her to do it for you?
Fix the TV so it doesn’t get Fox News anymore so she doesn’t regret her choice?
Tell her you Love her even if she votes for McCain and take her to ice cream after voting cause chances are Obama will win your state?

Don’t forget Draft Dodger only people with connections got into the Texas Air National Guard during the war.
I wonder who’s score on the pilots exam was lower Bush or McCain’s?

I think, to a certain extent, that even though we live in a “democracy,” we tend to elect the President who represents the best father figure to us. Do we want a dad who’s erratic and unstable, flying off the handle, losing his temper, and backhanding the American people? Or would we prefer a calm, collected, fair-minded gentleman we respect and admire?

I’m sure there are many people in this same situation.

tell her about
SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE THAT MCnASTY and Palin would destroy,remind her of fdr and the great depesion,thats how

Tell her what the tax rate was in those days (WW2).
Here is a link
I found by googling. Very interesting, how a good strong country also has to have a good strong tax base. Not just paid for by poor and middle class, but by rich as well.
Then show her Obama’s tax plan and McCain’s, and let her decide who has the best ideas for investing in our most precious resource, our own people.

We tried a bunch of arguments with an in-law in the same position. She will no doubt vote wrong, so we have to love her just the same.

I think the winning argument is grandchildren: how can you reward a party that has raised the national debt to $10.5 Trillion? That debt is owed to foreigners: they sold our children and their children to foreigners and got nothing in return. Except they bailed out their rich friends.

My folks are 79 and have voted already for Barack, thank goodness( so will all 6 of their kids and assorted spouses and grandkids). If your Mom is feeling inclined to go R, because of McNasty’s traditional R cred… I would push the Palin as a liability argument. McCain has had numerous recurrences of melanoma; the last one he admitted to was in 2002 and the odds are good that it will recur and he will be incapacitated; then that woman will step into the office; and she is a horror show. Has your Mom heard the prank “Sarkozy” phone call where Palin gushes and soaks up the compliments and laughs about killing things? Pretty atrocious, even if you are a low information voter. She is McCain’s biggest decision so far? OY!
Good luck!

I think Mom always voted R because Dad said it was the right thing to do. So she probably has some guilt even thinking about a Democrat now that Dad is gone. Mom directly cares about healthcare, medicare and social security due to her experiences the last few years and her age of course.

thanks, that helps.

one idea might be to talk about social security and what would have happened if social security had been privatized as mccain wants to do. your dad wasn’t around to see the current financial crisis and sadly now that he’s gone there will be many things that he won’t see. the world is a changing place and what is right for today isn’t necessarily what was right for yesterday. we all have to take in new information and then try to do what we think is right. and (if you can truthfully say it) you don’t think even your dad would think it right for retired people to have to go hungry because some fool president had made them depend on the stock market.

digg and upvote on reddit

and that picture makes me laugh and laugh

My Florida 91 year old mom and former life long straight ticket Republican has already voted for Obama! Her reasons – “I’m not a racist like your father” (he’s been dead for years – knock me over hearing her say this) and shameful way Rs have treated veterans.

I think I have my Mom convinced to vote Democratic. My Dad, on the other hand…

google Susan Eisenhower and channel her.

This is not your father’s Republican party…Susan, and CC Goldwater, and Colin Powell and [fill-in your regional preference] and Chuck Hagel’s wife and former Senator Larry Pressler and former Governor Arne Carlson and….

GOTOV…Get Out the Obama Vote

As a nearly 72 year old woman I am convinced that McCain will cut Mecicare/Medicaid, Social Security abd everything else he and and his fake lady can get their hands on.

Point out the differences in the tenor of their campaigns. Is Barack Obama saying nasty things about John McCain or Sarah Palin? No, he has always spoken respectfully about McCain and simply blew off Palin as the divisive ploy that she is. Are the Democrats or any of their supporters spreading false hateful, racist, fear-mongering literature and phone messages in these final desperate hours? Not a one.

Maybe your mother trusts you more than your father did. If you have become a successful artist, you probably have discredited predictions that you were wasting your life or would get nowhere and all the other things that parents say to disuade their children from following a less financially secure path out of fear for our well-being. But, see? You had followed your heart and your instincts, and you were right to do so.

Now, your instinct is that Barack Obama is more than just a slick politician, he is Leader. Perhaps we no longer recognize true leadership because the vacuum that has been created by the two party system and its nasty politics has not done a very good job of raising the best and the brightest to the forefront, but instead, the most politically maleable. But Barack Obama beat the system with his leadership abilities. The Democratic Machine did not have him in mind as their candidate – the heir to the throne was supposed to be Hilary Clinton. Instead, Senator Obama inspired millions of people who had never voted in a primary in their lives to come to the polls and the caucuses and, because he inspires respect and ability and trust, you know, the stuff that leadership entails, he was chosen as the nominee.

Wouldn’t it be nice, you might say, to have a really really smart person in the Whitehouse, someone who is an expert on the Constitution, who will listen to divergent viewpoints and make well-informed decisions that are best for the entire nation instead of for his own political party? Remember, he is not entrenched in party politics, like McCain is.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who built a career on intellect and ability and compassion and strength, instead of on the coattails of his family background, with a little help from his millionairess wife, or on the kind of bubba connections that Sarah Palin tries to pretend to? And wouldn’t it be nice to see issues discussed as complicated and challenging instead of as black-and-white dualities? After all, that financial meltdown, the one where the Bush administration forced through those emergency measures that gave all that money to the institutions without any restrictions, which Barack Obama is sure to do something about when he becomes president, despite his refusal to grandstand about it and turn it into a political football, like McCain did – that meltdown happened precisely because those financial derivitives packages were too complicated for anyone to really understand, so we went forward pretending that someone had a handle on how they worked, when they really didn’t, because our society likes to make things simpler than they really are. Barack Obama represents complexity itself. He is neither black nor white. He is a christian, but he has reached out to people of all faiths and understands that chistianity does not hold all the answers to many many people on this globe. He understands what freedom of expression is all about. He appreciates the values of this nation by virtue of having lived in another nation, Indonesia, as a comparison. He has achieved much more than he is given credit for – President of the Harvard Law Review; helped people who had lost their jobs in Chicago; fought the Chicago Democratic political machine; worked to stem nuclear proliferation; worked to make government more transparant.

Or just ask your mom to believe in you.

You and I sound like twins separated at birth! I’m an artist, too. And I’m a liberal Dem. My folks tend to vote either Democratic or in my dad’s case, last time he voted for Nader. I am having issues with both of them. My dad, raised in a bigoted household, still has race issues and seems to be unwilling to vote for Obama. However, he went at it with his neighbor, who put out a McCain sign the other day, so there’s still hope.

My mother might still be convinced to vote for Obama, but her big argument is that he will be assassinated. Yep. I don’t know how to fight that one. I have told her that all of the candidates have been under Secret Service protection since Day One, but she’s still not ready. On the up side, she asked her sister if she was voting for Obama, and her sister said she would never vote for a black man. My mom laid into her about that, thankfully. She told her that “they were not raised that way and she was acting like an idiot.” So there’s always hope that they’ll come through.

Good luck.

Great idea. I have a friend from Texas and she put together a packet of Republicans for Obama and why to send to her friends still living there to show them what was going on in their own party and why.

Wow_ I like that!

I find myself in the same dilemma. My mother is 77 and probably has never voted for a democrat in her life. I think the problem goes beyond issues and rational thought. It is partly a matter of self-identification. There is a big part of my mother’s identity connected to “being a republican.” At her age, I don’t think that is something that can be shaken loose, regardless of how feckless the republican candidate is. We have spoken a few times about this election and I can feel how horribly conflicted she is. She has a good heart and it really does pain her to recognise how morally bankrupt her party has become.

She will in all probability cast her ballot for the repubs. I will probably never mention it again to her. I hope the state of NC does not come down to a single vote.

Ask her to think of the children;
her grand children if any, and her friends’ if not.
Their education and their future, already seriously impaired by weak leadership and poor decision making.
Remind her that the Republicans have no positive agenda. Point out how this nation defeated Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we have spent losing Afghanistan and Iraq.

Could your mom be persuaded by the issue of his age? She should know how quickly older people’s health and mental capacity can go downhill. Even if McCain was once qualified to be President (I don’t believe he ever was, but just for the sake of argument), his errors in judgment, memory lapses and his extremely erratic temper remind me of how my dad was acting about a year before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

I’m really sorry about your dad, also. That is a very, very tough thing to have to deal with.

You folks are all so awesome. Thanks so much and keep those suggestions coming!

ooo – BT is upstairs!!!

I had a similar problem. My mother was a diehard Repub all her life. After coming to the US as a war bride she cohosted a radio talk show w/ Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge on VOA and they became friends. When her husband ran for VP she was hooked. I think I convinced her to vote for LBJ but other than that there was no convincing. The LBJ thing may have been the fear card.

My 86 yr old mom-in-law heard on tv this morning how Palin got punked by the dj’s and just told me, “Well, she made an ass of herself again!”

my closing argument would go something like this:

mom: so are you going to vote for obama?

me: no way. i’m an old fashioned democrat. obama and today’s democrats are far too conservative for me. they remind me of the old fashioned republicans that dad used to vote for. yuck.

and if that doesn’t seal the deal, i’d have to go back to the drawing board *g*

seriously though – based on what donnahc told us, it sounds like her mom wants to vote for obama (and has good reason to) but needs a way to do it that will not be dishonoring the memory of a beloved husband and their shared ideas about what is right.

You might try and find a photo of the Obamas with the girls to show her.
Every one I’ve seen shows a very loving family. Moms love that stuff.
And those girls are very adorable.

1. Social Security — McCain wants to privatize it, there won’t be any left for you if he gets his hands on it.
2. Palin
3. The mean, nasty, brutish campaign McCain’s run
4. McCain’s age
5. Palin

That is a very good idea. Huffpost has a couple of really nice slide shows of the family.

It ain’t worth it, you’ve made your case. Life’s too short.

the Fear thing – especially refusing to vote for Barack because of the fear of assassination (which many people confess to) – if the fear gets us down, they have won. do the Churchill thing “…..fear itself.”

gonna go all george will on ya here: 2. I was dragged to church as a kid and the only thing that sunk in was the basic tenants of being a good human.

that’s tenets, not tenants.

my spiel to undecideds is this: you leanin obama? then vote straight democratic and give him the 60 senate votes he’ll need to make some real changes. otherwise, dun bother.

Thanks kittykitty, I usually do pictures and not words, so I know my spelling could be better

i didn’t have to convince my mom (78 yo very vocal Democrat (-;), but i have heard her say time and again, “I won’t have to pay Federal Income tax once Obama is in office!” this thrills her to no end. (mom’s on a fixed income that falls well below the $50k threshold that Obama’s tax plan for seniors touts.)

~itunkala

That’s a tough one

I think maybe pointing out that the Republican Party is not the respectable opposition it once was – combined with reminding Mom to look back to the ‘can do’ spirit she & your Dad had that won WWII and how GI’s were given a decent Bill-along with a peek at some pictures of Obama and Michelle and the girls might give her enough food for thought to feel good about voting Democratic this go-round. Have a number of elderly Republicans in my own family.
I’m seeing a yearning in them to make the switch but also a agonished confusion as if they’d woken up on a different planet.

Dear Donna’s Mom,

My name is Peggy. I am 74 years old. You and I share memories of the good times in America. Men of honor were in the majority then, or so we believed.

I was first eligible at age 18 to vote. I proudly voted for Ike, the most respected man in the world back then (1952). I often go to the film clip of President Eisenhauer giving his farewell speech. It is good just to see his face and hear him speak. He wisely warned us of the power of the “military-industrial complex”, the fortunes to be made in the manufacture of weapons. America did not listen, and now we are there.

My deep faith in Ike has made it hard for me to believe that what has happened to America since 2000 is real. How did the destruction of our Constitution ever come about? How did we become a nation that tortures other human beings? How did so many dishonest people together gamble with the stock market to bring our nation to economic poverty?

It is unthinkable and seems so unreal to us of our generation.

It seems that we are on the brink of another Big Depression. God forbid. Since you are 5 hears older than I, I know that you remember those times. My father worked on the WPA (Works Project Administration) and we were on “relief”. I’m grateful for the food (”commodities”) that FDR’s administration gave us.

I’m most grateful for the public school I attended; it allowed me to self-educate myself out of poverty and be the bridge that my children crossed to gain college educations and secure a better life. From Donna’s article, it seems to me that you did the same. I congratulate you!

I have always been an independent voter (and thinker). We of our generation had to use all our wits just to survive and find a better way. We now must use all our wits to figure out the mess our country is in and cast a vote for the candidate that seems most able and dedicated to getting our country out of the ditch and back on course to again be the America that you and I knew; built on a sense of honor that “Our Boys” fought and died for and for which the women and girls stepped in and became riveters, welders, pilots, ambulance drivers, etc..

I’ve learned a lot about John McCain in the last 18 months or so. I have come to believe that he is not what I thought he was. May I suggest that you ask Donna to find on the computer this film of Senator McCain in the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs. It shows the actual live performance of Sen. McCain brow-beating Ms. Dolores Alfond who was a witness for the families of the POWs/MIAs who were still desperately seeking the release of classified information on the missing soldiers in Vietnam and Cambodia. Senator McCain, a member of the Committee, verbally abused Ms. Alfond. He later was responsible for what became known as “The McCain Resolution” that made those records sealed FOREVER. I can see no advantage to that for anyone except McCain. For me, that is unforgivable. He is most fearful that his own records as a POW will be revealed.

There are also online many testimonies by some of the POWs who were with John McCain in Hanoi. Most do not speak well of him or his conduct as a prisoner. I believe that he has not been truthful with us about that and many other matters in which he has been involved.

It seems to me that McCain’s answer to America’s problems boils down to: FIGHT, BOMB, THREATEN. Those tactics are what George W Bush has used to bring our country into poverty and to become hated throughout the world.

So, our other choice is Obama/Biden. From what I have observed and heard by their speeches and their responses to the vile, ugly, mostly lies about them, I believe they and their plans for America’s future is the best choice. They understand our struggles to make ends meet, to educate our grandchildren so that they, too, can cross that bridge to a better life and help beuild a better world for all its peoples.

Senators Obama and Biden believe in sitting down with the heads of all countries and reasoning together. If America and the world is to survive, we MUST communicate with all peoples and cultures and try to understand each other.

There are more reasons that I voted early for Obama/Biden, but my letter to you is already too long. Please consider the need to break the old pattern of thinking to which we of our generation has held. There is simply too much that is not what we believed it to be.

I wish you long life and happiness. I know something of you by the fine article written by your daughter, Donna. You did good, Mom!

Peggy

Just point out to her that she already knows why she wants to vote for Obama and not McCain, but she’s probably just having last minute doubts.

Tell her to think about how great she’s going to feel after she votes for Obama.

I find the best way to handle difficult situations/people is to ask questions. Ask her what changed her mind. Be interested. Not confrontive. If it works right, she’ll talk herself into it by using you as a sounding board. You can throw in items such as those mentioned above, if she seems too uncertain. But play it by ear. HTH

Oooh! Good one!

The DIGG is open and donnahc has 41 DIGGs. I really wish they would repair that connection to the box above.

I am very touched by all the responses, but Peggy, you have gone above and beyond my call for suggestions. I so appreciate you taking the time to write this. You are so kind. I will indeed pass your thoughts along to Mom, along with all the other good points here. Peace. -d.

I don’t see how your Mom can vote for McCain after she reads these responses. Thank you so much for inspiring so many Grannies & Grandpas to vote for the right candidate.

Thank you, Donna. Give Mom a hug for me.

You mother and I share the same generation; we have failed our children and our grandchildren. This is your future and we will fail you once again if we don’t trust your opinion of who best represents the vision and value and leadership you want for your generation.

Friedman says it best……….

Never has one generation spent so much of its children’s wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years. Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts. Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices. But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets, and the need for more bailouts, you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery.
The Bush team leaves us with another debt — one to Mother Nature. We have added tons more CO2 into the atmosphere these last eight years, without any mitigation effort. As a result, slowing down climate change in the next eight years is going to require even bigger changes and investments in how we use energy.
So, bottom line: Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with (unless it’s to get stone cold drunk so you don’t have to think about this mess we’re in). Vote for the person you’d most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage.
Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…..an.html?hp

I’m very sorry about your dad’s bout with Alzheimer’s. Hopefully someday we’ll have better progress and be able to prevent it early on.

You have the talking points in spades. Ask your mom to go over the points that have put her back on the fence one by one. The fact that she’s on the fence and was going to vote for Obama after years of lockstep conservative voting is in your favor.

Let her get out each reason and methodically counter it. You can knock the confusion out of the park and put her back in Obam’s camp and don’t forget the downticket people where her vote is needed.

I actually did manage to convince one of my two elderly parents to vote for Obama… well, actually, I think mom managed to convince herself. In the end I didn’t have to say much. All the credit belongs to Palin, I’m afraid. The fiscal conservatives represented by my parents and their friends find her absolutely despicable. And it probably didn’t hurt that their (Republican) minister sermonized against her too. I hate to say it, but these people want solid upstanding, non-wingnut old white males to represent them. Failing that, any credible male will do.

A fellow school parent told me he was going to vote for McCain. As he explained: I’m a lifelong republican and it always comes down to one thing: taxes.

He says he makes enough to be affected by the $250K/year mark. I don’t know if he was just yanking my chain (he’s like that and very likable when he does it). But I said, you can’t, you just can’t. Look at your wonderful young man of a son, do you want him to go to Iraq? McCain has not supported the troops.

This absolutely floored him. He had no idea that McCain voted against the troops (vs. the war) so many fricking times. So many folks are still snookered by the POW image.

Show your mother the diary on votevets and ask her if she can trust a guy who sells out his fellow troops?

Senator John McCain’s Record on Troop and Veterans’ Issues

I would ask her a few questions.

Whose opinion does she trust, even when she’s not sure she agrees? (e.g. Walter Cronkite)
What would she ask of Obama if he were to knock on her door?

Show her the issues link for both McCain and Obama…show her what McCain wants to do to social security and health insurance…ISSUES ISSUES ISSUES.