Personal Voices: Talking to Bush Voters

Let's face it. Many progressives live in their own little bubble. It's only inevitable in a nation that has become geographically divided along ideological lines, as people increasingly choose to live in communities that favor their politics.

"The fastest-growing kind of segregation in the United States isn't racial. It is the segregation between Republicans and Democrats," observed Bill Bishop in the American Statesman. So it's no wonder that as a journalist living in San Francisco, I rarely met people who are leaning toward or support George Bush. I had no idea why any reasonable person could support him. What could they possibly think he's done to improve their lives over the past four years?

To find answers to those questions – as a concerned citizen, not as a journalist – I joined ReDefeat Bush, a group that meets nightly around the country and calls women in swing states to find out if they're registered to vote and willing to vote for John Kerry. On average, volunteers call 20 women per hour and register one or two new voters. Each of us also manages to change a few minds over the course of the evening. And those numbers add up when there are large numbers of us making the calls.

I quickly found myself having 10-20 minute conversations with women who are either undecided or are supporting Bush. They all had similar opinions about John Kerry.

"He isn't tough enough to fight terrorism," says Julie, a Bush supporter from Portland, Ore. "If Kerry were in office, Saddam Hussein would still be in power."

The male volunteers for our organization usually respond to such statements by telling the women that they are just plain wrong.

"But Saddam wasn't involved in 9/11!" yells one guy in outrage. Her comeback: Click.

Getting all self-righteous was obviously not the way to go.

I soon found a more effective, less presumptuous approach: Ask them what they think instead of telling them what to think.

"Do you think Saddam was connected to 9/11?" I ask Julie.

"Not anymore, but he's a horrible man and we're there, so let's finish the job," she replies. We spend the next 10 minutes talking about poor security in Iraq, the reasons why women in Iraq and Afghanistan are afraid to leave their homes, and what it must feel like to live in an occupied country. By the end of the conversation, she wonders out loud why the Bush administration is still bombing innocent Iraqis and why no one is talking about Afghanistan.

Julie usually gets most of her information from Fox, but is open to other sources of information, like the first presidential debate. It changed her mind about Bush.

"I wanted to believe him, but he kept repeating the same things," she says. "He was so uncomfortable."

Julie is now leaning towards Kerry.

Later in the same evening, I talk to Ursula, an 80-year-old life-long Republican who lives in Eugene, Ore.

"Why are you a Republican?" I ask.

"Because my family is Republican and Republicans are for the common man," she says. When I ask her what she thinks Bush has done for the common man, she says he has passed a tax cut for the middle and lower class.

I respond by offering her the following facts. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the poorest 20 percent of workers, who earn on average $16,600 annually, will get a tax break of $250 this year, which is less than two percent of their income. That amounts to about 68 cents a day. By comparison, the richest one percent, with average incomes topping $1.1 million, will receive $78,460 in tax cuts this year. That is nearly seven percent of their income. Kerry, in contrast, has promised to roll back tax cuts for families making $200,000 and spend the savings on healthcare and education.

Ursula also commends Bush for taking care of the military. I counter by pointing out that Bush's 2005 budget calls for cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs staff that handles benefits claims. The VA receives 60,000-70,000 claims a day from soldiers who've experienced physical injuries and mental problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan.