Grace Babakhanian is an OffTheBus grassroots correspondent. Each week she contributes a campaign journal documenting her life out on the trail.
With little time to pound the pavements this week, I'm still trying to find a McCain supporter in Manhattan. I no longer confine my search to just the upper West Side.
"Why are you so obsessed?" my husband wants to know. "Just accept it. New York is Democratic territory."
Yes, I know we're a blue state, but I guess what I'm hoping for is some civilized discussion about what each constituency likes about its candidate -- something along the lines of Bill Moyers' often provocative, and stimulating, interviews with conservatives. I think we're all fed up with the shouting matches that so many of our so called news analysis programs morph into. I even remember fondly those years when William F. Buckley had guests like Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal on his television program, and how they engaged in a battle of wits, not sound bites.
Which reminds me of Buckley's son Christopher who recently had to resign from the National Review, the publication his father founded, because he came out in support of Obama. Maybe it's because so many Republicans have now defected - folks like: former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell - that it is so hard to find enthusiastic Republican voters. The core constituency is definitely being diluted.
So yes, I'm still looking for registered Republicans -- on bank lines, at checkout counters and on buses - with no success. But then, a few days into the week, someone in my building enters the elevator wearing a McCain button, the first campaign button I've seen anywhere. This is a handsome elderly man, always formally dressed, who is usually accompanied by his frisky terrier. The dog is absent on this occasion. We nod at each other politely as actual conversation, beyond the weather and sports, is not encouraged in New York apartment buildings, for fear that entanglements will follow. Still, I can't resist commenting on his button.
"I see you're for McCain. Do you mind if I ask if you're a registered Republican.?"
"Why do you want to know?" he asks suspiciously.
I tell him that I'm keeping a journal for HuffingtonPost.
"You mean the outfit run by that Adrienne Huffington?"
"Arianna, yes."
"They're a gang of liberals, aren't they?
I try to explain that all shades of opinion are expressed in this online newspaper. Then, flashing him my most friendly smile, I ask what he most likes about McCain.
"He is an American hero and he won't bring the troops home until we've won the war. That other fellow is ready to concede defeat."
What about the economic crisis? Has he been affected by it, I ask.
"It's because of all those greedy people who think they can buy a house with no down payment. Why should the rest of us pay for them?"
By now we have reached his floor and he shows no signs of wanting to continue our conversation which, by the way, is the longest one I've ever had with anyone in the building, other than my immediate neighbors. I thank him for his comments which I tell him will go into my blog. He doesn't seem at all curious about where that will appear.
Emboldened by my discovery of a real Republican -- and on my own premises, no less -- I ride the bus the next afternoon on the lookout for more subjects. A woman about my age, seated on a single seat across the aisle, catches my attention when she offers her seat to a young man on crutches. She is pleasant looking, and her grey hair is tied in a pony tail. She joins me in my double seat, and we fall into conversation. I broach the subject of the elections and, as in a sitcom, we begin to feed each other lines:
"Been going on too long."
"Spending way too much money."
"What do you think of that woman calling Obama a socialist?"
"Absurd. They're getting desperate."
"Think it's all becoming too negative?"
"Sure," she says, "but this close to the election, they always go negative."
Of course, she's voting for Obama. Are there any of her acquaintances who are supporting McCain? "No. Everyone in my part of Chelsea is solidly Democratic." It turns out that she lives in a converted brownstone on the same street that I lived on about half a century ago. "The rent is low," she tells me, "only $600 a month for a one bedroom. But the building is falling apart and they never repair anything."
"For that rent," I say, "I'd be willing to do all the repairs myself."
She's so agreeable that I wish she wasn't getting off in another three blocks. But the traffic is backed up, and I have time to ask if she's retired.
"Semi-retired," she responds.
"From what?"
"I'm a rabbi," she says, chuckling at my reaction. I confess to being an agnostic and, as she gets ready to leave the bus, she gives me a gleaming smile.
"It's okay," she reassures me. "I'm open-minded."
While I am unable to find another McCain voter, the next day I overhear two kids outside the local public school arguing about the elections. They look to be about ten or eleven.
"Obama wants to turn this country into another Soviet Union," one of them shouts.
"And McCain wants to give tax breaks to the rich," his friend retorts.
In this city, you can always depend on running into the unexpected.
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