There was a gathering of the field engineers at the office yesterday. I love working with The Lads (and occasionally, Lasses), because they're where the rubber meets the road - they're the ones who have to make things work, and who take the heat from the customer when it doesn't. There's no better way for someone like me back in the Factory to get real faster than hanging with The Lads.
We had dinner and beers, talking business and wouldn't it be neat for a gratifying time. It was a good grounding for me, one I try to do as often as I can. Then it turned to politics.
None of them liked Obama and the Democrats. None. They're in their 30s (the oldest were early 40s), and I'm not sure if this is the typical get more conservative as you settle down and have a family or not. I don't think so.
You see, none of them liked the Republicans, or Mitt Romney. None.
There was a certain amount of sympathy to my idea that since the economy will continue lousy, let Obama keep the Presidency (and the blame) while the Republicans take Congress. There was the obligatory what about the Executive Orders along with the obligatory what Executive Orders, but none of them had any feeling that the Coke Party would be an improvement over the Pepsi Party, except around the edges.
This is GOP Marketing FAIL, to my mind. You have smart, rational (engineering school, hello), well paid (mostly) white males, and none of them like your Party. In Georgia, none of them like your Party. You know, I can see their point: I don't much like your party, either.
Oh yeah, there was the obligatory yeah we suck but we suck less than the other guy discussion, too. Good damn luck to the GOP. They'll need it. Especially in 2014 when the Democrats retake the Senate. Just in time to block President Romney's SCOTUS nominees. So will Romney double down with conservative nominees who support the Second Amendment, or will he - beaten down by two years of relentless media assaults and a lost mid-term election - "compromise" on the SCOTUS? I lived in Massachusetts while he was Governor, and I think I know how that one will play out.
I have talked with several friends of mine who vote Democrat about this. They all agree that if the GOP moved away from the far right on social issues (as they put it, the theocratic wing of the party), they would start voting Republican. Some are veterans, and all of them are shooters.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter who you vote for they are not the people who really run the country anyhow. The purpose of the President is to distract the people from noticing the man behind the curtain.
ReplyDeleteI'm finding that most of my friends in my age group are growing more libertarian as we age, even the hard core Republican or die conservatives are moving farther away from the GOP as they recognize blatant hypocrisy when they see it. Note small L libertarian as most of us recognize that we need some form of basic social safety net for those that truly cannot help themselves either due to injury or mental illness and like it or not we are the major player on the world stage and that an isolationist policy won't work.
ReplyDeleteBut, you're right no one in my peer group is happy with the GOP. Universally, we like representatives like Allen West, honest, smart, well informed, and blunt. Entrenched bureaucrats like our Senator John McCain, not so much.