Michael Tams is a great guy and has a great blog. Go check it out!
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Illinois Straw Poll and the Paulaholics
So I went to the State Fair on Thursday - took a valuable personal day to make my first trip to Springfield. The Fair itself was an experience, and something I will do again. To my great shame, again I acknowledge this was my first trip to Springfield, and I'll be sure to soon visit again and check out some fun things I'd like to do there. Like this, for example. Who's with me??
At the straw poll, I had a couple of encounters with the young people I've taken to calling the Paulaholics. Ron's kids, in other words. His literature claims that he's had 4,000 babies (or maybe he just delivered them?). Anyway, although Mom always said if you don't have anything nice to say...
I've never seen a more unwashed and angry group of people in my life. Honest to God, I had to keep reminding myself that these weren't liberals. It appears that Paul draws heavy support from the "legalize marijuana" wing of the Libertarian Party; some of the older folks at the fair remarked that it felt "like the 60s" all over again. I saw more long hair, beards, Birkenstocks, tattoos and piercings than I have seen in a long time. And they regularly were shouting to drown out other speakers. At one point - I am not making this up - organizers at the fair had to ask Paul's supporters to move away from the stage where IL GOP officials were making speeches: they were holding up signs to get on camera and they were the only ones so etiquette-inept to fail to realize that this was in poor taste. I attended my last heavy-metal concert with my younger brother in 2000, and the Paulaholics could have learned some manners from your average concert-goer. It was that bad.
And then it got worse. I talked a little bit to one Paulaholic and posed an interesting question to him. Suppose Romney got the nomination, I inquired, would you support him? No, came the answer. Why not, I asked. Because that's a vote that would send me to hell, came the reply. This person then informed me of the fact that Mormonism is a false religion, and when I mentioned that I wasn't Mormon but Catholic, tried to engage me in a debate about "faith" vs. "faith and works." As politely as I could, I told him that we could sit there all day and quote Scripture to each other, but it wasn't going to make a difference in anything other than what time we went to bed.
It's easy to get swept up in something you're passionate about, I get that. But the general rabidity that came from the Paul campaign was unlike anything I witnessed from the Guiliani, Thompson or Romney people.
Oh, and one of the Paulaholics - he wasn't a day over 18 - told me that Paul is for the Constitution. By sheer force of will alone I resisted the urge to ask if he had plans for it other than to roll it up and smoke it.
