"He done lost my vote"

Tuesdays are the first day of my work week. One of the things I like to do on Tuesdays, before my shift starts, is connect with some of my co-workers and discuss politics. My workplace is interesting because it's in the middle of what was once practically a hippy commune or something, and the current residents are all pretty hard on the left, which makes for great conversation. I'd actually been out for four days straight, so there was a lot of catching up to do about the state of politics.

Well, we're having a three-way discussion between myself, our union rep, and one of the other workers in the facility about Romney's latest brain-bleedingly dumb fuckup. And out of nowhere, a fourth voice pops in.

"I was watching The View this morning..." it said. We all turned to look. The newcomer - let's call him Big K, because he is - is probably the least political person I know. he trends Republican from my understanding, but has never talked politics.

He's also a navy vet who looks rather like Bluto from "Popeye." So when he starts off saying "I was watching The View," you just know something interesting is going to follow.

"I was watching," he continued, "and they had that video of, I dunno, Romney or something, saying about how he doesn't care about 'those people,' or something. Now don't get me wrong, I pay income taxes and all that. But that just isn't right. He thinks people don't deserve food? What the fuck. And then, then what was this bullshit, 'I'd have an easier time if I were Mexican,' he said?"

One of the ladies we started with laughed and commented on that, repeating what her husband - a Mexican national - said on the subject. Not speaking Spanish, I didn't exactly follow, but I don't need to be fluent to understand 'pendejo.' "That was just so unbelievably stupid," she says.

Big K nodded and kept up, "Anyway, I don't like Obama a lot. But I guess i'm going to vote for the guy 'cause that... Man, I dunno. he's saying it ain't his job to worry about us?" - that's coming from the one guy in the room that Romney wasn't speaking of.

"He done lost my vote, man."

And... well, that was it. I've worked with this guy for five years now, and the most political thing I've ever heard him say until now was "Palin has great legs." And in front of three of the four out-and-proud socialists in the facility, he gives us this statement, with about as much vigor as he can pull off.

if Big K, perhaps a possible poster child for the "uninformed / undecided" voter, has thrown in for Obama (or at least, decided against Romney) over this tape... then no doubt many others have as well. I'd think lots of others. This is a crystallizing moment for the election where people who may have gone to the polls still going "Eeeeeehn, I'm not sure" will instead be very certain of where htey stand.

And it looks like they're going to stand with Barack Obama, the 47% of Americans that might need a hand, and the 99% that in truth, Mitt Romney has abdicated all responsibility towards.