my own brother voted for bush!

sigh.

he's a medicated bipolar schizophrenic with delusions. he wasn't medicated at the time of the election, but he's standing by his decision.

granted, given his illness, there might not be too many lessons to be learned, but i think maybe we can learn a few things.

in particular, i started countering some of his reasons for voting republican, like the old 'self-reliance' thing (oh, bush got rich off the city of arlington, etc.)

he basically acknowledged that he always loses arguments and that his reasons must be wrong because he always gets tromped in any debate. yet he votes republican because he likes the message they put forth. the fact that they lie or that they don't live up to their rhetoric only vaguely bothers him, but nowhere near enough to change his vote.

he also pointed out that once, he met a tom delay staffer online who eventurally gave him one of delay's awards for business leadership or some such, so he felt he 'owed' republicans the vote. of course, thinking of my insane brother as a business leader (he's still dependent on my parents for money, at the age of 38) is a joke, but, well, there it is.


long story short, i don't think debate will cut it with swing voters. we have to hone our emotional message and drive it home. we need a vision. even if we don't always live up to it....

I have a brother who is a Republican ... the whole family is concerned. We'll all Americans at least!

regardless. There is nothing that will get him vote against the GOP.

I don't even try to get him to change his vote. What I like to do is to use the GOP arguments against him just to aggrevate him.

Example -

I make it out the following as the GOP's position -

USA went into Iraq for the oil. The Shrub sent 350,000 people to murder a man and his family because they had the oil and Haliburton wanted it. (The Shrub made an offer Iraq could not refuse. A la "The Godfather")

The oil now belongs to Haliburton and the USA will not give it back! (Only liberals whiners use the childish drivel about the oil belonging to the people of Iraq.) The oil belongs to Haliburton and NOT the people of Iraq _because_ over 400 USA people died to steal it. The people of Iraq can have the oil fields back after the USA drains them.

The swing voters may actually be affected (hopefully by being repulsed by it) by this argument.

I always get thrown back at me...We were in kuwait in 91 and now and they have a lot of oil also. We didnt stay and take it. So that as an issue that is null.

is more widespread then we believe. Could it be the source of why people vote against their best interest?

www.moveon.org. I've heard that it has made converts of long time repugs. Don't let up-we need to fight for every "heart and mind".

I have a brother in Georgia who is semi religous and an avid conservaturd. He says he will never vote for a Democrat because they are in favor of abortions. No matter what I say it always comes down to that one point.

Make him vote Dem....By any means necessary.

As they say in the advertising business, "You need to sell the sizzle, not the steak." Advertisers know that buyers buy what they want, not what they need. Many Americans are like your brother. They don't want to be bothered with the facts. They vote with their emotions.