RNC - Final Night

I caught only bits and pieces of President Bush's speech. I was working at the hotel and was pretty busy, so I was only able to catch a few minutes every now and then.

Anyways, we have a senior's group in our hotel right now, and all of them are from the southern states. Coincidentally, they walked in right after the president finished their speech and asked me right away what I thought about their president. I quickly said that I thought he was a decent, although definitely not perfect man. An old, bitter lady from Florida corrected me right away and told me he was actually a "decent idiot".

I said "really?, he seems like a good man to me", she replied "No, he's a bad man and an idiot."

She then went on this huge, unsubstantiated rant about how he bought his education and how his father made him governor.

Her husband disagreed with her, but was too afraid to say so. "No, I don't thi...", and then he was talked over by his wife. They were more concerned about their home on the Eastern coast of Florida than they were about politics.

Then I talked to this extraordinarily nice lady from West Virginia. She asked me the same question, I said "Sure I do, he seems like a good man." She agreed. She said that she wasn't enthusiastic about another Bush term, however, she conceded helplessly that no President could be perfect and that the alternative wasn't all that appealing either.

She waited for some of her friends to leave, and then told me that she was voting for Bush.

American guests and particularly American seniors are almost always more courteous and less whiney than their Canadian counterparts. And American seniors who grew up in the south where there was legislated segregation just decades ago, while they themselves were teenagers and young adults seem to be the kindest of them all.