LESSONS FROM A BRIEF FORAY INTO A REPUBLICAN CIRCLE

Just returned from a festive gathering of relatives from Florida, Alabama and Washington state. Everyone is for Bush, with the exception of my rock musician nephew from Seattle (you'd know his band if you're between 30 and 50 -- a couple each of gold and platinum albums, at least one MTV award that I can remember, and they still record and tour), who thinks both presidential candidates are crap, but that Kerry wins his vote on the issues. But his wife is a Bushie. (My son and daughter-in-law, also Florida residents, are voting for Kerry, but they don't count here -- my daughter-in-law is from upstate New York, her mother loves her Senator Hillary, and my son was raised by us...they're both in college and see the dangers to themselves in rising tuition costs, reduction in Pell Grant funding, and general loss of safety net programs so important to young struggling families trying to better themselves.)

I tried to get into the heads of all those Bushies without causing a family ruckus.

(1) There is a GREAT DIVIDE. George Bush is a hero for protecting us from further terrorist attacks. He's decisive, doesn't put up with any guff from anybody. Kerry is a wimpy war protestor, he brought the current controversy about his service upon himself and is fair game. His Vietnam War-era protests invalidate his military service record even if it was what he says it was, which it probably wasn't since wimp war protestors couldn't possibly also be heroic on the battlefield. He probably paid off his Swift Boat-mates with his wife's billions.

(2) Nothing is George Bush's fault. EVEN MY TWO NEPHEWS WHO ARE RECENTLY BACK FROM IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN support him without reservation. The lousy things that were done to them (one --aged 38 -- was recalled even though his Guard recall duty period was up) are the fault of Congress, not Bush, in their minds. The other nephew, a career Air Force MSGT in intelligence, retired upon his homecoming and now hopes to get a job as a military contractor. He actually said to me, "A lot of people blame Bush for the things that have gone wrong, but they don't realize that it's actually Congress that passes the law enabling expansion of troop numbers, appropriations for supplies, etc. If anyone is to blame, it's Congress."

(3) Their pastors believe Bush has been anointed by God to lead the USA during these troubling times, to restore a Christian perspective to government. Therefore, they believe the same thing.

(4) This is just like the heady days of Vietnam, it's "America, love it or leave it," or in this case, "Love Bush or leave America."

These people (also MY people) are Bush's base. Obviously, there's no point in spending time or money trying to persuade them differently. He's invulnerable as far as they're concerned. Boy is Bush smart to refute the idea that he's ever made a mistake -- they love him for it! The co-opting of fundamentalist churchgoers has been a brilliant strategy. My family voted solidly Democratic for my entire life until anti-abortion/gay rights screeds became a focus of Republican rhetoric during the time of Ronald Reagan.

But one lesson I took away from this time is that John Kerry MUST strike back, and strike hard, against attacks on his service. I've been almost completely out of touch with the news for the past week, but I gather from what little I've been able to glean around Olympics coverage, which I DID see, that he has begun to do just that. It's way past time to start focusing again on George Bush's military non-service. The press is having a heyday on this Swift Boat Veterans thing -- they're the ones keeping it alive (who else? it's not exactly a groundswell of common-man hysteria since the ads only ran initially in three states and didn't have much of an impact there until the press jumped on the issue). Feed them the juicy details of Bush's service records (since they're too lazy to do their own work). Put our surrogates on every TV program willing to accept them (and only the best and most articulate surrogates, ones with impeccable military service records, people like JOHN HURLEY of Veterans for Kerry).

It's not for the confirmed Bushies I suggest this, but for those swing voters who might be influenced by them...