A GOP candidate comes acallin' ...

This lovely Pacific NW afternoon I was enjoying a few moments to tidy up my front yard.  Actually, I was wiping slime off the side of my pond insert with my bare hands when I look up to see a handsome young fellow walking up my driveway with a clipboard.  "I'm running for your State Rep on the GOP ticket," he says, "and I hope I've got your vote."

Oh my dear boy, did you ever just walk up the wrong driveway.

I try to treat everyone respectfully, so I apologized for not shaking his hand, let him give me a little bit more of his spiel, and then I told him point blank that although he seemed like a nice person and I wished him well, I was never going to vote republican in my lifetime.

He said, and I quote, "I'm getting a lot of that today."  

"Is it about the national situation?" he asked.  I said yes, mostly.  I said I was scared about the direction the country was going in, and this NSA thing being merely the most recent in a long string of unforgiveable deeds.  He quickly said that what this country really needs is someone in the middle, maybe an Independent, someone who can speak to middle American without any of the polarization we've had lately.  I said that would be great, but until that day comes, you have to pick your party.  

He assured me that there are a lot of people trying to fix the GOP from within.  Well, I ceded on that on point and told him that I guessed that was reassuring.  But then I pointed out that tomorrow's Mother's Day.  And that I have 3  kids who each owe $30,000 on the national debt, whose chances of getting a good education are slipping away, whose chances of getting into a college that we can afford are worse then when I was their age, whose job prospects otherwise are so dismal I don't even want to go there, and that frankly I have no confidence right now that 25 years from now they are going to be living in a better, let alone habitable world.  

He ended up just thanking me for being so knowledgeable (thanks go almost entirely to dKos).  "Even if you're not on my side, it's great to meet someone so engaged."  Then he paused and added, "Happy Mother's Day."  And he meant it.  He was a nice person and we seemed to agree on a lot of basics.  As he walked back down my driveway, I was wondering if he really believes he can change the GOP from within or whether that's their talking point this year.  And if he was actually being sincere, then why are we political enemies?