My Hard-Core Republican Housemate
My husband and I were foolish enough to let a friend stay with us after she got out of the hospital following a stroke until she "got back on her feet". Well, that was almost two years ago, and she's still here. However, we've managed to rub off on her. All three of us early voted on Sunday. Last night, as we gave out candy, she admitted that she had voted for Obama. Now, this woman is a hard-core, Indiana-by-way-of-Mississippi Republican. However, she hated all of the Repub candidates this time - especially Newt and Mitt. I would joke with her that it was going to come down to voting for the Mormon or the black guy. Well, she just couldn't stomach the Mormon's flip-flopping. Plus, the "47%" comment hit home with her, since she's now on disability. She IS one of the people depending on the government. So, she voted for the black guy. I'm sure that she'll probably be disowned or something by her Mississippi relatives. But, at least we managed to get through to her!
= new reply since forum marked as read
And you must be a special person to have a house guest for so long.
I hope she knows how lucky she is and appreciates you and hubby 
She'd grown up surrounded by tea party types, and she finally had escaped from them. Still she had a lot of ideas about Democrats to re-learn. So I didn't push her to register for the first time. 
But my son got her to register. And then he had her take an online test about political beliefs. To her surprise (but not to my son's), she was 68% in accordance with Obama, more than 80% percent with Democrats in general -- and matched only 1% of the views of Romney (though I have no idea what views they meant -- how to choose?)
heart and functioning brain!
In this 2008 article, published about 3 weeks before the election, the author, now a Seattle resident, describes phone conversations with his "somewhat racist relatives" regarding voting for an African American candidate for president.
"I just don't think the races should mix."
It might not sound like it, but that's progress. Twenty-six years ago—back when Tom Bradley lost the California gubernatorial race—people like my aunt wouldn't have copped to voting for a black man for anything.
Since then, Virginia has elected the nation's first black governor: Douglas Wilder in 1990. And the city of Suffolk, home of "Williamstown," elected its first black mayor, Curtis Milteer. In 2002, Milteer jumped into national headlines by declaring April to be Confederate History Month. His successors, all white, have refused to declare a Confederate History Month. ("Buncha wusses," another aunt said. "Scared of their own heritage and history."
The racism abides, but is in its autumn—slowly changing colors and fading away. That aunt who'd want Colin Powell for a president but not an in-law? She raised a few eyebrows in her day by marrying an Italian Catholic from Massachusetts. While we talked on the telephone, she told me her daughter is raising a few eyebrows by dating a nice Jewish boy.
Interviews with My Somewhat Racist Relatives
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Bradley Effect
by Brendan Kiley
October 14, 2008
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=697772
